"The Birds And The Bees" was a hit by Jewel Akens in the spring of 1965, reaching #2 on the Cash Box singles chart and #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: the single also reached #21 on the Billboard Black Singles chart.
"The Birds and the Bees" was released on Era Records for whom Akens had already cut one single fronting doo-wop group the Turnarounds. Era's owner Herb Newman pitched "The Birds and the Bees" - a song written by his teenage son - to be the Turnarounds' next single. As Akens was the only group member to favor the song, he recorded it solo in 1964. Akens worked through four or five different arrangements of the song, considerably honing the work of Newman's son - the completed track would assign songwriting credit to "Barry Stuart".[1]
In the United Kingdom, Akens' "The Birds and the Bees" would best a cover version by Johnny Kidd, which failed to rank in the Top 50. However, the Akens original only managed to achieve a #29 peak. "The Birds and the Bees" gave Akens a major hit in Australia (#3), Belgium (Flemish Region) (#6), the Netherlands (#3) and Norway (#4).
Alma Cogan is often credited with a UK cover of "The Birds and the Bees": in fact her UK single of that name - #25 in 1956 - is a recording of "(The Same Thing Happens with) The Birds and the Bees". However Cogan did cut a version of Akens's hit that was #1 in Sweden for three weeks in the summer of 1965, also reaching the Norwegian Top 5 (despite the recent success in Norway of the Akens original) and #8 in Denmark.
A 1966 single release by Rufus & Carla as "Birds and Bees", "The Birds and the Bees" has also been recorded by the Defenders, Jan Keizer, Brenda Lee, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Dean Martin, Billy Preston, Sha Na Na and Spooky and Sue. An Italian language rendering of "The Birds and the Bees": "Sulla sabbia c’era lei", was recorded by Sonia e le Sorelle and was an entrant in the 1965 Cantagiro festival; Nicola Salerno wrote the lyrics which are independent of the English original, the title translating as "On the sand there was you". Also in 1965 Drafi Deutscher & His Magics recorded a German rendering of "The Birds and the Bees" entitled "Heute Male Ich Dein Bild [today I paint your image], Cindy Lou" which reached #3 in Germany and #5 in Austria. Rendered in Danish as "Blomster og bier" (flowers and bees) by Birthe Kjær in 1974, "The Birds and the Bees" was rendered in Swedish as "Blommor och bin" (flowers and bees) (lyrics by Keith Almgren) recorded by Sten & Stanley on the album "Musik, dans & party 8" in 1993.
| Preceded by "Bring It On Home to Me" by the Animals |
Swedish hit parade #1 record (Alma Cogan version) 13 July - 27 July 1965 |
Succeeded by "Bald Headed Woman" by the Hep Stars |