Let's first examine "THE BIRTH OF SOUL," a collection of information and CD's I compiled that explains how the soul music as we know it originated. 

THE BIRTH OF SOUL

The purpose of this collection is to clearly illustrate how doo wop music was one of the main foundations for the development of the early soul music of the 50’s, and 60’s.  Although it is almost impossible to include every popular doo wop song and recording artist in a box of CD’s, this music box will attempt to introduce the serious doo wop fan to many of the doo wop and soul pioneers.   More important, the program will illustrate the BIG PICTURE of how the culture of doo wop influenced the development of soul music. The program is divided into ten compact disc volumes.  Each CD plays a vital role in the development of soul music. This box of doo wop will illustrate the history of soul music while the listener hopefully enjoys hearing the memories.

To illustrate this history, I have divided this examination into four parts. To begin, I will explain what the meaning of doo wop and soul music are. I will then discuss what the purpose of each volume is. Next, I will discuss in considerable detail the background of each recording artist featured and attempt to demonstrate how some of the doo wop recording artists of the 50’s and 60’s changed their singing styles to become soul musicians. I will conclude with some remarks concerning how the sound of soul music would have taken a completely different meaning without the influence of doo wop.

PART 1 – THE MEANING OF DOO WOP AND SOUL MUSIC

Before I discuss the volumes individually and relate them to the birth of soul music, let me explain to the listener the commonly-used definitions of doo wop music and soul music. Doo wop is a form of rhythm and blues based harmony using vocal phonetic syllables (like a repeated "doo wop) for intricate musical arrangements. Soul music is a merger of gospel-charged singing, secular subject matter, and funk rhythms. As we will examine in this program soul mainly grew out of rhythm & blues doo wop arrangements of the 50’s.

Also, the doo wop fan will notice a lot of the music used here to illustrate THE BIRTH OF SOUL are oldies you don’t hear often. To give listeners a "fresh sound" that is different from the everyday "hum drum" of oldies music, I have used a lot of unpopular doo wop sounds, particularily in volumes 4 and 5. These songs did not make the familiar Top 40 billboard charts, but were listened to primarily on rhythm and blues (R & B) radio stations.

To enable the listener to relate the songs to various musical backgrounds, I have BOLDED and CAPITALIZED all tracks that are included is this box of doo wop. In other words, if the song is included in any one of the ten volumes, it is highlighted every time it is mentioned. Also, every time a reference is made to any recording artist or song included in this doo wop box, we describe what volume contains that recorded music.

PART 2 – THE VOLUMES OF THE SET AND THEIR PURPOSE

The ten volumes of the set are:

Volume 1 – Candle Light Doo Wop

Volume 2 – Doo Wop Cruising Classics

Volume 3 – The Book of Love, A Doo Wop Anthology

Volume 4 – Rare and Treasured Doo Wop Gold Love Notes

Volume 5 – New Orleans Doo Wop – Some Spicy Madigras

Volume 6 – Doo Wop Dynamite – Some Hot Memories

Volume 7 – The Dancing Doo Wop Jukebox – Let’s Party

Volume 8 – Doo Wop Martinis – Strong Soul Shots of Inspiration

Volume 9 – Doo Wop Gold Hot Tracks – High Performance of the Soulful 60’s

Volume 10 – Motown Madness – The Early Years

Let me first give a general description of each CD volume and its purpose . I will then discuss each CD in detail and give some background information concerning the artists and their music.

Volume 1 – Candle Light Doo Wop

The main purpose of this volume is to introduce the listener to the easy-listening style of the fifties and early 60’s.. Most of these love ballads originated from street corner harmonies in our urban areas. As we will see, a lot of these songs later provided a foundation for the soul music of the 60’s. These songs have a simple, but important message concerning the challenges of romance. The serious doo wop listener will indeed enjoy these sounds over a candle light dinner.

Volume 2 – Doo Wop Cruising Classics

The main purpose of this volume is to demonstrate how doo wop classics fitted well into the environment of car radio in the 50’s and 60’s.. As the listener hears these sounds, he or she will recall that convertible or sports car that had the radio volume cranked up. These were the songs that made you hunger for more sound. At the same time, these CD tracks provide a easy-listening environment guaranteed to relax the mind.

Volume 3 – The Book of Love

The main purpose of this volume is to musically illustrate love messages. It doesn’t get any better than this! Each song has an important romantic message. As in the first two CD’s, this volume mainly contains easy-listening tracks. The main difference is that this group contains more tracks that actually sound like the vocalists are delivering a sermon concerning romantic relationships.

Volume 4 – Doo Wop Gold Love Notes – Rare and Treasured Classics

The main purpose of this volume is to introduce the listener to some of the rare tracks of doo wop. Some of these songs were seldom heard on the "TOP 40" music stations, but people loved to listen and dance to them. This is the first volume that includes some of the "hard rocking" doo wops. The listener will enjoy the dancing music included in some of these hard to find classics.

Volume 5 – New Orleans Doo Wop – Some Spicy Madigras

The main purpose of this volume is to show the listener how this city was a center of doo wop activity in the 50’s. Although over 50% of the major doo wop singers came from the New York City area, no description of doo wop and soul can avoid mention of the "New Orleans" sound. In this volume, the hard - core rockers really intensify. It is indeed a spicy recipe of classic madigras. The listener will remember some of these songs, but once again a number of the tracks never made the "Top 40" charts. However, people enjoyed listening and dancing these New Orleans sounds. When you listen to the selections in this volume, notice the similar piano and saxophone harmonies.

Volume 6 – Doo Wop Dynamite – Some Hot Memories

The main purpose of this volume is to demonstrate doo wop hard rock at it’s strongest. These are indeed the core of "Doo Wop Dynamite" with some really explosive musical beats and explosive vocal messages. The music will make anyone want to dance. It may actually even enable the person with "two left feet" to dance and move. Notice the similar saxophone tracks demonstrated in the middle of these songs. This was a common musical style in during the "Old Time Rock and Roll" era of the 50’s and early 60’s.

Volume 7 – The Dancing Doo Wop Jukebox – Let’s Party

The main purpose of this volume is to demonstrate how the doo wop dances of the early 60’s influenced the development of soul music. This is the last volume of "hardcore" Doo Wop rockers. Most of the songs demonstrate a particular dance, such as the twist, mashed potatoes, or stomp. Here again, these songs are excellent party tracks and will inspire anyone to move their feet. In the later volumes of our program, the listener will notice that a number of these artists, such as Little Anthony and the Imperials and Len Berry used this music as a building foundation for their soul recordings.

Volume 8 – Doo Wop Martinis – Strong Soul Shots of Inspiration

The main purpose of this volume is to show how these doo wop songs of inspiration formed a solid foundation for the soul music of the 60’s. The messages on these tracks are very strong and required a great deal of creativity to write. The listener will enjoy the insight provided by listening to these tracks. These songs indeed represent "Music to Live By." Once again, we have slowed down the pace in this volume to allow the listener to relax from the "hard rockers" of the last three or four volumes.

Volume 9 – Doo Wop Gold Hot Tracks – Hi Performance of the Soulful 60’s

The main purpose of this volume is to introduce the listener to the modern sound of doo wop and demonstrate how it helped develop the soulful sound of the sixties. These doo wop tracks helped initiate the writers for Motown, Stax, and Atlantic record labels develop the soul sound of the 60’s. Most of these songs have an upbeat tempo, but there are a few easy-listening favorites thrown in. The volume includes some early soul tracks by artists who previously performed doo wop songs.

Volume 10 – Motown Madness – The Early Years

The main purpose of this volume is to illustrate how the soulful Motown sound of Detroit originated from doo wop. This volume uses music from the very early years of Motown to demonstrate this relationship. Beginning with the Motown sound of the late 50’s, the listener can clearly hear how Motown was indeed a finished product of soul. In my opinion this part of the program represents the graduate school of music because as we will examine in this volume, there would never be another sound like it. This volume could have easily been titled Stax Madness or Atlantic Madness. But I feel Motown is so special because of the outstanding Funk Brothers Band that backed most of the top recordings.  

PART 3 – THE MUSIC AND RECORDING ARTIST PROFILES

Volume 1 – Candle Light Doo Wop

 1.  Rosie and the Originals – Angel Baby

2.  The Teddy Bears – To Know Him is to Love Him

3.  Kathy and the Innocents – 1000 Stars

4.  Eddie Townsend – For Your Love

5.  The Shepherds – Island of Love

6.  Ivory Joe Hunter – Since I Met You Baby

7.  Sonny Knight – Confidential

8.  Jimmy Charles – A Million to One

9.  The Flamingos – Lovers Never Say Goodbye

10. The Starglows – Let’s Be Lovers

11. The Skyliners – This I Swear

12. The Pentagons – To Be Loved (Forever)

13. The Fiestas – Last Night I Dreamed

14. The Dubs – Chapel of Dreams

15. The Fantastics – There Goes My Love

16. The Dubs – Is There a Love For Me

17. The Moonglows – Please Send Me Someone to Love

18. The Dubs – Could This Be Magic

19. The Danleers – One Summer Night

20.  The Five Satins – To the Aisle

21. The Chimes – Once in a While

Treat your spouse or favorite friend to a candle light dinner with this music in the background. Any doo wop fan will be in heaven! It is not only the music that is appetizing, but simply to be aware of the strong messages in each song will make that dinner taste better.

This volume begins with Rosie and the Originals hit of Angel Baby, the group’s largest hit. Most people are familiar with the story of how this high school group formed in southern California. What you may not be familiar with is who is credited as being the original writer of the classic.

Rosalie Hamlin was born July 21, 1945, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, raised in Alaska till the age of 11 when her parents moved to San Diego. As a preteen, Rosie taught herself to play piano and write songs.

Hamlin was only 14 in 1960, when she met four older guys, not yet the Originals, from the other side of town who played music with some of her friends. They were Alfred Barrett saxophone, Tony Gomez bass, David Ponci guitar, Noah Tafolla lead guitar,and Carl von Goodat drums.

It all happened in an old airplane hanger that had been converted into a recording studio in San Diego suburb of San Marcos. There Rosie wrote the words to the group's first single in her notebook, then crafted a melody based on chord changes to "Heart and Soul." With a skimpy voice Rosie sang "Angel Baby" with the Originals providing a sparse and primitive back up. With the drummer seemingly forgetting what track he is playing on, flawed with flubs, and poor sound quality "Angel Baby" is undoubtedly one of rock and roll's greatest moments. Rosie and the Originals then began trying to sell the master in Los Angeles. After a series of rejections "Angel Baby" was released by Highland Records, and Alan Freed, now living in California after the Payola Scandal, broke it locally.

Before the new classic was even issued the band broke up. Rosie in particular was peeved that Highland Records had credited Dave Ponci as Angel Baby's writer.

Follow-ups "Angel From Above" and "We'll Have a Chance" went unnoticed. However Jackie Wilson did take notice and introduced Rosie to his manager, Nat Taranpol. Tranapol got her a recording contract with Brunswick. Aside from her boyfriend, Noah Tafolla, none of the Originals were included in the deal.

The laid-back tempo of the volume continues on track 2 with a very thoughtful ballad TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM, sang by a New Jersey group, called "The Teddybears."This group represented one of music producer’s Phil Spector’s earliest products

Actually, the song is the flip side of the original hit, Wonderful, Loveable You.

On a trip back to the Bronx, Phil visited his father's grave. The inscription on the grave  "To Know Him Was To Love Him" impressed him enough that when he returned to Los Angeles he took those words and wrote lyrics for them.

The Teddy Bears appeared on "Bandstand" and "To Know Him Is To Love Him" became a number one record, selling more than a million copies before Christmas. "Wonderful, Lovable You," their second record was released late in 1959. They appeared on the The Perry Como Show on January 3, 1960 where they sang "To Know Him Him Is To Love Him" and "It's Only a Paper Moon."

Phil Spector went on to be one of the top music producers in the rock and roll recording industry.

The third track in the CD gives the doo wop listener another simple, but strong romantic message. Best remembered for her 1960 smash A THOUSAND STARS, teen pop singer Kathy Young was born in Santa Ana, CA.. Her big break followed while attending a taping of Wink Martindale's local television show -- among the guests was the harmony trio the Innocents, riding high on the success of their hit "Honest I Do," and after the show Young introduced herself to the group and their producer, Indigo Records staffer Jim Lee. At Lee's invitation, the 15-year-old Young entered Indigo's studios the next week, and backed by the Innocents she recorded a cover of Gene Pearson & the Rivileers' doo-wop favorite: A THOUSAND STARS, Not only did the record peak at number three on the U.S. pop charts that Halloween, it cracked the R&B Top Ten as well. The follow-up "Happy Birthday Blues" reached the number 30 spot in March of 1961, although subsequent efforts including "Magic Is the Night" and a cover of the Platters classic "The Great Pretender" failed to achieve Top 40 status.

The Rivileers enjoyed a short (less than two years) recording career from 1954 to 1955. They formed in Jamaica Queens, NY, and at one time included actor Lou Gossett who claims he sung with them on "A Thousand Eyes." Led by Eugene Pearson, the Rivileers most stable lineup consisted of neighborhood and high school buds: Pearson, Milton Edwards, Earl Lennard, Herb Crosby, and Alphonso Delaney. They cut a demo and left it as a resume in a record shop. Sol Rabinowitz (a salesman for a record distributor) heard the multi-song demo and decided to venture into the recording business. Pearson had previously sung with the Embers and co-wrote "Paradise Hill" for them in 1953, a year before the Rivileers first single hit the streets.

The fourth track in this volume has a very exciting background. Singer/songwriter Ed Townsend wrote and produced the Impressions' number one R&B hit "Finally Got Myself Together (I'm a Changed Man)." In the mid-'70s, he co-wrote with Marvin Gaye the singer's classic number one R&B/pop hit "Let's Get It On." In this volume, we featureTownsend’s own R&B/pop hit single, FOR YOUR LOVE, which was released in 1958.

