Johnny Moore:
Atlantic went a different route, with The Young Rascals and Aretha Franklin and people like that. We still being the top pop artists, they bypassed us, went to a more soulful thing. They more or less dropped us, I guess. I feel kinda bad about that, because I got a special feeling for Atlantic, you know, cos they were the formative years: I did my first recording for them in 1955. But Bell came along just in the nick of time to save our careers.
I think Roger [Greenaway] was a Drifters fan. He wrote things for us, and he was spot on. It was a hands-on thing. They were like sequels to the songs we did back in the 60s. I think he thought we'll go back and re-do Drifters titles with a different beat, whatever, let's keep it The Drifters thing.
Roger was the man who was close to us. Sometimes we'd be on the road touring, and Roger would make a tape, send it to the hotel where we were staying. I would learn the lead, he would drive me down to the studio, record it and go back to the venue. All in one day. No more than three, four takes.

Mike Moran:
I did all those Drifters records and never saw them.

Chris Spedding:
I remember that the things I did with The Drifters - which I later recognized because they became big hits - it was just Roger Greenaway in the studio. I know there weren't any Drifters there, because there were no black people in the studio.

Tony Burrows:
I was a Drifter. Roger Greenaway only used to let Johnny Moore sing on the records - the others took too long in the studio, so I used to sing on them.

Chris Spedding:
I know some of those sessions from The Drifters ended up being Fortunes records.

Mike Moran:
Guys like Cook and Greenaway wrote about a million songs a week. They'd say, 'Oh it's a song for The Drifters,' and they might cut the track and think, 'It's a bit bloody good for The Drifters, maybe it'll do for ...' You could often do a song which you thought was for somebody and it'd turn up being recorded by somebody else.

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these words were brought to you by
Tony Burrows
Johnny Moore
Mike Moran
Chris Spedding

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