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TOP 1500 CHOICE TRACKS

#283 SPANISH HARLEM Ben E. King
"Spanish Harlem" is a song about a district of New York. The hit was written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector and originally intended for The Drifters to record. In the meantime, Ben E. King quit the vocal group and so the song ended up his 1st solo success when dropped in 1960.
Leiber co-produced the recording with his regular collaborator Mike Stoller. The high production standards of The Drifters' recordings are still present. Leiber & Stoller added gorgeous Latin elements. King's vocals are beautiful and perfectly match the ebb and flow in the musical structure of this soul music staple.
The single peaked at #10 in America. It proved to be a bigger hit when Aretha Franklin recorded her remake in 1971; spending 3 weeks at #1 on the US R&B chart and reaching at #2 Pop. A rare demo of Spector singing "Spanish Harlem" was included on 'Wall of Sound Retrospective' which was issued in 2008.

This is a list made up of the songs I enjoy the most, ranked in order of preference: the higher we go, the more I cherish them. Some were released as singles, others as album tracks. Some are obscure; others were worldwide hits or have universal appeal. They aren't always the most famous or popular, but simply a personal choice. I have excluded songs from the last few years in order to get a better idea of a song's lasting impression. I hope you find some new tracks to love, or re-discover some past favourites.
2 new instalments are added each day (every 12 hours) with 1 of the remaining 300 songs as well as moving down from #1201 to 1500, with 5 of those songs added daily.