Largely a male-dominated industry since the invention of the phonograph, the music business has somewhat improved its gender ratio as of the time of this writing, but back in the 20th century the men ran rampant — owning, managing, producing, and deciding just about everything related to what reached your ears. Once in a blue moon, however, you might run across an exception.

The story begins in New York in the mid-1950’s with Zelma “Zell” Sanders. Approximately zero female music producers worked in the biz at the time so Zell was quite a novelty, and she had a novelty singing group to offer, as well — an all-female R&B group called The Hearts. Apparently, all the record labels thought this was far too nutty a concept to succeed (“Lemme get this straight. The whole band is dames?”) so they all turned her down. But fortunately she managed to persuade one tiny label to take a chance and subsequently scored a surprise hit.

The money Sanders made allowed her to start up her own record company so she no longer had to deal with any kind of macho gatekeeping. J&S Records generated enough minor success to keep the label going, and with the wave of girl groups hitting the charts in the early 1960’s, a record executive asked Sanders, who’d already had success in that area, to put together a new group for the purposes of recording a song.

A yet-to-be written song? A partially written or entirely finished song? Who knows.

Because who exactly wrote “Sally Go ‘Round The Roses,” and when, is…..murky. Both the record executive’s wife, Lona Stevens, and Zell Sanders are credited on the label. Maybe Stevens wrote it, the executive decided to get it recorded for her, and then Sanders helped finish it after she was brought into the picture. [Of course, just as it is today, it was also quite common at the time for label bosses and producers to take a songwriting credit in order to earn extra profit even if they didn’t contribute. Not that I’m impugning! I’m just pointing out it’s always been a thing.] Maybe Sanders actually started it and Stevens chipped in, or it was simply a 50-50 collaboration from the start. Of course, just to make it more complicated, one of the singers later claimed partial authorship, as well, and says she added a crucial line during the recording session. There aren’t even that many lines! Who knows.

Anyway, The Jaynetts were a manufactured group, assembled with a few session vocalists who often recorded for J&S, a singer who responded to an ad, and Zell’s own daughter (although she was never intended as a permanent member). But this quintet only comprised the credited members. Once in the studio, Artie Butler, who produced, arranged and played on the track (despite the label credit to the record executive as producer) and was basically the only male involved other than a couple of guitarists, added vocals from every singer who happened to wander into the studio during the week of recording.

Butler also added a layer of reverb every time he tracked another instrument or voice, which is why it sounds like the song was recorded at the other end of a very long, very large hallway. And because of the unusual sound, when presented with the finished product, the record executive who commissioned the recording hated it and wanted to scrap the whole thing — until he heard that rivals Lieber & Stoller had offered a large sum of money to purchase it. He quickly changed his mind.

Released as a single in the summer of 1963 on a J&S Records subsidiary, “Sally Go ‘Round The Roses” spun its way to #2 in the US — written by two (or three) women, sung by anywhere from 10 to 20 women, and distributed by a record label owned by a woman. Breaking barriers so that others might follow.

So sit and cry and not a soul will know … except for The Jaynetts.