Born in Fayetteville, TN, Townsend was very active in his minister father's church. He was an education major at Wilberforce University and graduated from Arkansas State College. He taught briefly before joining the Marine Corps and spending two years in Korea. When he returned to the U.S., he got a job hosting a TV show in Los Angeles. His songs were recorded by Nat "King" Cole, Etta James, and others, publishing them through his music-publishing firm. He also had his own record label.

While playing a song demo for Joe Zerga of Capitol Records, the record exec suggested that Townsend record the song himself. FOR YOUR LOVE b/w "Over and Over Again" went to number seven R&B in the summer of 1958. The follow-up, a cover of Glenn Gray's 1935 number one hit, "When I Grow Too Old to Dream" b/w "You Are My Everything" made it to number 59 Pop in the fall of 1958. Townsend recorded other Capitol singles: "Be My Love" b/w "With No One to Love," "Hold On" b/w "This Little Love of Mine," "Lover Come Back to Me" b/w "Don't Ever Leave," "Richer Than I" b/w "Getting By Without You," and "What Shall I Do?" b/w "Please Never Change." He recorded two 1959 Capitol LPs with Nelson Riddle, "Glad to Be Here" and "New in Town." "For Your Love" and "When I Grow Too Old to Dream" would be his only two charting singles.

The fifth track of the volume features the Chicago doo wop sound of the Shepherds. The Shepherds were one of the most hard-luck soul groups ever to come out of Chicago. Led by Murrie Eskridge and Millard Edwards, the group spent ten years trying to make a lasting impression with the public, only to be thwarted, but they made some magnificent music in the process. The group was formed in 1959 by the members of two earlier groups, the Ballads and the Bel Aires (who had actually gotten a record, "Rockin' and Strollin'," released by Decca), who decided to pool their abilities under one cover — in addition to Eskridge, who sang in a full, soulful wail, and the smoother-voiced Edwards, the members included baritone Jimmy Allen, bass Dennis Isaac, and second tenor O.C. Perkins, with Kermit Chandler playing guitar. Edwards, Perkins, and Chandler also wrote songs, providing them with a stream of originals, which helped set the group somewhat apart from most of their rivals. The sextet, taking the name the Sheppards, signed to Apex Records, a company owned by Bill "Bunky" Sheppard (who had produced the Bel Aires' single) in late 1958. They made their debut in 1959 with ISLAND OF LOVE, featuring Edwards on the lead vocal. The smoothly romantic ballad was a great showcase for the group that got into Billboard's "Bubbling Under" listings during the summer of that year. If the single's A-side was classic doo wop, the B-side, "Never Felt Like This Before," featuring Eskridge's lead vocal (sounding like a more passionate Jackie Wilson), was more representative of soul music and a much more forward-looking record.

The Shepherds went on to release a handful of follow-up records on Apex, of which "Come Home Come Home" earned some airplay in the Midwest and local sales but never broke out to national audiences or chart placements. Their efforts culminated with "Tragic," an achingly beautiful ballad that got them onto American Bandstand, the biggest single piece of national exposure they had during their history — "Tragic" became the group's best-known track and is one of those songs that, when heard, usually makes non-soul fanatics scramble to find the artist's name. By this time, the Sheppards had developed a wonderfully engaging and commercial style that should have put them in the front ranks of soul groups of their era.

This relaxing volume continues on the next track with Ivory Joe Hunter, who was a bespectacled and velvet-smooth pianist that appeared too much mild-mannered to be a rock & roller. But when the rebellious music first crashed the American consciousness in the mid-'50s, there was Ivory Joe, deftly delivering his blues ballad SINCE I MET YOU BABY right alongside the wildest pioneers of the era.

Hunter was already a grizzled R&B vet by that time who had first heard his voice on a 1933 Library of Congress cylinder recording made in Texas (where he grew up). An accomplished tunesmith, he played around the Gulf Coast region, hosting his own radio program for a time in Beaumont before migrating to California in 1942.

It was a wise move since Hunter -- whose real name was Ivory Joe, incidentally (perhaps his folks were psychic!) -- found plenty of work pounding out blues and ballads in wartime California. He started his own label, Ivory Records, to press up his "Blues at Sunrise" (with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers backing him), and it became a national hit when leased to Leon Rene's Exclusive imprint in 1945. Another Hunter enterprise, Pacific Records, hosted a major hit in 1948 when the pianist's "Pretty Mama Blues" topped the R&B charts for three weeks.

At whatever logo Hunter paused from the mid-'40s through the late '50s, his platters sold like hotcakes. For Cincinnati-based King in 1948-1949, he hit with "Don't Fall in Love With Me," "What Did You Do to Me," "Waiting in Vain," and "Guess Who." At MGM, then new to the record biz, he cut his immortal "I Almost Lost My Mind" (another R&B chart-topper in 1950), "I Need You So" (later covered by Elvis), and "It's a Sin." Signing with Atlantic in 1954, he hit big with "Since I Met You Baby" in 1956 and the two-sided smash "Empty Arms"/"Love's a Hurting Game" in 1957.

Sonny Knight, who performs the seventh track of the volume, entitled CONFIDENTIAL, was another unique pioneer in the recording industry.

Born in Maywood, Illinois, USA. Sonny Knight succeeded with one beautiful R&B ballad, CONFIDENTIAL, in the Billboard charts in 1956 before fading from the scene. Smith's family moved to Los Angeles in the early 50s, where he not only sang but wrote a novel. Encouraged to seek a recording contract by a girlfriend, he looked in the telephone book and called the first label listed, Aladdin Records. He recorded unsuccessfully for Aladdin, andthen switched to Specialty Records.

Specialty producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell partnered him with songwriter Dorina Morgan (wife of producer Hite Morgan), who penned CONFIDENTIAL for Knight. The single reached number 17 in the USA, but Knight was unable to follow it up. He had two less successful singles in the mid-60s before retiring from singing.

This relaxing volume continues on the next track with Ivory Joe Hunter, who was a bespectacled and velvet-smooth pianist that appeared too much mild-mannered to be a rock & roller. But when the rebellious music first crashed the American consciousness in the mid-'50s, there was Ivory Joe, deftly delivering his blues ballad SINCE I MET YOU BABY right alongside the wildest pioneers of the era.

Hunter was already a grizzled R&B vet by that time who had first heard his voice on a 1933 Library of Congress cylinder recording made in Texas (where he grew up). An accomplished tunesmith, he played around the Gulf Coast region, hosting his own radio program for a time in Beaumont before migrating to California in 1942.

It was a wise move since Hunter -- whose real name was Ivory Joe, incidentally (perhaps his folks were psychic!) -- found plenty of work pounding out blues and ballads in wartime California. He started his own label, Ivory Records, to press up his "Blues at Sunrise" (with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers backing him), and it became a national hit when leased to Leon Rene's Exclusive imprint in 1945. Another Hunter enterprise, Pacific Records, hosted a major hit in 1948 when the pianist's "Pretty Mama Blues" topped the R&B charts for three weeks.

At whatever logo Hunter paused from the mid-'40s through the late '50s, his platters sold like hotcakes. For Cincinnati-based King in 1948-1949, he hit with "Don't Fall in Love With Me," "What Did You Do to Me," "Waiting in Vain," and "Guess Who." At MGM, then new to the record biz, he cut his immortal "I Almost Lost My Mind" (another R&B chart-topper in 1950), "I Need You So" (later covered by Elvis), and "It's a Sin." Signing with Atlantic in 1954, he hit big with "Since I Met You Baby" in 1956 and the two-sided smash "Empty Arms"/"Love's a Hurting Game" in 1957.

Sonny Knight, who performs the seventh track of the volume, entitled CONFIDENTIAL, was another unique pioneer in the recording industry.

Born in Maywood, Illinois, USA. Sonny Knight succeeded with one beautiful R&B ballad, CONFIDENTIAL, in the Billboard charts in 1956 before fading from the scene. Smith's family moved to Los Angeles in the early 50s, where he not only sang but wrote a novel. Encouraged to seek a recording contract by a girlfriend, he looked in the telephone book and called the first label listed, Aladdin Records. He recorded unsuccessfully for Aladdin, andthen switched to Specialty Records.

Specialty producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell partnered him with songwriter Dorina Morgan (wife of producer Hite Morgan), who penned CONFIDENTIAL for Knight. The single reached number 17 in the USA, but Knight was unable to follow it up. He had two less successful singles in the mid-60s before retiring from singing.

Later in his career in 1969 while working in Los Vegas Sonny Knight would discover the singing group Spiral Starecase and introduced them to Columbia Records. (read their profile in Volume 9) This group was originally formed during 1963 in Sacramento, California. After one flop single, they recorded Upton's MORE TODAY THAN YESTERDAY, an upbeat soul tune with prominent horn backing in the Chicago style. It made number 12 in the US charts and the group released an album which also charted. Follow-up singles did not fare as well, however, and the group disappeared from the national scene by the dawn of the 70s.

The eighth track in this volume is another easy-listening ballad, entitled A MILLION TO ONE. The artist, Jimmy Charles, was from a strong musical environment. Charles was a singer with a crying style and was born in Patterson, NJ. Before he sang professionally, he built up quite a local reputation wailing at churches and community functions. When Charles was 16, his uncle accompanied him to New York to try his luck at the amateur talent shows held at the Apollo. Lo and behold, Charles won the renowned contest for four consecutive weeks.

Charles' uncle then hooked up his warbling kin with Phil Medley, a jack-of-all-trades who was an accomplished singer, songwriter, producer, and arranger. Impressed by the lad's delivery, Medley cut a demo with Charles singing A MILLION TO ONE. Mr. Medley got the ear of Bill Lashley, a honcho at Promo Records, and played it for him. Promo liked the demo and signed Charles to a recording contract. They redid Medley's song with the Revellettes backing the singer. The dreamy ballad ascended to number five on Billboard's Top 100 in September of 1960. Sadly, his career ended as quickly as it started. "The Age of Love," Charles' next release, stalled at the 47th position, 42 slots lower than A MILLION TO ONE. Subsequent releases failed to attract much attention or airplay and his career was quickly over.

The ninth track.LOVERS NEVER SAY GOODBYE, is sung by the legendary Flamingos. It is impossible to explain all the contributions this group made to the doo wop scene. Both prolific and seminal in their influence and impact, the Flamingos may have been the greatest harmonizing vocal ensemble ever, and were certainly among the premier units of the doo wop/R&B era. Cousins Jake and Zeke Carey moved to Chicago from Baltimore in 1950. They met Paul Wilson and Johnny Carter at the Church of God and Saints of Christ Congregation, a black Jewish church.

They began singing in the choir, and the foursome met Earl Lewis (not the Channels' lead vocalist) through one of the members' sisters, who was his girlfriend at the time. They originally called themselves the Swallows, but had to change names when they found out that a Baltimore group already had the name. Carter suggested El Flamingos, which was changed to the Five Flamingos, and later the Flamingos.

They recorded with Chance in 1953, and "If I Can't Have You" attracted some attention and did well in the Midwest and on the East Coast. "That's My Desire" and "Golden Teardrops" were marvelously sung numbers, particularly "Golden Teardrops," with its sweeping harmonies on top and bottom framing McElroy's wondrous lead.

But none of their great Chance recordings generated enough national attention to make the R&B charts, nor did the three numbers they recorded for Parrot. McElroy departed and was replaced by Nate Nelson. They enjoyed their first chart success with Checker in the late '50s, scoring a Top Ten R&B hit with "I'll Be Home" in 1956. They temporarily disbanded in 1956 and regrouped in 1957 with Nelson, Jake Carey, Paul Wilson, and Tommy Hunt as the lineup, and the group now a quartet. Zeke Carey returned in 1958, and they signed with End late that year. "I Only Have Eyes for You" in 1959 was their biggest hit, peaking at number three R&B and number 11 pop.

This was shortly followed by LOVERS NEVER SAY GOODBYE, the song presented in track 9 of this volume This recording also made it well into the top 40 pop charts. "I Only Have Eyes for You" was a cover of a song that had been a huge hit for Eddy Duchin in 1934, and was the start of a productive period that saw the Flamingos issue four albums for End and get two more R&B Top 30 singles, one the Sam Cooke composition "Nobody Loves Me Like You" in 1960. Hunt left in 1961, and the group returned briefly to Checker in 1964. They later recorded for Phillips, Julman, and Polydor, but couldn't regain their former standing. They remained among the genre's most beloved groups, and anthologies of their material on Chance and Checker have been reissued. In 1993, The Flamingos Meet the Moonglows was reissued by Vee-Jay. ~

The next song is a Pittsburgh-based classic called LET’S BE LOVERS, by the Starglows. The similarity between the Starglows and the Flamingos can be explained by the fact that Nate Nelson sang lead for both groups. This song was produced by Joe Rock, who was well known for the work he did with the Skyliners, a well known doo wop group from the steel city. Because of a contract dispute, the song could not be released under the Flamingo artist name.

The Skyliners had a number of doo wop classic hits, including the eleventh track, entitled THIS I SWEAR. This Pittsburgh vocal group made a magnificent heartache ballad in 1959, "Since I Don't Have You." It remains among R&B's ultimate agonizing triumphs, and Chuck Jackson later did an equally gripping version. Jimmy Beaumont was the lead vocalist, with Janet Vogel, Wally Lester, Joe VerScharen, and Jackie Taylor. Beaumont, Taylor, and Lester had been in the Crescents, while Vogel and VerScharen were alumni of the El Rios. THIS I SWEAR was their follow-up and represented a creditable effort that peaked at number 20 on the R&B charts, but few remember it. Oddly, SINCE I DON’T HAVE YOU (listen to Volume 2) only reached number three on the R&B side and number 12 on the pop charts. But it's certainly one song for whom the numbers really don't come close to telling the story. The Skyliners had two chart singles on Callico and then had one other song reach the R & B top forty in 1965, "The Loser," from Jubilee Records.

The volume’s twelfth sound, TO BE LOVED (FOREVER) (not to be confused with Jackie Wilson’s TO BE LOVED in Volume 3) is the product of California doo wop harmony. The Pentagons are remembered for two 1961 hits, TO BE LOVED (FOREVER)-- which peaked at number 48 nationally -- and "I Wonder." The original lineup featured Joe Jones, Carl McGinnis, Bill James, Otis Munson, and brothers Kenneth Goodloe (lead) and Ted Goodloe and formed in 1958 in San Bernardino, CA, northeast of Los Angeles. Sometime during this early period, Munson left and James was later replaced by Odie Jones, Joe's brother, making for two sets of brothers in the Pentagons' lineup.

