Little Eva “The Trouble With Boys” (Dimension 1013-B, 1963)

She got sadly pigeon-holed by a runaway freight train of a #1 hit. Despite the fact that she got pegged like Dee Dee Sharp as a dance ditty queen worthy of increasingly ridiculous dance records, Eva Narcissus Boyd tallied up a long career of singles throughout the 1960’s that explored the reach and depth on her artistry. Today we follow one of those detours on what would have been her 72nd Birthday.

She actually jumped off the choo-choo train of dance hits quicker than her contemporary Sharp, racking up a Top 20 hit with “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby.” However, that paled in comparison to the 3 Top Ten Dance Craze hits that Dee Dee Sharp reeled off in the same time frame. So Little Eva was sent back to the dance floor, with ever diminishing results.

Had they stuck with the original formula of giving her less frivolous material, or highlighting that material that already existed, perhaps her commercial sparkle wouldn’t have dwindled as quickly as it did. This lovely piece of see saw between defiance and doormat laid hidden on the B-side of a late ’63 single. Sounding all the much like a solid hit that never was, it’s one of the finer gems of Little Eva’s time at Dimension Records.