Dick St. John born 2 December 1940

Dick St John (December 2, 1940* - December 27, 2003) was the male half of the duo, Dick and Dee Dee. 

Richard St John Gosting was born in Santa Monica, California and he was singing and writing songs in high school. He was impressed with another student, Mary Sperling; they worked out their harmonies and wrote songs together, notably "I Want Someone", which became the B-side to "The Mountain's High". 

They recorded a demonstration record of "The Mountain's High" for $15, but Rona Records would only accept it if it was reworked as a cha-cha. Undeterred, St John (who dropped his surname) went to Lama Records and they recorded it with production by the Wilder brothers. St John took the melody and Sperling added some bizarre harmonies, with St John overdubbing high falsetto to complete the record. Their producer Don Ralke changed Mary’s name to Dee Dee as it was his wife’s nickname and it was catchier than Dick & Mary. 

                              

It was released under the name of Dick and Dee Dee and reissued under the banner of Liberty Records as they had national distribution. They performed it on the television show American Bandstand, and it soared to No 2 on the US charts. In the UK, Dick and Dee Dee competed with local cover versions of their song from the Mudlarks and Ronnie Carroll. When David Jacobs offered Dick and Dee Dee's record for the panel's opinion on Juke Box Jury, the mechanism went wrong and it took four attempts to play it. It only scraped into the UK Top Forty. 

Dick and Dee Dee had further success in the US with "Tell Me" and then, moving to Warner Brothers, entered the charts with "Young and in Love" as well as two tunes they did not write, the folksong "Turn Around" and John D. Loudermilk's "Thou Shalt Not Steal", on which they emulated the frenzy of "The Mountain's High". 

They toured with the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones in the US, and they recorded versions of Jagger and Richards's "Blue Turns to Grey" and "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind", both produced by the Stones' manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. Their success worked against them, however, as several other college duos became popular - Paul and Paula, Dale and Grace, and Nino Tempo and April Stevens - and so created competition, where none had existed. The duo came on promotional visits to the UK, but, despite their efforts, "Use What You Got" (1965) failed to make the charts. They were regulars on Jack Good's US TV show Shindig, but none of their later songs captured their early success.

In 1969 they split up, shortly after recording "We'll Sing in the Sunshine". They married different partners, and Dick revived the duo, this time with his wife, Sandy. Together they wrote The Rock & Roll Cookbook (1993) with Pamela Des Barres, which featured recipes from such unlikely cooks as Iggy Pop, Michael Jackson and Little Richard. St. John wrote songs that were recorded by Lesley Gore, Jan and Dean and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons; he also contributed music to many television shows. Dick was also a film producer, known for An American Rhapsody (2001), Mahalia (1975) and Génies en herbe (1973). 

St. John continued to record and perform regularly until his death. He accidently fell from the roof of his Pacific Palisades home and died from his injuries at at the UCLA Medical Centre on December 27, 2003. He was 63. 

(Edited mainly from Spencer Leigh @ The Independent) 

*(other sources give 1941, 1942 & 1944 as birth year)