A trip to Los Angeles that same year attracted the attention of George Motola's Fleet International, a label Motola owned with Lee Silver. The group recorded their first single, "You'll Be Coming Home Soon," which Motola released under the name the Shields. They were forced to change their name to the Pentagons after discovering a local act from Los Angeles had a hit that year under the same name (YOU CHEATED – listen to Volume 3).

The group's next single would be the 45 that most doo wop fans and collectors remember them fondly for, the graceful and understated ballad TO BE LOVED FOREVER, written by Ken Goodloe. The single was a regional hit in late 1960 and was immediately picked up for national distribution and reissue on Donna Records, a division of Bob Keene's Del-Fi Records. It later broke wide open after it was played on Dick Clark's TV show and in February of 1961, it peaked nationally at number 48 pop.

After this initial glimmer of success, Lester Sill joined Silver and Motola as the Pentagons' managers. The group's next single was another Motola production, "I Like the Way You Look at Me," which was once again licensed to Donna Records. Though not a major hit, it still carried over that string-laden sound the Pentagons were becoming known for. The B-side, "Down at the Beach," written by Joe and Odie Jones, was a minor hit as well (although this happened two years after it was recorded). Beginning with the very distinctive "Billboard March" -- a calliope-like flourish heard at the start of a circus and also used in Bobby Darin’s number two 1961 hit "Goodbye Cruel World" -- the lyrics of "Down at the Beach" really captured the whole sunny SoCal surf and sand scene -- "you look good in your short shorts...I really go for your ta-yan."

After this release, the Pentagons signed to Jamie Records, with whom Sill had connections, causing Keene to lose interest in promoting the Donna-released second single. Their final hit was the Jamie-released "I Wonder (If Your Love Will Ever Belong to Me)" which peaked at number 84 pop in October of 1961, but with no additional hits forthcoming, the group disbanded and faded into obscurity. Lester Sill, incidentally, also produced Duane Eddy's early recordings for Jamie. He passed away on October 31, 1994, in Los Angeles.

The thirteenth track of Candle Light Doo Wop features LAST NIGHT I DREAMED, a follow-up to the Fiestas’ big hit of SO FINE (Please listen to volume 4). This song is included here so the serious doo wop fan can hear how relaxing the follow up hit sounded.

The Fiestas' career spanned nearly 20 years, and they came along at a time when soul music was gaining prominence in the vocal group scene. Their biggest hit was 1959's SO FINE, which reached number three on the R&B charts before crossing over to number 11 on the Hot 100. The Fiestas -- lead vocalist Tommy Bullock, Eddie Morris, Sam Ingalis, and Preston Lane -- were originally from Newark, NJ. They were signed to Old Town by owner Hy Weiss in 1959 after he heard the group singing SO FINE in the bathroom next to his office (which was run out of the cloak room of the Triboro Theatre on 125th Street and Third Avenue in Harlem). The single shot onto the charts immediately.

Weiss followed suit with the group's next single LAST NIGHT I DREAMED, which failed to connect. He continued trying, however, issuing soulful R&B sides that were similar to what artists like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson had been doing. Of these, favorites include "You Could Be My Girlfriend," a cover of Arthur Alexander's "Anna," and its flipside, "Think Smart," which is now a much-coveted Northern Soul rarity. A ballad from 1962, "Broken Heart," scored number 18 on the R&B charts, but failed to chart on the pop lists.

The Fiestas eventually moved over to Strand (a New York label that started as a full-priced label but soon began specializing in budget issues) and then to Vigor, recorded through the '60s and into the mid-'70s, but never again enjoyed any hits.

The fourteenth song of this volume features one of three tracks from the Dubs, one of the most popular doo wop groups of all time. I must admit CHAPEL OF DREAMS is my favorite Dub classic. The other two Dubs tracks included in this volume are IS THERE A LOVE FOR ME (track 16) and COULD THIS BE MAGIC (track 20)

The Dubs had a long career, from the late '50s through the '80s, but are best remembered for their enduring Top 40 doo wop classic COULD THIS BE MAGIC, one of the more memorable songs of 1957. During the early '50s, the group developed out of two short-lived vocal acts: the Five Wings and the Scale-Tones.

The Harlem-based Five Wings (originally "the Five Stars") were Jackie Rue (lead), Frank Edwards (first tenor), Billy Carlisle (second tenor), Melvin Flood (baritone), and Tommy Grate (bass). The group recorded a few singles -- including two posthumous tributes in early 1955 to Johnny Ace (read his profile in this volume) -- for King Records. Three of the Five Wings (Edwards, Flood, and Rue -- the latter going on to become the lead of Jackie and the Starlites of "Valerie" fame) quit the group, prompting Carlisle and Grate to join up with Kenny "Butch" Hamilton (formerly of the R&B group, the Sonics, who recorded for Groove) and soon added backing vocalist Billy Nelson. Soon after their initial November 1955 session, Carlisle's cousin Richard Blandon joined the group after leaving the Air Force. Now the four were five. In February 1956, they released the single "Walk Along."

The Five Wings soon met up with another Harlem-based group, the Scale-Tones, (who had just recorded their first and only single for Joe Davis' Jay Dee label). The Scale-Tones were Cleveland Still (lead), James Montgomery (tenor), Jake Miller (aka James Miller, baritone), and Thomas Gardner (bass). After some prompting by Blandon (who wanted to sing lead), a new group emerged from the two. This lineup featured Richard Blandon (lead), Billy Carlisle (second tenor), Cleveland Still (first tenor), Jake Miller (baritone), and Thomas Gardner (bass). The Five Wings' manager, Hiram Johnson (brother of famed musician and bandleader Buddy Johnson), offered to manage the new group. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the group joined other acts: Grate joined the Vocaltones (Apollo), while Butch Hamilton joined the Bop Chords (Holiday).

The Blandon-led group -- at first calling themselves the Marvels (not to be confused with the . . Mar-Vells) -- were inspired by other popular doo wop groups of the day, including the Harptones, the Wanderers, and the Spaniels. They were signed to ABC Paramount Records late in 1956 and issued their first single in November. Manager Johnson later decided to form his own label, Johnson Records, and in early 1957, the Marvels changed their name to the Dubs.

Their first single under this moniker -- the Blandon-penned "Don't Ask Me to Be Lonely" -- was released in March. Radio jumped on the single immediately and Johnson soon found himself with a local hit that required a national distributor, so he met with George Goldner (of Gee/Gone/Tico fame) and the Dubs soon found themselves on Goldner's Gone label. On July 15, some five months after its initial release, "Don't Ask Me" finally made its way on to the national pop charts, peaking at number 74, though it was Top Ten on many local East Coast radio station surveys at its high point. In August, just before the quintet returned to the studio, bassman Thomas Gardner left and was replaced by former Five Wings bassman Tommy Grate.

Next up was Blandon's COULD THIS BE MAGIC and by the first week of November, the Dubs had their second national pop Top 40 song of the year. It would ultimately become their biggest hit, rising to number 23. Surprisingly, COULD THIS BE MAGIC (nor any of the other Dubs singles for that matter) ever landed on the R&B charts.

The Dubs continued to tour extensively in the U.S. and Canada. Subsequent singles from the group failed to connect, however. In November 1958, after the group's CHAPEL OF DREAMS was released to little reaction, the Dubs, disappointed over the meager earnings in their chosen career, decided to call it a day.

In July 1959, some eight months after its initial release, CHAPEL OF DREAMS was reissued by their label and by this time, Cleveland Still was already working as a shipping clerk when he heard the song on the radio. The single quickly jumped into the Top 100 on August 24th, rising to number 74 after six weeks, and proved to be the Dubs' last charting single (even after the group had given up recording together). He still couldn't believe what he was hearing and continued to work, but it didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the group.

The other Dubs -- thinking they were being given a second chance -- came together again, replacing Still with Cordell Brown, and they re-signed with ABC Paramount, the same label they were with three years before as the Marvels. Though all five of their second wave of ABC singles were fine recordings, their two year run -- from November 1959 to November 1961 -- yielded no results. Still eventually returned for one final ABC-Paramount single, "Down Down Down I Go." In early 1962, they were going back to Goldner for one End release, one Gone release, and one for Wilshire. In 1963, Cordell was back up in the lineup, replacing Still for the second time, and the Dubs signed with Josie to record for one side of an album, called The Dubs Meet the Shells, (in the tradition of The Paragons Meet the Jesters).

By the '70s, the Dubs were still clinging to life, now as a trio featuring Blandon, Still, and Kirk Harris (tenor). This new Dubs trio recorded an LP of previously recorded Dubs songs for the Candlelite label. David Shelly (baritone) joined in 1973 for two more singles, but the Dubs' popular chart successes were clearly behind them. In 1973, four unreleased sides from the early 1957 Hiram Johnson session showed up on his Johnson Records and were more than likely purchased by collectors only.

All total, the Dubs (at least the groups featuring lead vocalist Richard Blandon) recorded for ten record labels, from the '50s through the mid-'70s, but never enjoyed much in the way of success or made any headway outside doo wop circles. In the '80s, Cleveland Still returned with his own Dubs oldies group, whose lineup featured Bernard Jones (of Doc Green's Drifters), Steve Brown and John Truesdale (of the Charts), and Leslie Anderson.

Track 15 featyres the Fantastics, a small doo wop group out of the Brooklyn area of New York City . Included in this volume is their arrangement of THERE GOES MY LOVE, recorded by vocalist Sammy Strain in 1958. Strain later joined Little Anthony and the Imperials in 1963. This song was originally written by William Forrest. Also, this song was very popular in the Pittsburgh area and would peak in the top ten of the Billboard Charts there.

Track 17 is one of the Moonglows’ classics, PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE, recorded in 1958. The Moonglows were among the most important R&B groups of the 1950s, despite the fact that they only had a handful of hits among fewer than 50 recorded songs, in a history that lasted just six years, in sharp contrast to such acts as the Orioles and the Drifters, who were together across decades and recorded huge bodies of work.

Chicago-born Harvey Fuqua was part of a musical family virtually from birth, as the nephew of Ink Spots guitarist Charlie Fuqua, and before he was in his teens was aiming for a career of his own in music. He grew up in Louisville, KY, where he learned the piano and also began singing with his high school classmate Bobby Lester (born January 13, 1930; died October 15, 1980) at dances. They formed a professional duo in Louisville during 1949, after both finished brief periods of serving in the military, and were soon working with saxman and bandleader Ed Wiley, and it was in his group that they started singing jump and blues. Eventually a lack of earnings led them to split up, with Fuqua moving to Cleveland, where he crossed paths with an army buddy, Danny Coggins, and a neighbor of his, Prentiss Barnes who'd previously been a gospel singer, and formed a trio.

Fuqua brought Lester into the group, which was known as the Crazy Sounds, and they started to get work in the area around Cleveland. They were an improvisational singing group that specialized in a technique called vocalese, using their voices to replace instruments, basically in a jazz context, somewhat similar to the work of the Swingle Singers and the Manhattan Transfer. Their first break came in 1952 when they came to the attention of local disc jockey Alan Freed, who was already making a name for himself playing R&B records. They auditioned and did well enough to earn a chance to record on Freed's own Champagne Records label, changing their name to the Moonglows in the process in an effort to hook their recognition to Freed's on-air persona as "Moondog." The group enjoyed a modest local hit with a Lester composition, "I Just Can't Tell No Lie." They began performing in venues throughout the industrial Midwest and underwent their first membership change when Coggins quit for a more stable life as a gas station owner. He was replaced by Alex Walton and Alexander Graves.

Lester and Fuqua shared the lead vocal spot, sometimes even on the same song, and both of them had a keen interest in songwriting as well. The group was special not only for their mix of subtle polish and visceral excitement, but also the sheer attractiveness of the singing and the way in which their arrangements locked it all together -- Lester and Fuqua were the leads and the most visible talents, but there were no weak links anywhere in the Moonglows' sound; from bass to the occasional falsetto, all of the singing was dazzling, animated, and bracing, whether on the jump numbers or the ballads; each of their finished records was the total package, distinctly voiced, gorgeously textured, and exciting. In the early fall of 1953, Freed landed the group a contract with Chance Records, a small Chicago outfit that was making a serious noise in blues and R&B, and already had the Flamingoes and the Spaniels under contract. For a year, they tried to chart with ballads -- including a killer version of "Secret Love" with Lester singing lead -- and jump numbers but saw little success at Chance, before they were dropped.

In October of 1954, the group moved to Chess Records, and their first session was one of the most productive in the history of the label, yielding 13 songs including one of the biggest hits in Chess' history, "Sincerely" -- authored by Fuqua (with Freed taking half the royalties as "co-author," a common arrangement at the time for Freed and other managers), the Moonglows' recording charted in December of that year and bumped "Earth Angel" by the Penguins out of the number one R&B spot the following month, and later climbed to number 20 on the Hot 100 pop chart. The single rode the R&B listings for 20 weeks and sold over a quarter of a million copies, an extraordinary number for Chess in those days and all of it happening before R&B had fully crossed over to white listeners.

It was numbers like this that were delighting independent executives like Phil and Leonard Chess, and giving ulcers to executives at the major labels, who saw something happening in music that they'd somehow missed over the preceding year or two and were having trouble grasping even then. In the case of "Sincerely," it was such an attractive song that it begged to be covered by other artists in other styles -- thus, the Moonglows became one of the earliest R&B groups to see an original of theirs picked up by a pop act, when the white sibling vocal trio the McGuire Sisters covered "Sincerely" in a pop style and got a number one pop hit and a million-selling single out of it. The success of the Moonglows' original version was the break they'd been waiting for, and they began playing some of the best gigs of their history, as part of Freed's huge package shows alongside acts like Joe Turner, the Clovers, and Lowell Fulson. In early 1955, the group's ranks expanded with the addition of Billy Johnson, a guitarist who'd previously played with Charles Brown. During the summer of 1955, the group was part of a package tour that included Muddy Waters, Sarah Vaughan, and Nappy Brown.

