“Red, Green, Yellow and Blue” (1968) – Dickey Lee * Written by Dickey Lee * 45: “Red, Green, Yellow and Blue” / “Run Right Back” * String Arrangements by Charles Chalmers * Produced by Rivertown Productions * Label: Atco * Billboard: #107
Dickey Lee made out well during the early ’60s death rock craze. In the ’62 hit single “Patches,” one girlfriend ends up dead in the ditch, while in the following year’s “Laurie,” another one has passed on long before Dickey even meets her (it’s a musical version of the sweater-on-a-gravestone urban legend). By 1968 he was still dabbling in tragedy. “Red, Green, Yellow and Blue,” which just missed Billboard‘s Hot 100, captures a presumably Brylcreemed and becardiganed Dickey leaping frantically around town over the news that his girlfriend’s gone to San Francisco, land of colorful pills. “You’re halfway up your rainbow, girl, by now,” he yelps, while Charles Chalmers’ orchestration gives it all the moody atmosphere those earlier records only yearned for. (The record captures Chalmers’s string arranging career at an early stage. He’d go on to do arrangements with James Mitchell for all of Al Green’s albums from 1969 to 1973 and much more.)