"Gloria" is an interesting story. The song was written by Leon Rene, a New Orleans Creole songwriter who, with and without his brother Otis, wrote such songs as Louis Armstrong's theme, "When It's Sleepytime Down South," "I Sold My Heart To The Junkman" and "When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano." In 1945, Leon formed Exclusive Records and had tremendous success with "The Honeydripper" by Joe Liggins.

That year, "Gloria" was recorded on Exclusive by the Buddy Baker Sextet, vocal by former Duke Ellington vocalist Herb Jeffries. Baker was a Los Angeles arranger among whose clients was Stan Kenton. The tune was covered on Signature by Ray Anthony and also recorded by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, vocal by Charles Brown in 1946, also on Exclusive.

In 1948, it was revived by the Mills Brothers on Decca. After this, the song remained dormant, until the Cadillacs, who remembered only bits and pieces of the words and melody from one of the earlier recordings, recorded a bastardized version of the song on Josie. On the first pressing, there is no writer credited, indicating that there was some suspicion as to the writer's true identity, but hope that the changes to the original song might be enough to disguise it. In other words, everybody hoped they might get away with what is clearly plagiarism.

The Cadillacs record made no noise outside of New York, so it was a moot point and, on later pressings, the name of the group's manager, Esther Navarro, now appears as "writer." Even on later recordings, incidentally all by New York groups like the Passions, Vito & the Salutations and others, Navarro's name is listed. None of these records made any impact outside of New York, so it is conceivable that Rene, who resided in Los Angeles, was unaware of their existence, explaining why there was no law suit.

Rene may have gone to his grave not knowing of the Cadillacs-inspired recordings, not to mention the lost income, from his song. His aging wife handled their family-owned publishing company and his son, Googie, wasn't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, so Navarro's "authorship" has never been challenged, so far as I know.

Hope this helps,

Billy Vera

P.S. You might want to include something to the effect that the Cadillacs were just teenagers, unsophisticated in the legalities of copyright law and things like songwriting credits. This is why Esther Navarro, who, in the words of Earl Carroll, "didn't write shit," shows up as composer of so many of the songs which, again says Speedo, they "just made up" themselves. So it would be unfair to characterize them as actual plagiarists in the case of "Gloria." It undoubtedly never occurred to them that songs were "written" by anybody or that people were paid for it.

BV