Bickerton and Waddington had been writing songs together since they were both members of the Pete Best Four in Liverpool in the early 1960s. Their biggest success had been writing "Nothing but a Heartache", a US hit for The Flirtations in 1968. In the early 1970s, they came up with the idea for a rock 'n' rollmusical. They co-wrote and produced a demonstration recording of "Sugar Baby Love", recorded October 1973 with "Tonight", "Juke Box Jive" and "Sugar Candy Kisses". They originally intended to submit it for the Eurovision Song Contest but instead offered it to Showaddywaddy and Carl Wayne, who both turned it down. They then offered it to the demo musicians, provided that they would become an actual group. With the exception of the recording's lead singer, Paul Da Vinci, who had signed a solo recording contract with Penny Farthing Records. Surprisingly, only John Richardson, who played drums and spoke the "please take my advice," would sign up and later become a member of The Rubettes. "Sugar Baby Love" became a UK No. 1 hit in 1974, also reaching No. 37 and No. 30 on the US BillboardHot 100 and Cashbox charts, respectively. It also reached No. 1 in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium, and No. 2 in Australia, South Africa and Italy. Bickerton said:
"We had Paul DaVinci singing in that incredibly high falsetto voice and then a vocal group sings 'Bop-shu-waddy' over and over for about 3 minutes. Gerry Shury, who did the string arrangements, said, 'This is not going to work: you can't have a vocal group singing 'Bop-shu-waddy' non stop.' A lot of people said the same thing to us and the more determined I became to release it. The record was dormant for 6 or 7 weeks and then we got a break on Top of the Pops and it took off like a rocket and sold 6 million copies worldwide. Gerry said to me, 'I'm keeping my mouth shut and will concentrate on conducting the strings.'"
Chart performance
Weekly singles charts
Later uses
It was covered by the Norwegian Jahn Teigen, and appeared amongst others on the album series called Treff-serien in 1974.
The song was covered in Czech by Josef Laufer titled "Šumař Pépi" in 1974.
The song was covered in Czech by Karel Gott titled "Nic než láska tvá " in 1974.
The song was covered in French by Dutch singer Dave, with the title "Trop beau", in 1974.
The song was covered in Japanese by Candies on their album Namida no Kisetsu in 1974.
The song was covered by Bulgarian vocal quartet Tonica in 1975. The cover, titled "Svetlina ", was the B-side to Tonica's first single.
The song was covered in Japanese by Wink in 1988 and Yoko Ishida in 2001, the latter for the anime series A Little Snow Fairy Sugar; an English version by Ishida also appeared as a bonus track on the US version of her CD Sweets.
The song was used in the beginning of the 1994 Australian movie, Muriel's Wedding.
The song was covered in Portuguese by Sandy & Junior in 1995, titled as "Doce como mel". It was the 13th track on the album Você é D+!.
