REPOST FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE:
Rosie Hamlin, the lead singer in the San Diego band Rosie and The Originals, died Thursday at the age of 71. She was a teenager when she wrote and sang lead on the Originals’ classic 1961 hit, “Angel Baby.” It was later covered by everyone from John Lennon, Linda Ronstadt and Jenni Rivera to Tiffany, System of a Down and San Diego’s Mrs. Magician.
No cause of death has been given for Hamlin, whose passing was disclosed by her daughter, Deborah, on the Rosie and The Originals website. It is not yet known where the veteran vocalist was at the time of her death.
“Very Saddened to say that my mom Rosalie Hamlin passed away,” her daughter wrote. “She was 71 and passed in her sleep. She didn't perform anymore, and had removed herself from the music scene because of health concerns. She did still paint and tended a very lovely garden. She will be greatly missed by so many. Thank you for all your wishes and time and kind words. It meant a lot to her. God bless.”
Hamlin had been battling fibromyalgia, a disorder that causes widespread muscular skeletal pain, since 2000. A 2004 post on her website offers a detailed account of her fight against fibromyalgia and gives thanks for the assistance she received. The post also references her position as a music teacher for young people at Barrio Station in Logan Heights, near downtown San Diego.
Former Beatle John Lennon was such a fan of Hamlin and of “Angel Baby” that he recorded the song for his 1975 oldies collection, “Rock ‘n’ Roll.” It did not appear on that album, but was added to the expanded 2004 reissue.
Lennon’s brassy take on “Angel Baby” first appeared on his posthumously released 1986 album, “Menlove Ave.” At the start of his version, he offered a dedication: “This here is one of my all-time favorite songs. Send my love to Rosie, wherever she may be.”
Hamlin and Lennon never met in person, as she lamented in a 2001 San Diego Union-Tribune interview.
“He was traveling, I was traveling,” she recalled. “I never got to be on a show with him or meet him. The closest I got to hearing anything from him was on the recording of ‘Angel Baby.’”
Rosalie “Rosie” Méndez Hamlin was born in Klamath Falls, Ore., on July 21, 1945. Her family moved to Alaska then to National City, just south of San Diego.
By the time she was 13 and a student at O’Farrell Junior High, Hamlin was sneaking out to sing with a local country-music band. She told the other members she was 16. While only paid in tips, Hamlin was delighted to be on stage. “I was just happy to sing,” she wrote on her website.
Hamlin was only 14 when she wrote “Angel Baby,” inspired equally by a teenage crush she had at the time and by “Earth Angel,” a heart-wrenching doo-wop hit by The Penguins.
She recorded the song in a converted airline hangar in San Marcos, not long after her uncle’s girlfriend introduced her to the musicians who became The Originals — bassist Tony Gomez and guitarists David Ponci and Noah Tafolla. Drummer Carl Von Goodat and saxophonist Alfred Barrett came on board a short while later.
“We were looking for somebody who might have a recording studio,” Hamlin told the Union-Tribune. “And in those days there really weren't any here in San Diego yet. I (thought) we were going to have to go to Los Angeles.”
However, making a recording and securing a record contract were two very different matters, as Hamlin recounted in the biography on her website.
“We had trouble landing a record deal,” she wrote. “We couldn’t even get an appointment with any of the labels. So we took one of our 45’s to Kresge’s Department Store in San Diego. They had listening booths in their music section where you could preview records before you bought them. We asked the manager to play our record and see if he could sell it in his store.”
A deal with Highland Records followed, although the label insisted that Ponci — as the oldest member of The Originals — receive sole writing credit. Released in 1960, the song rose to No. 5 on the national charts by early 1961. Hamlin would spend years battling to regain authorship credit and the music publishing royalties to her song.
The success of “Angel Baby” led to an “American Bandstand” TV appearance and concert tours with Chuck Berry, Little Richard and other stars. Despite the release of at least five other singles in 1961 and 1962, “Angel Baby” would be Hamlin’s sole hit. Several decades later, the song earned her a place of prominence in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “One-Hit Wonder” exhibit in Cleveland. Hamlin was elated.
“I was the first Latina to be in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio,” she wrote on her website, “for my song ‘Angel Baby.’”
After her lone hit, Hamlin went on to record an album with Originals’ guitarist Tafolla, to whom she was married for three years. She quit music in the 1960s to raise her son, Joey Tafolla, and daughter, Deborah Cray. A subsequent marriage produced her second son, John Sanders.
But she returned to singing in each subsequent decade, leading varying lineups of The Originals, until her health problems became too severe.
“I just can't stay away,” she told the Union-Tribune of her passion for music. “I love it.”
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