“Save the Last Dance for Me” is yet another Latin-flavored classic of vocal group rock ‘n’ roll, an apt follow-up to last week’s “Little Darlin’.” It was a number one R&B and pop hit for the Drifters in 1960, and their all-time best-selling record.
I’ve written about the Drifters before, in my posts for “Money Honey,” from the original group with Clyde McPhatter, and “Under the Boardwalk,” which was similarly Latin-flavored and would be their final major hit before the Beatles and Motown changed the world.
“Save the Last Dance” is a lovely piece of writing with a wrenching back story. Doc Pomus, one of the all-time great rock ‘n’ roll songwriters, was crippled by polio as a child, and he came up with the idea on his wedding night. As his wife tells the story in a wonderful documentary (which is online for free and highly recommended), the reception was full of show-business people, with a great band, and everyone was dancing. Pomus could get around on crutches, though he mostly used a wheelchair, but there was no way he could get out on the dance floor. She was going to stay with him, but he urged her to go out and dance with his father, his brother, his friends. So she did, and later found the initial notes for this song written on the back of one of their leftover wedding invitations.
That was in 1957, which was his breakout year as a songwriter. He’d started out in the mid-1940s as a crippled Jewish blues shouter working Black clubs around New York and New Jersey. He made a bunch of records, wrote his own material, and eventually some publishers caught on to the quality of the songs. He became a regular writer for the new Atlantic Records label and got his first major hit in 1956, when Ray Charles’s record of “Lonely Avenue” made the R&B top ten. The next year, the Coasters took “Young Blood” to the pop top 10, and for the next few years he made a nice living, bought a house on long island, had two children, and things were good.
Rock ‘n’ roll had become the music of teenage America, and Pomus teamed up with a young songwriter named Mort Shuman to get a more youthful touch. I’ve posted about “Teenager In Love,” their breakthrough hit for Dion and the Belmonts, and they went on to write hits for lots of other artists, including a bunch for the Drifters and some of the best later Elvis records (“Little Sister,” “Suspicion,” “Viva Las Vegas,” and lots more).
By the mid-1960s, times were changing. The hits dried up, Shuman moved to Europe, Pomus got divorced. He was living in a cluttered apartment, running a poker game in his living room, trying to make ends meet and take care of his kids. There were some bleak years, but eventually he got a second act (or third, or fourth — it was quite a life). His classic songs started getting major play as oldies, turning up in movies, getting covered by new artists, and he also began writing with some new partners, including a long association with Dr. John, and mentoring young artists, including Bette Midler. (He played a major role in her early career, but things ended badly and the documentary doesn’t mention her.)
There’s plenty more; the documentary is an excellent place to start, and there’s also a good biography, aptly titled Lonely Avenue. He was a fascinating character, and I can’t sing “Save the Last Dance” without thinking about him sitting on the sidelines, watching all the happy dancers.