Summertime, Summertime

"Summertime, Summertime" was the Jamies' first single and first major hit. The band was formed by Boston University student Tom Jameson and his sister Serena, who then recruited friends Jeannie Roy and Arthur Blair to join.[2] The band's first song was "Summertime, Summertime", which Tom had written. Serena recalled the writing process:[1]

I remember being upstairs while my grandmother lay resting on the couch downstairs. Tom was in the living room, where the piano was, as he composed "Summertime Summertime", until every word and every note was exactly as he wanted it. He was a perfectionist. I thought my grandmother had a lot of patience to listen to it over and over, but she never complained. I think she rather enjoyed it. When he was satisfied that he had written the words and music exactly as he wanted them to be, he asked Jeannie and me if we would sing it.

At Tom's insistence, the group practiced incessantly for weeks until he was satisfied that the band had perfected the arrangement. Roy explained: "Tom paid. He had a couple of copies made, and then he and Arthur took them around to several disc jockeys in the Boston area to see if they could interest the disc jockeys in playing them."[1]

The band has reflected positively on the song. Serena stated: "To think it’s lasted all these years is amazing. It’s really upbeat. It just grabs you. It’s still my favorite song."[3]

The song had gotten popular in the band's hometown of Boston, where local deejays began playing the song at record hops in the area.[2] One deejay then shepherded the song to Epic Records, which was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.

"Summertime, Summertime" was released as a single in July 1958. It was credited to Tom Jameson and manager Sherm Feller; though Feller did not contribute to the song's composition, it was common practice for managers of the time to receive writing credits and publishing rights.[4] The single was a commercial success, reaching number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. Though the band's follow-up, "Snow Train", did not chart, the band saw success again in 1962 with a re-release of "Summertime, Summertime", which reached number 38.[5]

The song saw positive press from music writers of the time; Billboard glowingly described the song as "an exciting blend of medieval polyphonic structure with the modern hormonal sound".[6] Since its release, the song has seen critical acclaim. Andrew Hamilton of AllMusic said of the song: "The Jamies' 'Summertime, Summertime' is one of those songs you only have to hear once for it to live rent-free in your mind forever. The bouncy doo wop novelty ... surely provided inspiration for later novelty groups like the Village People and Sha Na Na to perform songs in the same campy style."[5] Bruce Springsteen said of the song: "It always signaled the beginning of summer for me, in its baroque joy, and I always loved hearing it for the first time, each summer. It meant summer was on!"[7]

The song notably appeared in the 1978 movie Fingers, where Harvey Keitel's character remarks: "Do you believe this? This is the Jamies, man! 'Summertime, Summertime', the most musically inventive song of 1958!"[8] It has also appeared in advertisements for Applebee's and Buick.[5][4]

"Summertime, Summertime" was covered by the Fortunes shortly after the original's 1962 rerelease.[5] It has since been performed by the Doodletown Pipers, Hobby Horse, Jan & Dean, the Legendary Masked Surfers, and Sha Na Na.