Alas, they found it difficult to repeat the crossover pop success of SINCERELY (listen to Volume 8) -- the group did produce such worthy efforts as "Most of All" (number five R&B), "Foolish Me," "Starlite," and "In My Diary." Then, in the middle and latter half of 1956, they succeeded anew with the ballad "We Go Together," which reached number nine on the R&B charts and attracted considerable interest from young white listeners in the bargain; and the rock & roll number "See Saw," which reached number nine R&B and got to number 25 on the pop charts. During this period, Chess also briefly attempted to double-up on the group's approach to the airwaves and radio play lists by taking some of the sides featuring Lester and Fuqua together on lead and issuing those under the name "the Moonlighters."

The group's status in the hierarchy of rock & roll -- or, at least, that corner of it under the control of Freed -- was confirmed when the Moonglows were included in the jukebox movie Rock, Rock, Rock, working alongside Chuck Berry, the Flamingoes, LaVern Baker, the Johnny Burnette Trio, and Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. Later that same year, they also began work on what was to have been their debut LP, and early in 1957 they made another screen appearance, in Mr. Rock and Roll, a second jukebox feature, sandwiched in between many of the same acts as the prior movie -- this was to mark the last screen appearance of the original group, however.

During 1957, in the wake of their unfinished debut album, Lester receded from the lead vocal spot, yielding it to Fuqua, who already dominated the group as a producer, songwriter, and their de facto vocal arranger. PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE TO LOVE, which got to number five R&B and number 73 on the pop charts, featured Fuqua on lead vocals and reduced Lester to back-up. The friction between Lester and Fuqua continued through most of the year, and the latter's increasing control of the group's direction also caused friction with Barnes, Graves, and Johnson, who were more or less caught in the middle between the two most identifiable voices in the group. Complicating their strained internal dynamics were the changes in public taste that had taken place since 1955 -- they not only couldn't decide who ought to be leading them, or agree on who should sing lead, but also on which direction their music should go in, toward the more pop-oriented sound of the Platters, who were selling large numbers of records to white audiences, or toward the harder sound that seemed to be coming out of some quarters of the black community, and seemed to be where black listeners were moving.

Torn by these multiple schisms, the Moonglows' lineup collapsed under circumstances that are still a bit murky, in terms of who decided what and who exited. In late 1957, a pair of sides were recorded featuring Fuqua and possibly Johnson, and in early 1958, a new single appeared entitled "Ten Commandments of Love," featuring Fuqua as a speaker. It reached number nine as an R&B hit and number 22 as a pop single, the group's best pop performance in two years and one of their biggest sellers, except that it wasn't credited to the Moonglows -- rather, it was also credited to Harvey & the Moonglows, and precisely who was singing on it behind Fuqua is still a matter of conjecture; some sources attribute the back-up to the original Moonglows, whereas others say with assurance that it was Fuqua's "new" Moonglows, actually formerly known as the Marquees, a Washington, D.C., outfit consisting of Marvin Gaye, Reese Palmer, James Knowland, and Chester Simmons. What is clear is that they accompanied Fuqua over the next year or so, credited as Harvey & the Moonglows. The group's ranks changed quickly -- though he kept Gaye, who had sung lead on the group's recording of "Mama Loocie," with him -- and eventually included a young Chuck Barksdale, from the Dells.

In addition to his work with the new group, Fuqua was featured on solo singles throughout 1958, including "Don't Be Afraid of Love," which he co-authored with Berry Gordy Jr. and Billy Davis, and also turned up miming in the last (and best) of the Freed showcase films, Go Johnny Go. Fuqua's professional association with Gordy had begun when they met, on the latter's visit to Chess to license the early sides of the Miracles; the two wrote songs together, and eventually Fuqua married Gordy's sister Gwen. He continued recording for several more years, including some legendary sides with Etta James, but increasingly concentrated on the purely creative rather than the performing side of music. After operating such independent labels as Tri-Phi (where he recorded not only his own and the later Harvey & the Moonglows stuff, but also the early Spinners, whom he discovered as the Domingoes, and with whom he sang as well), he joined Motown as the executive in charge of developing new talent, and became not only successful in that department but also as a producer and songwriter, and was collaborating successfully with Smokey Robinson in the 1990s.

Having had the group and the group name pulled out from under him, Lester went solo on the Chess label for a short time, before giving up performing for a decade. His name was well known enough and the recordings left behind with the group were good enough, however, so that as late as 1962 Chess saw the point in releasing a single credited to "Bobby Lester & the Moonglows," consisting of "Blue Velvet" and "Penny Arcade," the A-side culled from the group's abortive late 1956 album sessions -- this may have been simply Chess's way of trying to amortize everything but the kitchen sink in their operation, but it is difficult to imagine any other artist of the era, apart from Elvis Presley or Clyde McPhatter (or deceased figures such as Buddy Holly or Eddie Cochran), getting their six-year-old recordings pushed as new releases.

Johnson passed through gigs backing Jackie Wilson and Brook Benton before joining Motown Records, and passed away in the late '80s. Walton put together a new Moonglows lineup in 1964 to cover some of the group's '50s sides, but this effort didn't last long, and Graves and Barnes left the music business, and the original Moonglows were consigned to history, apart from Chess' periodic attempts to continue selling sides left in the vaults. The label also released of a pair of LPs made up of the group's single sides, Look, It's the Moonglows (1959) and The Best of Bobby Lester & the Moonglows (1962). Chess kept several vestiges of the Moonglows sound alive more profitably when they signed the Dells, and the group's sound could also be heard in the early work of the Four Tops (who had also spent time on Chess) and the Temptations at Motown.

Lester tried reviving the group name twice, at the beginning and end of the '70s, and even recut "Sincerely" the first time around. That composition remained the jewel in Fuqua's songbag -- in 1990, 36 years after the Moonglows cut their version and 35 years after the McGuire Sisters' pop hit, the Forester Sisters' country rendition of "Sincerely" earned a Grammy nomination; that same year, filmmaker Martin Scorsese (who is known to take a very deep interest in the music used in his movies) used the Moonglows' version of the song in the film Goodfellas. Between the original and the successful covers, "Sincerely" bids fair to remain a popular song well into the 21st century.

ONE SUMMER NIGHT, the eighteenth track of this volume, is a very relaxing selection concerning romance. The artists, the Danleers, were from the New York City area. With their debut single ONE SUMMER NIGHT, the Danleers became one of the most successful vocal groups of the late '50s. Written by the group's songwriter/manager Danny Webb and recorded during their first recording session, the tune reached the pop Top Ten and sold over a million copies. The Danleers were one of many vocal groups that arose out of the street corners, playgrounds, and tenement hallways of Brooklyn. Originally a quintet, featuring lead singer Jimmy Weston, baritone singer Nat McCune, bass vocalist Roosevelt Mays, and tenors Johnny Lee and Will Ephraim, the band's sound was reinforced by the addition of Webb.

Initially released on the Amp-3 label, ONE SUMMER NIGHT quickly became a local hit and attracted the attention of Mercury, who reissued the tune in June 1958.

After performing at Alan Freed's Labor Day Extravaganza at the Brooklyn Fox Theater, the Danleers were invited to join Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darin, Eddie Cochran, Connie Francis, Dion & the Belmonts, Buddy Holly & the Crickets, Clyde McPhatter, and the Coasters in a nationally touring road show.

ONE SUMMER NIGHT marked the last success for the Brooklyn-based group, however. After three attempts to recapture the momentum of ONE SUMMER NIGHT failed, the group was dropped by Mercury. Reorganized, with different personnel, by Weston, the Danleers released two singles in the mid-'60s that failed to revive their early success.

The Five Satins were very active in the 50’s. One of their popular doo wop songs, TO THE AISLE, is included in track 20 of this volume. The Five Satins are best-known for the doo wop classic IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT (listen to Volume 3), a song that was popular enough to make the group one of the most famous doo wop outfits, although they never had another hit of the same magnitude.

The origins of the Five Satins lie in the Scarlets, a New Haven, Connecticut doo wop group led by Fred Parris. The Scarlets formed in 1953, while Parris was still in high school. The group had a local hit with "Dear One" the following year. In 1954, Parris formed the Five Satins with vocalists Al Denby, Ed Martin and Jim Freeman. Within the next year, Parris had the group record "In the Still of the Night," a song he had recently written, in the basement of a local church. The first single the group released was "In the Still of the Night." The single was released on Standard Records in the spring of 1956. By the end of the year, it had been leased to Ember and it became a huge hit, peaking at number three on the R&B charts and number 25 on the pop charts.

By the time IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT scaled the charts, Parris had been drafted into the army. He was stationed in Japan when the song became a hit, and he was still stationed in Japan when the group recorded the follow-up single, "To the Aisle." For that single, Bill Baker handled the lead vocals. "To the Aisle" became a Top Ten R&B hit in the summer of 1957. Parris returned from the army in 1958. Upon his return, he re-organized the group, adding Richie Freeman, Sylvester Hopkins, West Forbes, and Lou Peeples. This incarnation of the group had a minor hit in the fall of 1959 with "Shadows."

In 1960 IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT re-entered the pop charts thanks to its exposure on Art Laboe's first Oldies but Goodies compilation. The repeated success of the single sparked another minor hit for the band in 1960, a cover of the standard "I'll Be Seeing You." During the remainder of the '60s and early '70s, Parris led various incarnations of the Five Satins through oldies revues in America and Europe; they also recorded occasionally during this time.

In 1974, the group signed a contract with Kirsner Records and released a single, "Two Different Worlds." Two years later, they briefly changed their name to Black Satin and released a single called "Everybody Stand Up and Clap Your Hands (For the Entertainer)," which became a Top 50 R&B hit.

Shortly afterward, the group reverted to the Five Satins name. In 1982, the Five Satins had their last hit with a doo wop medley entitled "Memories of Days Gone By." The single, which was released on Elektra Records, peaked at number 71 on the pop charts. For the remainder of the '80s and the '90s, Fred Parris led various lineups of the Five Satins and the group performed regularly at oldies shows in America and Europe.

The final track in the volume features a love ballad, ONCE IN A WHILE, recorded by the Chimes. There may well have been hundreds of groups during the 1950s that used the name the Chimes. Only the quintet from Brooklyn -- Lenny Cocco (lead), Pat DePrisco (first tenor), Richard Mercado (second tenor), Joseph Croce (baritone), Pat McGuire (bass) -- ever made the charts, however, or became more than local stars.

Lenny Cocco, the son of a Brooklyn accordion player, organized the group in the mid-'50s, and their first record was a vocal arrangement of the old Tommy Dorsey hit ONCE IN A WHILE, which was issued on the Tag label. The quintet scored right out of the box as that record reached number 11, which led to a follow-up record, a recording of the 1930s standard "I'm in the Mood for Love." By 1962, they were cutting songs under the name Lenny & the Chimes. They left Tag Records in 1963, jumping first to Metro and then to Laurie, before releasing a single, "Two Times," on Vee Jay in 1964. The group broke up in 1964 amid the onslaught of the British invasion and the collapse of Vee Jay, but they have re-formed, usually as Lenny & the Chimes, in various configurations for oldies shows since the early '70s.

VOLUME TWO – CRUISING CLASSIC DOO WOPS

1.  The Falcons – You’re So Fine

2.  The Impalas – I Ran All the Way Home

3.  The Clovers – Love Potion Number 9

4.  The Earls – Remember Then

5.  The Chantels – Maybe

6.  The Chantels – I Love You So

7.  The Elegants – Where Are You Little Star

8.  Rochelle and the Candles – Once Upon a Time

9.  The Heartbeats – A Thousand Miles Away

10. Shep and the Limelites – Daddy’s Home

11. The Classics – Till Then

12. The Skyliners – Since I Don’t Have You

13. Little Anthony & the Imperials – Two People in the World

14.  Earl Lewis and the Channels – The Closer You Are

15. The Crests – Six Nights a Week

16. The Crests – Sixteen Candles

17. Little Richard – Send Me Some Loving

18. The Clovers - One Mint Julip

19. Richard Berry – Louie Louie

20. Jack Scott – My True Love

21. Jack Scott – What in the World’s Come Over You

22. Frankie Avalon – Why Because I Love You

23. Johnny Ace – My Pledge of Love

This volume starts with the Falcons recording of YOUR SO FINE, a true doo wop classic. Often credited as having cut the first true soul record in 1959 with YOU’RE SO FINE a host of '60s soul stars called themselves Falcons at one time or another, including founder Eddie Floyd, Wilson Pickett, Sir Mack Rice, and 100 Proof Aged in Soul's Joe Stubbs. Stubbs is the older brother of Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops. Originally an integrated R&B group headed by Floyd, the Falcons debuted on Mercury in 1955. Under the production aegis of Robert West, the Falcons' sound became more gospel-based as time passed, and with Stubbs as lead, the seminal YOU’RE SO FINE was a major hit in 1959. Pickett screamed the gospel-fired ballad "I Found a Love" to national prominence on West's LuPine label in 1962, backed by guitarist Robert Ward's Ohio Untouchables. When Pickett went solo shortly thereafter, the members went their separate ways. West recruited another group, the Fabulous Playboys, who took over the Falcons name, but with little success.

The second song in this volume features another doo wop group from Brooklyn, New York, known as the Impalas. I RAN ALL THE WAY HOME was a major hit on the R & B and top 40 charts in 1959. The Impalas were a racially integrated vocal group. This song scored them their only Top 20 hit (number two pop, number 14 R&B). Forming in 1958, the group -- Joe "Speedo" Frazier (the only black singer), Richard Wagner, Lenny Renda, and Tony Carlucci -- were signed to the Cub label, a subsidiary label of MGM that also issued high-quality stereo recordings by the Five Satins, the Harptones, the Stereos, the Velours, and the Wanderers, to name a few. In August of 1959, Cub issued an album, I RAN ALL THE WAY HOME, which featured other recordings the Impalas made for the label. Unfortunately, no further hits ever came, and they disbanded in 1961.

