>>As I recall, "bubblegum" music was the term used to describe the songs of a certain era, notably "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I got love in my tummy)".<<

After checking around, we think bubblegum started in '67. There was a gummy form of music prior to that that looks like it lent impetus to the bubblegum industry (I hesitate to call it a movement). "YYY" came out the following year. That was the Ohio Express and their previous release, "Beg, Borrow or Steal" was more of a garage tune than a gum tune even though it was written one of the prime movers of the gum industry--Joey Levine. As I said above, gum and garage are intimately and inextricably linked.

>>As I recall, there was even a "band" called "The 1910 Fruit Gum Company" in the bubblegum era.<<

They did "Simon Says" in '67 and many consider this the official beginning of the bubblegum era. I don't have any objection to that so long as we realize that, while Buddah was largely responsible for gum, they didn't invent it out of thin air. It was already something in the air. That same year, Kenny O'Dell did "Beautiful People" and when you listen to it, you have to concede there's a definite gummy thing going on there. It's not gum the way Super K or Neil Bogart would have done it, but it's gummy--maybe aimed at an older crowd but not much older. I remember the song very well then and I was only about 8 or 9.

Then there's songs like "Georgie Girl" by the Seekers that we are including as a pre-gum because it very definitely has gummy elements stuck all over it. Anyone who doesn't believe "Georgie Girl" wasn't popular among the 7-14 crowd was obviously not alive then. I was and it was HUGELY popular among the younger kids--enormously popular, every kid could sing it for you if you asked them to--including me, including every kid I knew, actually. I even have the 45 single laying around somewhere. One of my older siblings bought it way back when and I still have it somewhere.

>>"Wooly Bully" (and anything else by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs) was loooong before the bubblegum era<<

Not more than a year maybe--although that is a long time by bubblegum standards. Remember that "Wooly Bully" is one of the premier gargage band songs--second only to "Gloria." The Fruitgum Company deliberately fashioned "Simon Says" to the same pumping Farfisa beat that "Wooly Bully" had. Also remember that the leader of the Shadows of Knight--perhaps the permier garage band of all time--sang backup on "Simon Says." His name was Jim Sohns and he sang backup on nearly everything put out by the Fruitgummers and the Ohio Express (before they turned British anyway--but maybe even then).