Happy Anniversary: Betty Harris, “His Kiss”
53 years ago today, the world was introduced to a song which only just scraped the bottom of Billboard's Hot 100 but was destined to become a deep soul classic.
Betty Harris is not a name that's likely to ring a lot of bells outside of devotees of '60s R&B, but during the course of the 1960s, she delivered 15 singles that are still revered by her fans. If you've heard any of them, then you've most likely heard one of the three of that charted - “Cry to Me,” “His Kiss,” and “Nearer to You” - and the one from that trio that would almost certainly be the most familiar to your ears would be “Cry to Me,” a Bert Berns composition which Solomon Burke recorded two years before Harris did.
There's a great story on Berns' website about how Harris came to record “Cry to Me,” but rather than spoil it for you, you should go read it for yourself. In the meantime, suffice it to say that the end result led to Harris recording a number of songs for Jubilee Records at Bell Sound Studios in November 1963, including “His Kiss,” a co-write between Berns and Mike Stoller which was apparently produced by Berns himself. Stoller and Jerry Leiber were both handling production duties as well, so it's hard to say who did what, but the song, which was backed with “It's Dark Outside,” hit #89 on the Hot 100. It likely would've done even better on Billboard's R&B chart if the magazine hadn't opted to stop publishing one at the time. (Wisely, they decided to revive it a few months later.) “His Kiss” did, however, hit #15 on the Cashbox R&B Singles chart, so it's clear that Harris had a significant audience.
Unfortunately, that audience never managed to grow large enough for Harris to break out as a major player in the world of R&B. If she'd been able to secure a contract with Atlantic Records, perhaps she would have, but that never happened. She did, however, team up with Allen Toussaint a few years later to record some fantastic material for Sansu Records, but that's a story for another time. For now, let's just listen to “His Kiss” while shaking our heads and wondering why Betty Harris is a secret rather than the superstar she deserved to be.