 LOVE POTION NUMBER 9, the third track of Volume 2 was one of the Clovers songs that was recorded later in their career in 1957. This doo wop group’s history originates in the 1940’s. The birth of soul was definitely influenced by their music.

The Clovers occupy an exalted place in the history of R&B, if not in the minds of many listeners, other than hard-core devotees of the music's history -- the Drifters tend to eclipse them, by virtue of their longer history and the string of hits that the later incarnation of that group had during the 1960s. The truth is that the Clovers not only started earlier than any other act on Atlantic, but they also scored more hits in their six years there than any other R&B act in the label's history.

The group's origins, like those of so many R&B vocal outfits, goes back to the members' middle teenage years. Tenor/baritone Harold "Hal" Lucas, tenor Billy Shelton, and bass Robert Woods were students at Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C., during the mid-'40s when they formed a trio led by Lucas, who also came up with the name the Clovers. A fourth member, John "Buddy" Bailey, another tenor, joined up and eventually became their lead singer, while Lucas started singing baritone. Their early sound was influenced by the likes of such professional outfits of the era as the Orioles and the Ravens.

The history of R&B isn't easily contained within the boundaries of the post-World War II era, when it began gathering popularity. The Clovers took shape over the next few years, as Woods departed to be replaced by Matthew McQuater, and Shelton was succeeded by Harold Winley, and a fifth member, in the guise of guitarist Bill Harris, joined in 1949. During these years, their repertory was largely drawn from the records and set lists of the Orioles and the Ravens, but as the 1950s dawned, the group had begun to embrace a harder, edgier brand of R&B, with less restraint in their embellishments. They were discovered while playing a club in Washington by Baltimore-based entrepreneur Lou Krefetz, who got them onto a small label called Rainbow Records, where they made their debut with "Yes Sir, That's My Baby." It was Ahmet Ertegun, the founder of the then new label, who interceded and, after getting the group onto his label, started feeding them rougher, more rhythm-oriented material, including the first song Ertegun ever wrote, "Don't You Know I Love You" -- according to Nick Tosches, that single was also the first record by an R&B quartet to incorporate a saxophone solo (by Frank Culley) into its structure; the record became a number one R&B hit during the summer of 1951 and heralded a new era in popular music, serving as the template for a decade of R&B hits. Indeed, there are those who identify that record as the very first identifiable rock & roll single.

The group was put in the hands of producer/songwriter Jesse Stone (aka Charles Calhoun), who, with Ertegun, directed them further into this new territory that they suddenly found themselves trailblazing. In April of 1952 ONE MINT JULIP ( listen to the song at the end of this volume) became a number two single, and they followed that up in July with TING-A-LING (Listen to Volume 8) which also got to number two.

The Clovers' fortunes continued until Bailey was drafted during the summer of 1952, and the group didn't see any significant success again until the summer of 1953 when "Good Lovin'" charted at number two with Charlie White, late of Billy Ward's group the Dominoes. (Read their profile in Volume 3) They charted again at number three in the spring of 1954 with "Lovey Dovey,"(which would later have a cover version performed by Clyde McPhatter) and then Billy Mitchell came in as lead singer for "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' but Trash." That single was only a relatively modest hit during the summer of 1954, but it was useful on a whole different level, getting the group a berth in the pioneering rock & roll/R&B short feature Rock 'n' Roll Revue. Beginning in 1955, with Bailey's discharge from the army, he and Mitchell served as joint lead singers in the group.

The Clovers switched to a ballad style in 1955 with the release of "Blue Velvet," which was a modest success at number 14 on the R&B listings. Their next single, "Devil or Angel," the latter an "over-the-transom" submission by an amateur songwriter named Blanche Carter, got to number three, but that marked the end of their run of hits on Atlantic. Ironically, it was those last two singles -- which were really the least representative of their sound of any of their hits -- became their best known singles, getting the widest airplay, though their version of "Devil or Angel" was later eclipsed by Bobby Vee's recording. Following its release, as the rock & roll boom solidified around white performers, guitar-based acts, and novelty tunes, the Clovers experienced a downturn in their fortunes.

They ceased charting singles and after two more years of attempts at reviving their sales, Atlantic released the bluesy sleeper classic "Down in the Alley" (1957), one of the raunchiest songs of its period ever aimed at a mainstream audience, which even had the temerity to project its lustful observations slowly.

Rather than retreat, the act, with the encouragement of their manager, Lou Krefetz, grew bolder. He organized a new label, Poplar Records, and had the Clovers record an entire LP, an extraordinary opportunity for a group that wasn't riding high on the charts at the time -- even the Drifters had never recorded an actual LP at the time, their albums being compilations of previously recorded singles. The group scored with the LP and its accompanying single, "Pennies From Heaven," and it looked as though they might pull out of their ongoing commercial slump. Fate then took a hand as Krefetz was offered the opportunity to become the head of sales for United Artists Records, a newly organized label that had the money of one of the top studios in Hollywood behind them. The manager accepted the offer and was able to fold the Clovers, along with their recordings for Poplar, into the larger company. Krefetz next linked the group up with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the result being the biggest pop hit in the group's history, in the form of "Love Potion No. 9," sung by Billy Mitchell, and peaked at number 23 (which, oddly enough, was the same slot it occupied on the R&B charts).

Alas, this was to be the group's last success. They never found another producer as effective as Leiber and Stoller, much less Ertegun or Stone, and even when they returned to work with Stone, they were unable to find a way back to the charts; even re-recording their old hits, such as "One Mint Julep," failed to attract any listeners.

By 1961, the group had parted company with United Artists, and soon they were grasping at straws commercially, spiraling down in a series of contracts with ever smaller and weaker labels, losing Matthew McQuater in the process. The group splintered, with Billy Mitchell and Harold Lucas reorganizing the lineup with a pair of members from another group, the Bachelors, James "Toy" Walton and Robert Russell. They made a brief return to Atlantic in 1961 without any resulting rebound in sales, and after that, the group's situation became complicated by the existence of rival incarnations -- along with Mitchell's outfit was a group called (at times) "the Fabulous Clovers," led by Bailey. Roosevelt "Tippie" Hubbard succeeded Mitchell, leading a quartet called "Tippie and the Clovers," who cut sides for Leiber and Stoller's Tiger label, among them "Bossa Nova Baby," a number that was even an embarrassment to Elvis Presley when he did it.

By the dawn of the rock & roll revival at the turn of the 1960s into the 1970s, the Clovers' situation had become at least as complicated as that of the Drifters, with multiple groups claiming the name in various performing venues and recording situations. None of it really mattered by then, as the recordings had assumed a life of their own, separate from any performances by survivors or pretenders. The group was honored by the Rhythm-and-Blues Foundation in 1988 with a Pioneer Award, given to surviving members Bailey, McQuater, Lucas, and Winley, and thanks to the CD boom, their classic Atlantic sides have been more readily available since the 1990s than they've been at any time since the mid-'50s, Rhino Records keeping two different hits compilations in print while Collectables Records has reissued their two Atlantic LPs on a single CD.

The Earls sing the fourth track, entitled REMEMBER THEN.   Among the more revered white doo wop groups, the Earls began as the High Hatters. They formed in 1957 at the Tecumseh Social Club in the Bronx. Lead vocalist Larry Figueiredo changed his name to Larry Chance; he was joined by Bob Del Din, Eddie Harder, Larry Palumbo, and Jack Wray. They started recording for Rome in 1961. They scored their lone hit in 1963 with REMEMBER THEN for Old Town. It barely cracked the R&B Top 30 (number 29), but they continued until 1970, when they disbanded. The Earls gave it another try in 1975 with Chance on board again, this time singing with Ronnie Calabreese and Tony Olbert.

One of the most popular girl doo wop groups of the 50’s and 60’s were the Chantels, lead by Arlene Smith. This volume features two of their hits MAYBE and I LOVE YOU SO on tracks five and six respectfully.

One of the very first girl groups, the Chantels are best-known for their 1957 recording of MAYBE. Between 1957 and 1963, the trio racked up a number of hit singles, but none of them was ever as popular as MAYBE, which came to be regarded as one of the definitive singles of the genre.

All five members of the Chantels -- Arlene Smith, Lois Harris, Sonia Goring, Jackie Landry, and Rene Minus -- met as children, when they sang in the choir of Saint Anthony of Padua, a Bronx-area school. Arlene Smith was the leader of the quintet. Smith wrote all of the group's early material and she was the one who convinced the other girls -- whose age ranged between 14 and 17 at the time -- to audition for Richard Barrett, a record producer and a member of the doo wop group the Valentines. Barrett signed the band to End Records and produced the Chantels' first single, a Smith song called "He's Gone." Released in the summer of 1957, the single peaked at number 71. However, the group's second single -- another Smith composition called "Maybe" -- was a smash hit, peaking at number two on the R&B charts and number 15 on the pop charts in early 1958. "Maybe" sold more copies than its chart position suggests; the single was pirated by several other small record labels and none of those sales were tallied for the final chart position.

For the next year, the Chantels tried in vain to deliver a follow-up as successful MAYBE. Two hit singles -- "Every Night (I Pray)" and I LOVE YOU SO -- followed on End Records, but the label dropped them after a handful of other records failed to make an impact. Around that time, Smith left the group to pursue a solo career and Harris had left the group. The Chantels didn't replace either singer and continued as a trio.

In the summer of 1959, the group supported Richard Barrett on his single, "Summer's Love," which peaked at number 29 on the R&B charts. In 1961, the Chantels signed with Carlton Records, where they had two minor pop hits: "Look in My Eyes" and "Well, I Told You." Carlton dropped the group the following year and the band moved to Ludix, where they had a minor hit with "Eternally" in the spring of 1963.

The Chantels continued performing until the end of the decade; they officially disbanded in 1970. A few years later, Arlene Smith re-formed the Chantels, recruiting four new members; the other original members all retired from the entertainment business. Smith continued to lead various incarnations of the Chantels into the '90s. When she wasn't touring the oldies circuit with the Chantels, Smith worked as a schoolteacher.

For the seventh track, Volume 2 features the Elegants. This New York doo wop group earned notoriety for their LITTLE STAR in 1958, which topped both R&B and pop charts. They were a white ensemble led by Vito Picone with Arthur Venosa, Frank Tardogono, Carmen Romano, and James Mochella. All had been in other groups before uniting as the Elgins. They continued recording for Hull, United Artists, Limelight, Photo, IPG, and Laurie through the '50s, '60s, and into the '70s, but never had another hit, despite cutting a number of solid ballads. There were two other editions in the mid-'60s, Vito Piccone with the Elegants and Vito & the Elegants.

Rochell and the Candles were a male quartet that had a brief encounter with success when they recorded ONCE UPON A TIME, the eighth track in this volume, in 1958. The group was formed in Los Angeles in 1958 by Rochell Henderson, Johnny Wyatt, Mel Sasso, and the unrelated T.C. Henderson. The group cut four sides including ONCE UPON A TIME in the home studio of Ted Brinson, a former pro musician whose facility was widely used by budget-conscious clients in the R & B field. At least two major hits, "Earth Angel" and :"Western Movies" (listen to volumes 3 and 7) had been recorded there in the 1950’s. Brinson would switch on his tape machine before running into the studio to play the bass.

It wasn’t until the mid- 1960’s, when doo wop underwent a resurgence of popularity that the group approached R & B DJ Hunter Hancock whose record label, "Swingin," had recently scored a pop hit with "There is Something on Your Mind", by Big Jay McNeely. (Listen to volumes 4 and 8 to hear this track sung by The Hollywood Flames and Bobby Marchan respectfully) Hancock test-marketed a dub of ONCE UPON A TIME on the air before releasing it. Initial pressings credited Johnny Wyatt and Rochell Henderson as the writers when in fact the song had been written and recorded in 1958 by a West Coast blues vocalist named Jimmy Johnson whose name was substituted on subsequent pressings. Wyatt, lead vocalist on "Once Upon a Time", went on to record as a solo vocalist before his death in 1983.

Tracks nine and ten of this volume are by the Heartbeats, lead by James "Shep" Sheppard. The co-wrote a series of velvety doo wop ballads for the Heartbeats during the mid-'50s; one entry, A THOUSAND MILES AWAY, was a huge R&B seller in 1956. The Queens, NY, quintet began their string of street-corner classics with "Crazy for You" and "Darling How Long," culminating with "A Thousand Miles Away." The Heartbeats recorded for Hull, Rama, Roulette, Gee, and Guyden before packing it in. In 1961 the lead singer formed a new trio, Shep & the Limelites, and scored on the charts with a heartwarming sequel to his first hit, DADDY’S HOME for Hull. "Our Anniversary" also sold well for the trio the next year, but they broke up soon thereafter.

The acquisition of Sheppard helped the Heartbeats twofold: not only could he blow, he also wrote gorgeous ballads. Shortly after he joined the Hearts, they became the Heartbeat Quintet and started playing clubs, weddings, graduations, ceremonies, and basement parties. Jazz saxophonist Illinois Jacquet befriended them and let them rehearse in his basement. Jacquet's brother arranged their first recording opportunity. "Tormented," a ballad written by Sheppard, was released on Network Records in Philadelphia, but lack of promotion killed any chance of success. After shortening their name to the Heartbeats, they came to the attention of William Miller, who worked for Hull Records. He introduced the quintet to owner Bea Caslin, who was impressed by their tight harmonies and Sheppard's songwriting skills; the group was soon signed to the label. Three initial releases sold well, particularly the magnificent "Your Way"; all were ballads written by Sheppard.

The minor successes of the recordings encouraged Hull Records to invest in professional choreography to tighten the band's stage presentation. Appearances at premier New York venues like the Brooklyn Fox and the Apollo had become common. To the surprise of Hull Records, fans called radio stations in record numbers demanding to hear the flip of "Baby Don't Go," the exquisite A THOUSAND MILES AWAY. Sheppard's craving for an ex-girlfriend who moved to Texas had inspired "A Thousand." Not only did the song do well locally and regionally, it started selling nationwide. Bookings poured in, providing appearances with luminaries like Ray Charles, B.B. King, and the Flamingos. Touring, however, didn't prove lucrative, as they experienced an inordinate share of misfortunes including vehicle breakdowns and promoters leaving with the proceeds. DADDY’S HOME would be the Heartbeats' final Hull Record release.

