Today, Marvel released their latest installment Captain America: Brave New World, featuring a prominent needle drop of The Fleetwoods’ 1959 hit “Mr. Blue.” In honor of its inclusion, an expanded edition of The Fleetwoods’ debut album, also called Mr. Blue, has just been released.
The expanded edition features six tracks previously unavailable on streaming: “The Three Caballeros,” “Raindrops, Teardrops,” “Oh Lord Let It Be,” “Serenade of the Bells,” “Come Go With Me,” and “I Care So Much.” In addition, fans can also hear three rare original stereo mixes: “Confidential” “Come Go With Me,” and their other number one hit of 1959, “Come Softly to Me.”
The Fleetwoods wrote “Come Softly To Me” themselves, but “Mr. Blue” came from American songwriter Dewayne Blackwell, who later co-wrote Garth Brooks 1990 hit “Friends In Low Places.” “Mr. Blue” spent one week atop the Billboard Hot 100, while “Come Softly To Me” spent four.
“Mr. Blue” is a song of quiet yearning: “Our guardian star, lost all his glow, the day that I lost you / He lost all his glitter the day you said no, and his silver turned to blue / Like him, I am doubtful that your love is true / But if you decide to call on me, ask for Mr. Blue.”
The group’s origin story has classic Americana charm: Gary Troxel, Barbara Ellis, and Gretchen Christopher met as high school students in Olympia, Washington, where they began performing as the vocal group ‘Two Girls and a Guy.’ They soon changed their name to The Fleetwoods, after the local Fleetwood telephone exchange. Though successful, the group were only active for about five years, thanks to lead singer Troxel being called into active duty in the Navy in 1964. Over the course of their short career, the group managed to score an impressive total of eleven hits on the Hot 100.
Listen to the expanded edition of The Fleetwoods’ Mr. Blue now.
