Was there ever a real Renée from “Walk Away Renée” and was the sad story true about her devastated lover sending her home? Renée did exist, but the rest of the tale? Sadly, it was simply the figment of a forlorn 16-year-old’s imagination.
Renée Fladen was an aspiring teenage ballerina whose boyfriend, Tom Finn, played guitar in a New York City rock band called the Left Banke. One night, Finn brought Renée to a rehearsal. Michael Brown, the group’s keyboardist/songwriter, fell instantly in (puppy) love with the tall, striking blonde. Michael Brown was 16 when he suffered his pangs of love and wrote this song, in collaboration with Bob Callili and Tony Sansone (although the nature of their input is unclear).
But it was not to last. She was associated with the band for a few weeks, and was described as a free-spirited and tall blonde. The song was written one month after Brown met her.
In agony from his unrequited crush, the highly strung, emotional wordsmith started writing love songs about Renée. He wrote another recording about her too, the band’s second hit “Pretty Ballerina”.
Brown says of his unrequited love for Renée:
I was just sort of mythologically in love, if you know what I mean, without having evidence in fact or in deed…But I was as close as anybody could be to the real thing.
Renée was looking on during the recording of “Walk Away Renée”, and her presence nearly prevented its completion. In an interview, Brown stated:
“My hands were shaking when I tried to play, because she was right there in the control room”, he says. “There was no way I could do it with her around, so I came back and did it later”.
When he wrote his band’s future million-seller, Brown wanted to set his fantasy-crush story in a real place. As a boy in Brooklyn, he had sometimes hunted praying mantises in a vacant lot at the corner of Falmouth and Hampton Avenues. It was there that Brown pictured Renée and himself standing together in the rain below a ONE WAY sign on Falmouth:
And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every day
Just walk away Renée
You won’t see me follow you back home
And what would Rock n Roll be without a co-band member (co-writer?) offering a slightly different story. Tony Sansone contends that he is the primary author. Sansone has stated in interviews that he wrote the lyrics for the song, and that he randomly chose the name Renée because the Beatles used the name Michelle in their hit song of the same name, and so he did likewise, choosing the French name Renée as the female object for the song. Whomever wrote it (my money’s on Brown), it spent 13 weeks on the US charts, with a top spot of number 5 in early 1966.
Renée A. Fladen became a highly respected classical singer and vocal coach. Among her recordings are those of medieval music as vocal director of the San Francisco based Sherwood Consort. She was married to Howard I. Kamm in 1967; the couple divorced in San Francisco in 1974.
So who were the Left Banke? They were formed in New York City in 1965 by keyboardist Michael Brown, vocalist Steve Martin Caro, guitarist Tom Finn, singer George Cameron, and drummer Warren David-Schierhorst. Shortly thereafter, David-Schierhorst departed and Cameron replaced him on drums. Their musical style has been called “baroque pop” and “baroque n roll”. The main reason was due to the harpsichord, flute, and lush string arrangements on their records. The emphasis on string orchestration was due to Mike Brown’s father, Harry Lookofsky, a well-known session violinist, who ran a small studio in New York and took an interest in the band’s music, acting as producer, manager and publisher. The Left Banke members weren’t skilled instrumentalists, but the elder Lookofsky realized that they could harmonize well and in the style of the then-popular British Invasion groups. Harry Lookofsky had the quartet tape a couple of songs to see how they’d sound on a record, but nothing worked until the night Renée Fladen sauntered into World United Studios. For the 1966 recording of “Walk Away Renee,” Brown’s father brought in a string quartet to create a moody, “baroque rock” atmosphere. He also added a lilting flute solo inspired by the Mamas and Papas’ “California Dreamin’”.
Tension between Brown and the rest of the band soon began to surface. When “Walk Away Renee” belatedly became a hit, the original band had been inactive. Brown decided to capitalize on the single’s success by assembling a new version of the Left Banke for touring purposes (one of its members was future actor and Spinal Tap member Michael McKean on guitar.). The songs recorded by various incarnations of the group in 1967 and 1968 were assembled into a second LP, The Left Banke Too, which was released in November 1968. This album featured backing vocals by a young Steven Tyler.
Various members have come and gone, and come back again over the years. Several “reunion” tours have occurred and as recently as January 2018, it was announced on the official Facebook page operated by Steve Martin Caro and George Cameron that they were planning a tour. That never happened as Justo George Cameron died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, New York, on June 24, 2018 at age 70. Michael Brown died from heart disease on March 19, 2015, at age 65.
Rolling Stone placed “Walk Away Renée” at number 220 in the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Other artists to release versions include Southside Johnny, Rickie Lee Jones, Herman’s Hermits, Marshall Crenshaw, Sylvie Vartan, Vonda Shepherd, Badly Drawn Boy, and Billy Bragg.
In 1967 the Four Tops interpretation of “Renee”, featuring a stunning, desolate vocal by Levi Stubbs, reached No 14 in the US and No 3 in the UK. The Andantes provided backing vocals on this Motown release in unison with the other Tops and instrumentation by The Funk Brothers.
In 2006, the Cajun singer Ann Savoy with Linda Ronstadt released their version.
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