Composer made Linda McCartney famous many years before she met Paul

March 18, 9:06 AMBeatles ExaminerSteve Marinucci

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  The sheet music for "Linda," written for Linda Eastman
   McCartney. That's Linda in both pictures on that cover.
   The YouTube video is the Jan & Dean version
   with some rare studio chatter.

Jack Lawrence wrote songs for Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Bobby Darin and the Ink Spots, but one song he wrote should be of interest to Beatle fans.

Lawrence, who died Saturday in Redding, Conn.,was the composer of "Linda," a song he wrote in 1946 for then five-year-old Linda Eastman, later photographer Linda Eastman, and still later, Linda McCartney, wife of Paul McCartney. The most familiar version of it was done by Jan and Dean.

As Lawrence explained on his website, 

"My attorney at the time was also a close friend whom I visited often and got to watch his children growing up. One day he said to me: "Jack, do me a big favor. You know my wife Louise has a name song — that one popularized by Chevalier, and my daughter Laura is proud of that beautiful Mercer-Raskin song, and my son Johnny has lots of name songs he can claim. But my daughter Linda feels left out. How about writing a song especially for her?"

"Being a good friend, I obliged and wrote a song for five-year-old Linda. When I made the rounds of publishers I met with frustration. Most of them like everything about the song but the name Linda. "Why Linda?" they would ask. "That's not a popular name". One guy said: "Call it Ida — after my mother-in-law and I'll publish it". I had to remind him there already was an "Ida — Sweet as Apple Cider!" Another maven suggested the name Mandy. He felt that had a more musical ring than Linda.

"I reminded him that Irving Berlin had thought so too, years ago he had written: "Mandy, There's A Minister Handy", etc.

"Would you believe that nothing happened with my "Linda" song until I was out of the service in 1946? My attorney friend called to tell me that one of his clients, Charlie Barnett was starting a company and in return for publishing rights, agreed to record "Linda." Okay, I said. And then a weird thing happened. Somehow, Ray Noble got an advance copy of the song, fell in love with it, dreamed up a charming arrangement and recorded it with Buddy Clark singing the vocal. After all those years of going nowhere, "Linda" was an overnight sensation. I can't recall how many weeks it was number one on the Hit Parade."

 As Lawrence concluded in his story about the song:

"Little five year old Linda Eastman, for whom I wrote the song, grew up to be the lovely, talented lady who married Paul McCartney of the Beatles and went with him on all his gigs while raising their family. See what a song can do!"

The Washington Post notes some of his other well-known songs included "All or Nothing at All," "Tenderly," and "Beyond the Sea."

 (Thanks to Al Sussman and Patti Murawski.)