I have a few of his old albums, even though his kind of pop isn't always totally up my alley. But I recognize his prodigious talents, playing multiple instruments, overdubbing his wide-ranging vocals into choruses, writing a bunch of great songs, producing records, and even recording with the early Rolling Stones. (Gene's British publicist was Andrew Loog Oldham, the Stones' manager, and Gene -- who was even a bigger star in the UK than he was in America -- played piano with them in the studio on a few tracks, plus the maracas on their cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away". The group refered to him as Uncle Gene, and Jagger and Richards gave him their composition "That Girl Belongs To Yesterday", which in Gene's recording became the pair's first US chart success as writers, even though it's far from being a great song.)
My nomination goes to one of Gene's compositions recorded by others, "He's A Rebel" by The Crystals (1962, actually Darlene Love recorded by Phil Spector under The Crystals' name, and Pitney's only US number one chart hit as a writer or performer, ironically holding his own recording of the Bacharach/David composition "Only Love Can Break A Heart" to the number two position).