Bea Caslin then sold the Heartbeats' contract and the publishing rights to the Roulette Record conglomerate. "I Won't Be the Fool Anymore" came out on Rama Records in 1957; after another Rama release, Roulette switched them to Gee Records, and eventually to Roulette itself. "500 Miles to Go" and "After New Year's Eve" were the most successful commercially, while "Down on My Knees" was the most notable artistically.

Problems within the group began to show: the last straw came when Sheppard passed out at the microphone in Philadelphia, and bandmate Al Crump sang the lyrics until Sheppard was able to continue. The group wanted to breakup after this embarrassment but had commitments, so the group sang on gigs as a quartet doing standards, and Sheppard appeared afterward to sing the Heartbeat hits. They did their last gig in 1959 at the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., and Sheppard opened a restaurant in Jamaica, Queens, singing solo on the side.

Shep & the Limelites' name will forever be etched in rock & roll history for recording the endearing DADDY’S HOME a tender ballad about returning from war that soared to number two on the pop charts in May 1961. James Sheppard's career began with the Heartbeats, a band from Jamaica, Queens, NY. (They were the Hearts until a female group from Harlem with the same name scored a minor hit called "Lonely Nights" in early 1955.) The Hearts would mimic songs by the Orioles, the Ravens, Five Keys, the Moonglows, the Larks, the Flamingos, and others. When not rehearsing, they competed with wannabes in parks and under street corner lamps. During one encounter they battled a group led by James Sheppard; impressed, the Hearts asked Sheppard to be their new lead.

Two years after the the Heartbeats' demise, Sheppard met some old friends -- Clarence Bassett and Charles Baskerville of the Videos -- and formed Shep & the Limelites. Bassett had also warbled with the Five Sharps. After two flops on Apt. Records, Shep returned to Hull Records and Caslin signed them on the spot. "Daddy's Home" was Shep & the Limelites' first Hull release and it nearly aced the pop chart, stopping at number two. (Ricky Nelson's "Travelin' Man" kept it from the top spot.) Hull released 12 Shep & the Limelites singles between 1961 and 1965. "Our Anniversary" went to number seven R&B in 1962 and was their only other chart success. Personal differences caused the Limelites to disband by 1966. Baskervlle joined the Players, and Bassett sang with the Flamingos and later Creative Funk. Sheppard reunited with the Limelites in 1970 to perform on the oldie revival circuit, but this quickly ended when Sheppard was found on January 24, 1970, shot to death in his car on the Long Island expressway

The eleventh track of volume 2 features the Classics’ recording of TILL THEN. The Classics were a white harmony vocal group from Brooklyn, NY, similar to the Mystics or the Earls. Originally known as the Perennials, they consisted of Emil Stucchio on lead, Tony Victor as first tenor, Johnny Gambale as second tenor, and bass/baritone Jamie Troy. They'd been singing together in high school, two of them coming out of another local group called the Del-Rays, and became known in their neighborhood at dances and clubs. They turned professional after attracting the attention of manager Jim Gribble, and made their recording debut during the summer of 1959 with "Cinderella," a group original that showcased their range, from falsetto to bass with a rocking beat, and which just missed charting in early 1960.

They failed to hit with their second single, "Angel Angela," and just missed the pop listings again with "Life Is But a Dream" in early 1961, though the latter record, after it was picked up by Mercury, earned a place on the R&B charts. Their next record, a version of "Blue Moon" cut with Herb Lance singing lead and the group members in a support role, made it to number 50 on Billboard's Hot 100. In 1963, the group switched to the Musicnote label and made the Top 20 their first time out for the newly founded company, with TILL THEN. The latter remains their best-known record. The group's strength lay in their handling of ballads -- they loved reviving '20s and '30s standards such as "P.S. I Love You" and "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams," though they also wrote their share of songs; they were never quite as successful or distinctive doing numbers with more of a beat.

One reason why they aren't better known today beyond the ranks of harmony vocal enthusiasts may have to do with the fact that the Classics were seldom on the same label for two releases in a row, moving among Dart, Musicnote, Stork, and other small companies, and only attracted a major label's interest the one time, with the Mercury pick-up of "Life Is But a Dream." And for every "Life Is But a Dream" that passed muster with R&B stations and listeners, they recorded three songs like the straight pop "Again." After "Till Then," they never made the pop charts, which was understandable -- rock & roll was changing and the kind of harmony vocal sound that was selling, rooted in the more focused West Coast-generated surf sound of the Beach Boys and in the flashier, more beat-driven work of the Four Seasons, was very different from the Classics' more elegant brand of harmonizing. Occasionally, as on "Portrait of a Fool" -- an original, no less -- they could deliver a pop ballad that crossed over to rock & roll successfully, but a lot of their other output couldn't compete with the sounds of the mid-'60s, next to which they sounded ever more dated.

The group moved among labels throughout the 1960s without ever finding a home, and split up around 1966; by that time, their sound was very much an anachronism and there seemed to be little point to continuing. During the oldies boom of the early '70s, however, Stucchio and Troy joined with Lou Rotundo, originally from a rival Brooklyn group called the Passions, and formed a new vocal group called the Profits, who recorded briefly for Sire Records before changing their name to the Classics, under which they finished their career. Stucchio is still performing with a version of the Classics as of 2003, his lead voice one of the most beloved ever to come out of Brooklyn, and the group performs up and down the East Coast regularly. In 2001, Collectables Records released Till Then: The Very Best of the Classics, a 20-song compilation covering their history from 1959 through the late '60s.

The twelfth track of the volume features the well-known Pittsburgh sound of Jimmy Beaumont and the Skyliners. This steel city vocal group made a magnificent heartache ballad in 1959, SINCE I DON’T HAVE YOU.It remains among R&B's ultimate agonizing triumphs, and Chuck Jackson later did an equally gripping version. Jimmy Beaumont was the lead vocalist, with Janet Vogel, Wally Lester, Joe VerScharen, and Jackie Taylor. Beaumont, Taylor, and Lester had been in the Crescents, while Vogel and VerScharen were alumni of the El Rios. Their follow-up, "This I Swear," was a creditable effort that peaked at number 20 on the R&B charts, but few remember it. Oddly, "Since I Don't Have You" only reached number three on the R&B side and number 12 on the pop charts. But it's certainly one song for whom the numbers really don't come close to telling the story. The Skyliners had two chart singles on Callico and then had one other song reach the R&B Top 40 in 1965, "The Loser," for Jubilee,

For track 13, we visit Little Anthony and the Imperials, one of the most popular doo wop groups of the 1950’s and 1960’s. This group enjoyed one of the longest career runs of any doo wop singers, adapting their honey-smooth doo wop style to fit the sweet uptown soul sound of the mid-'60s. (Listen to volume 9 to the soul classic TEARS ON MY PILLOW). Right from the beginning, Little Anthony's aching way with a ballad was the group's calling card, but their repertoire was balanced by more R&B-inflected dance tunes. Little Anthony was born Jerome Anthony Gourdine in 1940, and grew up in Brooklyn's Fort Greene projects. While in high school, he sang in a doo wop group called the Duponts, who recorded a single called "Prove It Now" in 1957.

They disbanded after graduation, however, and Gourdine joined another group called the Chesters, which had been formed by his friend Clarence Collins (baritone) and also featured longtime friend Ernest Wright Jr. (tenor); the other members were Tracy Lord (tenor) and Nat Rogers (bass). After a one-off single for Apollo, they landed a record deal with the End label in 1958, at which point their name was changed to the Imperials. ("Little Anthony" was later tagged onto the beginning by DJ Alan Freed.)The Imperials' first single for End was the classic heartache ballad "Tears on My Pillow," a Top Five smash on both the pop and R&B charts. Little Anthony's dramatic interpretation was certainly helped in the public eye by his youthful-sounding voice and name, which recalled the recently popular Frankie Lymon. The single's B-side, "Two People in the World," was also something of a hit, making the Imperials one of the hottest vocal groups around.

Landing a follow-up hit proved difficult, however; the group charted several singles -- "So Much," "Wishful Thinking," "A Prayer and a Juke Box" -- without even approaching their earlier success. Finally, the novelty dance track "Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop" caught on in 1960 and returned Little Anthony & the Imperials to the upper reaches of the charts (though it missed the Top Ten). The follow-ups "My Empty Room" and "Please Say You Want Me" flopped, however, and Little Anthony decided to try a solo career in late 1961.The Imperials continued on with a new lineup of Collins, Wright, Sammy Strain, and George Kerr, the latter of whom was replaced by Kenny Seymour in 1962. Neither Little Anthony nor his erstwhile group had any luck on their own, and in late 1963 he returned to the fold, replacing Seymour.

The next summer, the reconstituted Imperials signed with the DCP label, where producer/songwriter Teddy Randazzo made them a priority. His first effort with the group, "I'm on the Outside (Looking In)," reached number 15 on both the pop and R&B charts in 1964, reestablishing the Imperials as a commercial presence. The follow-up, "Goin' Out of My Head," was a smash, returning them to the pop Top Ten for the first time since "Tears on My Pillow"; it was covered quite often in the years that followed, and grew into something of a pop standard. The Imperials' streak of good fortune continued with the equally dramatic ballad "Hurt So Bad," another Top Ten hit that also became their second R&B Top Fiver in 1965. A couple of smaller hits followed later that year in "I Miss You So" and the pop/R&B Top 20 "Take Me Back."Little Anthony & the Imperials continued to chart singles over the next several years, but only one -- 1969's "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" -- breached the Top 50 on either the pop or R&B sides.

That same year, the group switched labels to United Artists, and Ernest Wright Jr. departed to join singer Tony Williams' latter-day version of the Platters. He was replaced by a returning Kenny Seymour, who was in turn replaced by Bobby Wade in 1971, the year of the group's last chart single, "Help Me Find a Way (To Say I Love You)." Sammy Strain left in 1972 and wound up joining the O'Jays four years later; his replacement was Harold Jenkins. Little Anthony himself left the group a second time in 1975 to pursue solo recording as well as an acting career, which effectively spelled the end of the road; nonetheless, a Collins-led lineup did manage to score one last hit in the U.K., 1977's "Who's Gonna Love Me." Little Anthony became a born-again Christian in 1978 and subsequently recorded a gospel album, Daylight. Anthony, Collins, Wright, and Strain reunited in 1992 and toured the oldies circuit steadily thereafter.

Track 14 features Earl Lewis and the Channels, were one of the early pioneers of doo wop music. While never having a run of hits, the Channels were among the most popular East Coast doo wop ensembles. Larry Hampden, Billy Morris, and Edward Doulphin were charter members of the Channels, who formed in 1955. They started with two part-time members, but then absorbed lead vocalist Earl Michael Lewis and Clifton Wright from the Lotharios. Lewis became their principal songwriter and he penned their best-known hit, THE CLOSER YOU ARE. The Channels also brought a fresh style to doo wop singing with their practice of opening a verse in five-part harmony, then having Lewis sing lead in the bridge. Later releases like "The Gleam in Your Eye" and "I Really Love You" were superbly performed, but never got the push needed for national recognition. They later recorded for Gone, Fury, Port, Hit, Enjoy, and Groove with numerous personnel changes.

The Crests were formed in the New York City area in 1956. Track 15 features one of the group’s lesser known songs, SIX NIGHTS A WEEK. One of the most successful integrated doo wop groups, the Crests waxed the classic ballad 16 CANDLES (track 16) in 1959 They began recording in 1958 for Joyce, where they inched onto the pop lists with "Sweetest One." Moving to the brand-new Coed logo, Johnny Maestro's (b. May 7, 1930) warm tenor made 16 CANDLES a national smash, and pop/R&B hybrids like "The Angels Listened In" and "Step by Step" also did well. Maestro went solo in 1960, scoring the next year with "Model Girl" on Coed, while the Crests attempted to survive on their own. Maestro eventually reclaimed stardom as leader of Brooklyn Bridge, an 11-piece aggregation that hit with "Worst That Could Happen" in 1968.

For track 17, we feature Little Richard in a rare mood. This song demonstrates his ability to sing love ballads. Yes, this is the same artist that is the well-known hard-rocker. Notice the pleading message presented in the cut SEND ME SOME LOVING.

One of the original rock & roll greats, Little Richard merged the fire of gospel with New Orleans R&B, pounding the piano and wailing with gleeful abandon. While numerous other R&B greats of the early 1950s had been moving in a similar direction, none of them matched the sheer electricity of Richard's vocals. With his bullet-speed deliveries, ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed force of personality in his singing, he was crucial in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock & roll. Although he was only a hitmaker for a couple of years or so, his influence upon both the soul and British Invasion stars of the 1960s was vast, and his early hits remain core classics of the rock repertoire.

Heavily steeped in gospel music while growing up in Georgia, when Little Richard began recording in the early '50s he played unexceptional jump blues/R&B that owed a lot to his early inspirations Billy Wright and Roy Brown. In 1955, at Lloyd Price's suggestion, Richard sent a demo tape to Specialty Records, who were impressed enough to sign him and arrange a session for him in New Orleans. That session, however, didn't get off the ground until Richard began fooling around with a slightly obscene ditty during a break. With slightly cleaned-up lyrics, "Tutti Frutti" was the record that gave birth to Little Richard as we know him -- the gleeful "woo!"s, the furious piano playing, the sax-driven, pedal-to-the-metal rhythm section. It was also his first hit, although, ridiculous as it now seems, Pat Boone's cover version outdid Richard's on the hit parade.

Pat Boone would also try to cover Richard's next hit, "Long Tall Sally," but by that time it was evident that audiences black and white much preferred the real deal. In 1956 and 1957, Richard reeled off a string of classic hits -- "Long Tall Sally," "Slippin' and "Slidin'," "Jenny, Jenny," "Keep a Knockin'," "Good Golly, Miss Molly," "The Girl Can't Help It" -- that remain the foundation of his fame. While Richard's inimitable mania was the key to his best records, he also owed a lot of his success to the gutsy playing of ace New Orleans session players like Lee Allen (tenor sax), Alvin Tyler (baritone sax), and especially Earl Palmer (drummer), who usually accompanied the singer in both New Orleans and Los Angeles studios. Richard's unforgettable appearances in early rock & roll movies, especially The Girl Can't Help It, also did a lot to spread the rock & roll gospel to the masses.

