Talk:Wonderful Tonight

Female Vocals
Who provided the female vocals in Clapton's original? Stonemason89 (talk) 16:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Nino and the Ebb Tides
An IP editor left a comment in the article which I have now removed as it should have gone on the talk page.

The comment asks why Clapton is credited with writing the song when "Nino and the Ebb Tides recorded it in 1957".

Yes, Nino and the Ebb Tides is a group formed in 1956. Yes, they recorded a cover of the song. Yes, they disbanded in 1965. Yes, Clapton's recording was released in 1978.

However: EVERY source credits Clapton as the songwriter. Clapton says he wrote it. Patty Boyd says he wrote it. ASCAP says he wrote it. That should be enough to raise the question of when Nino and the Ebb Tides recorded their version. The only places I have found their version are compilation albums from the 1990s, it does not appear on anything I can find that they released in the 1950s or 60s. The group also reunited in the 1970s and 1980s as part of various rock revival shows.

So when was the Ebb Tides version recorded? I don't know. Discogs says 1995. Various clips from various people on youtube give 1957, 1999, 1995, 2013 and "This was recorded in the 1990s by a re-formed edition of the group, featuring Tony Imbimbo, Artie Russ (the Devotions), George Rivera (the Copas), and Willie Mendez (the Paramounts)." Nothing reliable in any of these sources.

The ONLY reliable source I could find was Allmusic's review of the compilation "Nino & The Ebb Tides ‎– Those Oldies But Goodies Anthology 1957-1965", released in 1999. While the inclusion of "Wonderful Tonight" would seem to imply it was in the 50s or 60s, the review says, the compilation "concludes with a recent recording of Eric Clapton's 'Wonderful Tonight' performed a cappella, proving that the group still has it." The album credits the song to "Eric Clapton / Michael Kamen". Kamen (born 1948, making him age 9 to 17 during the Ebb Tides first run) is a well known arranger and likely arranged the soft rock song for the doo-wop cover.

TL;DR version: It seems the Ebb Tides version is just a cover version, not a long-lost original. - Sum mer PhD v2.0 17:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I am at last in agreement with the correction of a note I had previously attached regarding the Ebb Tides version. The source of the controversy is a result of a recording being sold on Amazon saying "Formed in the Bronx, New York in 1956, classic doo-wop group Nino & The Ebb Tides are featured here with their vintage 1957 single “Wonderful Tonight” b/w “No One But You,” presented here in its original 45 RPM vinyl mix, newly remastered. This song was many years later a hit once more for Eric Clapton." It appears that "No One But You" may be a song from 1957 but the author of the comment is misleading the reader in regard to "Wonderful Tonight". I must assume the author was also a victim of misinformation from another source. The song certainly transformed into a very nice Doo Wop version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.39.136 (talk) 14:27, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I deleted the reference to Nino & the Ebb Tides again. I think an editor might need to lock this page. When a 45 record with a pre-1977 release date comes up we can review, but until then Clapton wrote it. Sorry, Clapton haters. Iwalters (talk)

Extraneous markup
Someone's been editing without clicking the "show preview" button, and once "publish changes", the "extraneous markup" becomes visible to everyone. I reverted once, but I guess I didn't explain my reverts enough, so I'm reverting again, and hopefully we can get consensus for a "clean" version of the change this user is trying to make.--2601:153:901:60C0:4030:5257:78E8:CB2E (talk) 04:29, 30 January 2020 (UTC)