Little Richard was at the height of his commercial and artistic powers when he suddenly quit the business during an Australian tour in late 1957, enrolling in a Bible college in Alabama shortly after returning to the States. Richard had actually been feeling the call of religion for a while before his announcement, but it was nonetheless a shock to both his fans and the music industry. Specialty drew on unreleased sessions for a few more hard-rocking singles in the late '50s, but Richard virtually vanished from the public eye for a few years. When he did return to recording, it was as a gospel singer, cutting a few little-heard sacred sides for End, Mercury, and Atlantic in the early '60s.

By 1962, though, Richard had returned to rock & roll, touring Britain to an enthusiastic reception. Among the groups that supported him on those jaunts were the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, whose vocals (Paul McCartney's especially) took a lot of inspiration from Richard's. In 1964, the Beatles cut a knockout version of "Long Tall Sally," with McCartney on lead, that may have even outdone the original. It's been speculated that the success of the Beatles, and other British Invaders who idolized Richard, finally prompted the singer into making a full-scale comeback as an unapologetic rock & roller. Hooking up with Specialty once again, he had a small hit in 1964 with "Bama Lama Bama Loo." These and other sides were respectable efforts in the mold of his classic '50s sides, but tastes had changed too much for Little Richard to climb the charts again. He spent the rest of the '60s in a continual unsuccessful comeback, recording for Vee-Jay (accompanied on some sides by Jimi Hendrix, who was briefly in Richard's band), OKeh, and Modern (for whom he even tried recording in Memphis with Stax session musicians).

 It was the rock & roll revival of the late '60s and early '70s, though, that really saved Richard's career, enabling him to play on the nostalgia circuit with great success (though he had a small hit, "Freedom Blues," in 1970). He had always been a flamboyant performer, brandishing a six-inch pompadour and mascara, and constant entertaining appearances on television talk shows seemed to ensure his continuing success as a living legend. Yet by the late '70s, he'd returned to the church again. Somewhat predictably, he eased back into rock and show business by the mid-'80s. Since then, he's maintained his profile with a role in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (the movie's soundtrack also returned him to the charts, this time with "Great Gosh A-Mighty") and guest appearances on soundtracks, compilations, and children's rock records. At this point it's safe to assume that he never will get that much-hungered-for comeback hit, but he remains one of rock & roll's most colorful icons, still capable of turning on the charm and charisma in his infrequent appearances in the limelight

 Our nineteenth rack features Richard Berry, the original writer of the oldies classic LOUIE LOUIE.  In fact, if for no other reason than that he was the original writer and performer of LOUIE LOUIE (itself based on "El Loca Cha Cha" by Rene Touzet), Richard Berry holds a permanent place of honor in the history of rock & roll. Beyond that, though, Berry was an important, if secondary, figure of the early- and mid-'50s Los Angeles R&B scene.

As a teenager with the Flairs and as a solo act, Berry recorded quite a few singles that demonstrated his versatility with ballads, novelty songs, and even Little Richard-styled numbers. His facility with deep-voiced comic material was a clear forerunner of the Coasters, and in fact he was the uncredited lead singer on Leiber & Stoller's "Riot in Cell Block #9," recorded by the Robins (later to mutate into the Coasters). He took another uncredited vocal as Ella James' deep-voiced sparring partner on "Roll With Me, Henry," one of the biggest R&B hits of the mid-'50s. Berry originally recorded "Louie Louie" in 1956; the record was a regional hit in several West Coast cities, but no more than that.

Berry's recording career petered out in the late '50s, though he remained an active performer. In the early '60s, several Northwest bands seized upon "Louie Louie" as cover material, scoring sizable regional hits; finally, in 1963 the Kingsmen broke the song nationally, reaching number two. In the decades since then, "Louie Louie" became one of the most oft-covered rock standards of all time; there probably exists well over 1,000 versions. The song was investigated by the FBI and inspired parades and campaigns to adopt it as the official song of the state of Washington. The original version ironically remains extremely difficult to find, appearing only on obscure compilations (the Berry version on Rhino's Louie Louie anthology is a re-recording). For Berry there was a happy ending -- in the late '80s he regained the rights to his song that he had lost many years ago

Tracks 20 and 21 in this volume are sang by Jack Scott. Often labeled as "The Elvis Pressley of Canada, Jack Scott sounded tough, like someone you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley unless he had a guitar in his hands. When he growled "The Way I Walk," wise men (and women) stepped aside. Despite his snarling rockabilly attitude, Scott hailed from Ontario, Canada, and grew up near Detroit, developing a love for hillbilly music along the way. His first sides for ABC/Paramount in 1957 exhibited a profound country-rock synthesis, and after moving to the Carlton label, Scott hit the charts the next year with the tremulous ballad MY TRUE LOVE backed by his vocal group, the Chantones. Flip it over, however, and you have the hauling rocker "Leroy," all about some wacked-out tough guy who's content to remain behind the bars of his local jail. Scott's pronounced emphasis on acoustic guitar distinguishes atmospheric rockers like "Goodbye Baby," "Go Wild Little Sadie," "Midgie," and "Geraldine." But his principal pop success came with tears-in-your-beer country-based ballads – WHAT IN THE WORLD’S COME OVER YOU and "Burning Bridges" were massive smashes on Top Rank in 1960, and he recorded an entire album's worth of Hank Williams covers for the firm the same year.

Born in Windsor, Ontario, Scott (born Jack Scafone Jr., January 28, 1936) moved to a town on the outskirts of Detroit, MI, when he was ten years old. At the age of 18, he formed the Southern Drifters and after leading the band for three years, he signed to ABC as a solo artist in 1957. Over the next year, he released a handful of singles for the label before moving to Carlton Records the following year. His double-A-sided debut for Carlton, "My True Love"/"Leroy," became a huge hit, with the first song peaking at number three and the latter at number 11; it also became a Top Ten hit in England. During the next two years, Scott had a number of minor hits for Carlton, highlighted by the number eight hit "Goodbye Baby" (fall 1958). On most of these tracks, the Chantones provided vocal support.

Late in 1959, he switched labels, signing with Top Rank. His first single for the label, "What in the World's Come Over You," became a number five hit early in 1960. It was followed a few months later by another Top Ten hit, the number three single "Burning Bridges." The pair of singles were his last major hits, and over the next two years, his singles progressively charted at lower positions than their predecessors. Early in 1961, he signed with Capitol Records, but none of his three singles made the Top 40.

Scott continued to vacillate between cowboy crooner and rough-edged rocker throughout the remainder of the '60s and '70s, recording for a variety of labels, including Groove and Dot. In 1974, he managed to have a minor country hit with his Dot single "You're Just Gettin' Better." During the '80s and '90s, Scott occasionally turned up on the oldies circuit, still looking and sounding like a man you seriously didn't want to mess with.

Our twenty second track features WHY BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, one of teen idol’s Frankie Avalon’s doo wop love classics. This passionate love ballad was one of Avalon’s lesser known, but best liked songs.

Discussing Frankie Avalon's career as a mover and shaker in 1950s rock & roll with anyone who takes their rock & roll even halfway seriously is to court derision. Avalon was the first of the manufactured teen idols, before Fabian and Bobby Rydell and the myriads of other pretenders to the throne who worked the turf with tight black pants and red, red sweaters to the fore while Elvis cooled his heels in Germany. In the late '50s and early '60s, post-Twist and pre-Beatles, these generally untalented pretty boys were the cardboard no-threat remnants of a post-Elvis age. But Avalon had a real musical background to go with the pretty boy looks, and was no drugstore teenager waiting to be discovered.

Born in South Philadelphia in 1939 as Francis Thomas Avallone, he broke into show business as a child prodigy trumpet player, good enough to win talent contests, get on the Jackie Gleason Show, and make records for RCA Victor's subsidiary, 'X' Records. But as childhood gave way to teendom, Avalon found himself playing backup trumpet in a local band called Rocco and the Saints. When queried by local impresario Bob Marcucci if there might be some local rock & roll singers who would be good enough to record some of his songs, Frankie suggested he check out the group's lead singer, blond-haired and blue-eyed Andy Martin. Marcucci came to the gig, but was unimpressed with Martin, feeling that blond-haired singers didn't have the right "look" to connect with females. But once he heard Avalon belt out a couple of tunes, Marcucci knew he had found what he was looking for, and a management contract was inked immediately.

It was another six to eight months before Avalon's first single, "Cupid," came out on Marcucci's Chancellor label, and it wasn't until his third release, "Dede Dinah," that he had his first Top Ten hit. From there, it was an unprecedented run of hits, starting with his first number one in 1959, "Venus," placing no less than six more records in the Top 40 in that year alone. Marcucci worked the formula, easing Avalon away from rockers into more "adult," sap-oriented fare like a true pro, and was able to produce similar results with the far less talented but also very pretty Fabian.

By 1962, Avalon's four-year domination of the charts was coming to an end, but his career wasn't. He teamed up with Annette Funicello and reinvented himself as a clean-cut, pretty-boy surfer in a wildly successful batch of Beach Party movies that got him through the '60s in far better shape than most of his colleagues. The series was big enough to bring himself and Funicello back for an update in the '80s, Back to the Beach. Ever the musician, Avalon insisted surf legend (and original cast member) Dick Dale be in this revival. Today, Avalon divides his time between hawking pain medicine on home shopping networks and appearing on the Golden Boys of Rock'n'Roll oldies show with Bobby Rydell and Fabian, looking handsome as ever.

The final track of this volume features the Johnny Ace sound of MY PLEDGE OF LOVE (not to be confused with the Joe Jeffrey’s group song). The senseless death of young pianist Johnny Ace while indulging in a round of Russian roulette backstage at Houston's City Auditorium on Christmas Day of 1954 tends to overshadow his relatively brief but illustrious recording career on Duke Records. That's a pity, for Ace's gentle, plaintive vocal balladry deserves reverence on its own merit, not because of the scandalous fallout resulting from his tragic demise.

John Marshall Alexander was a member in good standing of the Beale Streeters, a loosely knit crew of Memphis young bloods that variously included B.B. King, Bobby Bland, and Earl Forest. Signing with local DJ David Mattis' fledgling Duke logo in 1952, the re-christened Ace hit the top of the R&B charts his very first time out with the mellow ballad "My Song." From then on, Ace could do no musical wrong, racking up hit after hit for Duke in the same smooth, urbane style. "Cross My Heart," "The Clock," "Saving My Love for You," "Please Forgive Me," and "Never Let Me Go" all dented the uppermost reaches of the charts. And then, with one fatal gunshot, all that talent was lost forever (weepy tribute records quickly emerged by Frankie Ervin, Johnny Fuller, Varetta Dillard, and the Five Wings).

Ace scored his biggest hit of all posthumously. His haunting "Pledging My Love" (cut with the Johnny Otis orchestra in support) remained atop Billboard's R&B lists for ten weeks in early 1955. One further hit, "Anymore," exhausted Duke's stockpile of Ace masters, so they tried to clone the late pianist's success by recruiting Johnny's younger brother (St. Clair Alexander) to record as Buddy Ace. When that didn't work out, Duke boss Don Robey took singer Jimmy Lee Land, renamed him Buddy Ace, and recorded him all the way into the late '60s.

VOLUME 3 – THE BOOK OF LOVE, SOME ROMANTIC MOMENTS

1.  The Monotones - Who Wrote the Book of Love

2.  Little Ceasar and the Romans - Those Oldies But Goodies

3.  The Shells - Baby Oh Baby

4.  Donnie Elbert - Have I Sinned

5.  The Platters - My Prayer

6.  The Platters - Only You

7.  The Penquins - Earth Angel

8.  The Five Satins - In the Still of the Night

9.  Lee Andrews and the Hearts - Try the Impossible

10. The Flamingos - Mio Amore

11.The Flamingos - Your Other Love

12. The Swallows - It Feels So Good

13. The Paragons - Diamonds and Pearls

14. The Shields - You Cheated

15. Jackie Wilson - To Be Loved

16. Don and Juan - What's Your Name

17. The Duprees - You Belong to Me

18. The Duprees - My Own True Love

19. Lloyd Price - Just Because

20. Chuck Willis - What Am I Living For

21. Lloyd Price - come Into My Heart

22. Annie Lurie - It Hurts to Be In Love

23. The Dominos - 60 Minute Man

The 50’s and 60’s were a very romantic era. In this section, we really turn up the doo wop love volume. These songs are similar to the romantic ballads of the other volume. However, the main difference is some of the tracks have powerful messages from solo artists. The songs in the volume by the Platters, Jackie Wilson, Donnie Elbert, Chuck Willis, and Lloyd Price illustrate this. The main purpose of this volume is to musically illustrate these love messages. The solo artists sound as if they are actually delivering a sermon concerning romantic relationships.

This volume begins with a lesson in romance. This song, WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF LOVE, was the Monotones biggest hit. The Monotones recorded a spate of clever novelties in the late '50s/early '60s, the most successful of which was the enduring WHO WROTE THE BOOK OF LOVE, a massive Top Ten hit (number five pop/number three R&B) in 1958. The group formed in 1955, when 17-year-old lead vocalist Charles Patrick and his brother James Patrick teamed with 16-year-old first tenor Warren Davis, 15-year-old second tenor George Malone, 17-year-old bass singer John Smith, 18-year-old baritone Warren Ryanes, and his younger brother, 15-year-old second bass John Ryanes, coming together at the Baxter Terrace housing project in Newark, NJ.

They practiced in the project's recreation hall, inspired by acts like the Heartbeats, the Spaniels, the Moonglows, and the Cadillacs. (listen to Volumes 1, 6, and 8) They adopted their name from a previous group who already had it and were in the process of breaking up. The six friends and neighbors also began singing with the New Hope Baptist Choir, along with other choir members Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, Judy Clay, Cissy Houston, Leroy Hutson (of the Impressions), and several of the Sweet Inspirations. Houston was the choir director and Dionne and Dee Dee were cousins of Jim and Charles Patrick (leader of the Monotones).

By 1956, they were performing the Cadillacs' "Zoom" on Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, winning first prize and earning a shot on the show the following week. Unfortunately, James Patrick decided to leave the group to join another act that had performed on the same show: the Kodaks (from Charles Evans Hughes High School in Newark). Undaunted by his brother's choice to sing with a rival act, Charles Patrick began writing new material for the group, the first of which would turn out to be "Who Wrote the Book of Love?"
One story about this hit's genesis claims that the lyrics came to Patrick in an inspiration provided by a toothpaste commercial ("you'll wonder where the yellow went") overheard on a radio program being played in a music store when he was looking at the sheet music to a Four Lads song (an Al Stillman composition, also called "Book of Love"). Charles is said to have gone home with the word "wonder" reverberating in his head and, along with Davis and Malone, written the song that day. Yet another version of the story states that Pearl McKinnon, 15-year-old leader of the Kodaks, actually wrote "Book of Love," which was later co-opted by Charles Patrick with help from his brother James.

In any case, the Monotones demoed the song in the summer of 1957 and sent it to a number of labels, including Bobby Robinson's Fury label (Robinson had already signed the Kodaks after seeing them perform at the Apollo). Atlantic Records liked the song, but wanted it for their group the Bobbettes. By now the Monotones were convinced it was a hit and wanted to sing it themselves. With ames Patrick's help, they were given an audition with Bea Caslon's Hull Records, first home of their heroes the Heartbeats (by this time James Sheppard and his Heartbeats had left for Roulette). Caslon decided to sign the group and record their song in September 1957.

Three months later, in December of 1957, BOOK OF LOVE (shortened by now, title-wise) was released on Hull's Mascot subsidiary. By January, it was too huge for cash-poor Hull, so the group licensed it to Chess Records, who issued it on their Argo subsidiary (it was released in February 1958). On March 24, 1958, BOOK OF LOVE was charting on Billboard's Top 100 and the R&B lists by April 7th. By late spring, it had climbed on the pop charts, charting at number five and the R&B charts listing at number three, where it spent 18 weeks. The song even managed to score a number five in Australia.
By June 1 of 1958, the Monotones were back in the studio and trying their hand at other rock & roll novelties, perhaps trying to discover the secret behind what makes a hit a hit. Their next single, "Tom Foolery" (with its constant stops-and-starts), faired poorly, however. A third session (in July) yielded a few new songs, including the single "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (which featured high-speed horse clip-clops), but these singles failed to gain the group an audience. Hull, meanwhile, was engrossed in promoting the Elegants' hit LITTLE STAR (listen to Volume 2) and so the group turned it over to Apt Records, who didn't issue the song until December 1958. The Monotones weren't pleased about the delay and began looking around for another label.

 They licensed Apt another track, a novelty tune called "The Ride of Paul Revere," which was released in October 1958, but they were surprised to find out it was credited to "the Terrace Tones" (there was an actual group called this, too, featuring Robert Johnson and Andrew Cheatham, who had written the "Paul Revere" song). Despite the confusion, or maybe because of it, it failed to generate much interest.

On June 4, 1959, four new tracks were recorded: "Tell It to the Judge" b/w "Fools Will be Fools" (the B-side was a "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"-type knock-off) was released as one single by Apt and a new song posing yet another question: "What Would You Do If There Wasn't Any Rock & Roll?" (the song remained unreleased until the 1980s, when the Murray Hill label issued it on a Monotones anthology LP). Perhaps this latter number was a response to Danny & the Juniors' hit from the previous year, ROCK AND ROLL IS HERE TO STAY. (listen to Volume 6)

In early 1960, the Monotones issued their first true Hull release, a strange sort of answer song to their own record, called "Reading the Book of Love" even though it had been two years since the other "Book of Love" song was a hit. The group's last session -- February 14, 1962 -- produced two more titles, "Book of Dance" and "Toast to Lovers" which weren't released until they were featured on a Hull compilation LP in late 1962, but by now the Monotones had decided to call it a day and disbanded. Another edition of the group recorded one single for Hickory in 1964, but little information about the single exists.

The song in track 2, THOSE OLDIES BUT GOODIES, is one of the love song ballads recorded towards the end of the Doo Wop era in 1961. At this time, the Los Angeles group of Little Ceasar and the Romans made the Top Ten with this nostalgic song. The piano-based ballad sounded a bit like a bridge between the Five Satins and Little Anthony & the Imperials. Doo wop's days were numbered when this was a hit in 1961, and indeed the song's title would quickly become a catch-all phrase for rock records of all kinds that had left the charts several years ago.

Little Caesar & the Romans went on to record a few singles, and an LP, for Del-Fi in 1961 and 1962, some in a quaint vocal group manner heavily derivative of "Those Oldies But Goodies," others in a rougher, uptempo R&B mold akin to fellow L.A. artists the Olympics. They made the middle of the Top 100 with the dance tune "Hully Gully Again," and topped out at #101 with "Memories of Those Oldies But Goodies," a single that was even more nostalgic than its prototype. The act, which performed in togas for a while, broke up in 1962, partly as a result of a silly dispute between lead vocalist Carl Barnett and David Johnson (who did the spoken bridge of "Those Oldies But Goodies") as to who was the real Little Caesar.

For our third song, the Shells entertain us with their version of BABY OH BABY. The Shells -- led by Nate Bouknight (aka "Little Nat") -- scored with this Top 30 hit, charting for the tiny Johnson label in 1957. The group -- Bouknight, Randy "Shade Alston (tenor), Bobby Nurse (tenor), Danny Small (bass), and Gus Geter(baritone) -- continued to wax impressive 45s into the early '60s without much commercial interest, including 1958's "Sippin' Soda" and 1959's "She Wasn't Meant for Me."

 In 1960, BABY OH BABY was given a rare second chance when record collector archivists/reissue producers Donn Fileti and Wayne Stierle reissued the track, hitting the pop charts on its second time around, charting at number 21. The Shells then made a hasty comeback, recording a mix of soul and pop standards as well as straight-ahead doo wop, such as "Be Sure My Love" and "So Fine." 1961 brought another fine effort, "Explain It to Me," and in 1962, the quintet cut the popular "Happy Holiday" with Ray Jones (aka Ray Lamont Jones) taking over lead vocals. In 1963, the Josie label paired the group together with the Dubs for half an LP, The Dubs Meet the Shells, a battle of the bands album in the tradition of The Paragons Meet the Jesters).

The fourth track of the volume features Donnie Elbert singing his 1958 version of HAVE I SINNED? Elbert had a number of other love ballads, with the biggest hit being "What Can I Do?" in 1958. Both a multi-instrumentalist and good vocalist, Donnie Elbert sang with the Vibraharps from 1955 to 1957. He then recorded for DeLuxe and scored a Top 20 R&B hit with "What Can I Do." Elbert went 13 years before getting another hit, "Can't Get Over Losing You," for Rare Bullet in 1970. He had a string of singles, mostly for All Platinum, in the early '70s, the best being "Where Did Our Love Go" in 1971. It peaked at number six on the R&B charts (number 15 pop) and was his lone Top Ten single. Elbert landed another song in the R&B Top 20 in 1972, a cover of the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" for Avco. He returned to All Platinum from 1972 from 1977. Elbert became A&R director for Polygram's Canadian division in the mid-'80s.

Cuts five and six of this volume are sung by the popular Platters. This doo wop group has a long a rich history and truly demonstrate the doo wop roots of soul music. (Listen to the groups’ soul sound of WITH THIS RING, featured in volume 9). This volume features their love ballads of MY PRAYER and ONLY YOU.

The Platters started out as a Los Angeles-based doo wop group with little identity of their own to make them stand out from the pack. They started out making their first records for Federal, a subsidiary of Cincinnati's King Records. These early sides don't sound anything like the better-known sides that would eventually emerge from this group, instead merely aping the current R&B trends and styles of the day. What changed their fortunes can be reduced down to one very important name: their mentor, manager, producer, songwriter, and vocal coach, Buck Ram. Ram took what many would say were a run-of-the-mill R&B doo wop vocal group and turned them into stars and one of the most enduring and lucrative groups of all time. By 1954, Ram was already running a talent agency in Los Angeles, writing and arranging for publisher Mills Music, managing the Three Suns -- a pop group with some success -- and working with his protégés, the Penguins. The Platters seemed like a good addition to his stable.

After getting them out of their Federal contract, Ram placed them with the burgeoning national independent label Mercury Records (at the same time he brought over the Penguins following their success with "Earth Angel"), automatically getting them into pop markets through the label's distribution contacts alone. Then Ram started honing in on the group's strengths and weaknesses. The first thing he did was put the lead vocal status squarely on the shoulders of lead tenor Tony Williams. Williams' emoting power was turned up full blast with the group (now augmented with Zola Taylor from Shirley Gunter & the Queens) working as very well-structured vocal support framing his every note. With Ram's pop songwriting classics as their musical palette, the group quickly became a pop and R&B success, eventually earning the distinction of being the first black act of the era to top the pop charts. Considered the most romantic of all the doo wop groups (that is, the ultimate in "make out music"), hit after hit came tumbling forth in a seemingly effortless manner: ONLY YOU, "The Great Pretender," MY PRAYER, "Twilight Time," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," "Harbor Lights," all of them establishing the Platters as the classiest of all.

Williams struck out on his own in 1961 and, by the decade's end, the group had disbanded with various members starting up their own version of the Platters. This bit of franchising now extends into the present day, with an estimated 125 sanctioned versions of "the original Platters" out on the oldies show circuit.

The Platters were one of the top vocal groups of the 1950's, selling 53 million records and being among the first doo-wop groups to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame (1990). The original members were; Tony Williams, the lead vocalist (Tony died in 1992), David Lynch, tenor (David died in 1981), Alex Hodge, baritone, who was soon replaced by Paul Robi (Paul died in 1989), Herb Reed, bass,and Zola Taylor. Their manager and producer Buck Ram (Buck died in 1991). Here is their story:

The original group was formed in Los Angeles in 1953. The original members were lead singer Tony Williams, bass Herb Reed, tenor David Lynch, and Alex Hodge. They were under the direction of music entrepreneur Ralph Bass for a time before management of the group was taken over by Buck Ram. Buck Ram had been born Samuel Ram in Chicago in 1907. Although he had graduated from law school, he never practiced law and instead went into the music and entertainment business. Buck worked as an arranger for Mills Music. He wrote songs, gave voice lessons, toured with some bands, and managed his own group, the Three Suns. In 1954 he formed a talent agency in Los Angeles and began to work with a group of high school students who called themselves the Penguins. Early in 1955 the Penguins became one of the first black acts to crack the top ten on the pop charts with EARTH ANGLE (WILL YOU BE MINE)

Buck took over the Platters from Ralph Bass and made some changes to the group, replacing Hodge with baritone Paul Robi. He also moved a female singer from another act that he was promoting, Shirley Gunther and the Queens, into the Platters. She was Los Angeles native Zola Taylor. Ram then took a song that he had written called ONLY YOU (AND YOU ALONE) and had the revised lineup record it on the Mercury label. It was a song that the old group had recorded on Federal, but Federal had chosen not to use it. Buck also brought the Penguins to Mercury. Although the Penguins had already had a major hit on DooTone with Earth Angel, they would never again place a song in the top forty.

For the Platters, however, it was a different story. The recording of ONLY YOU made by the revised group on the Mercury label entered the charts in October, 1955. This was an era in which it was a common occurrence for R&B songs to be covered by white acts, and the cover would usually be the one that got air time by disc jockeys. Only You was quickly covered by such a group, the Hilltoppers, which had been formed at Western Kentucky College. The Hilltoppers' version on Dot entered the charts about six weeks after the version done by the Platters for Mercury, and it went to number eight. But the Platters did even better ... their recording shot up to number one on the R&B chart and crossed over to the pop chart, where it reached number five.

The Platters followed it up almost immediately with another song that had been written by Buck Ram, this time with even more success. The Great Pretender was the first number one pop song for the Platters. A very popular song in 1956, it was satirized by Stan Freberg. In the 80's it was covered by Lester Bowie and by Freddie Mercury and Queen, who had a big hit with it in the UK. In the 1956 film Rock Around The Clock, Alan Freed included performances by the Platters of both Only You and The Great Pretender.

The group was somewhat different from others that had gone before it, and featured some innovations that gave the group a great appeal in the 50's. Lead singer Tony Williams had trained by singing in Church gospel groups, and his voice was resonant. The group was often accompanied by strings, and having a woman as part of the assembly was not common in a doo-wop group at the time. Their songs were popular at parties when it came time to play a slow dance number.

The first black act of the rock era to reach number one on the pop chart, the Platters helped to break the monopoly that the white acts had on covers of some very good R&B songs. After their initial success, the group went on to record 33 more pop hits on Mercury by 1962. In 1956 they reached the top ten again with [You've Got] The Magic Touch. Buck brought in Sammy Lowe to arrange a song that had been made popular previously by Vera Lynn and Sammy Kaye, My Prayer. It became the group's second number one pop song.

The Platters revived some old songs from the 30's and 40's. A song for which Buck had written the lyrics in 1938 and which had been done by Buck's group, the Three Suns, was recorded by the Platters and Twilight Time topped the charts in 1958. An old classic by Jerome Kern, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, was revived and went to number one. Harbor Lights, a hit for Sammy Kaye in 1950, was issued and reached the top ten. More old standards were released: If I Didn't Care [the Ink Spots], I'll Never Smile Again [Tommy Dorsey], Red Sails In The Sunset [Bing Crosby, Tab Hunter, Guy Lombardo], and others.

Inevitably, changes within the group began to occur. Some members of the Platters were arraigned on vice charges in 1959 and later acquitted, and the group managed to retain its clean-cut image. Tony Williams left to go solo in 1961, and was replaced by Sonny Turner. Zola Taylor was replaced by Sandra Dawn. Paul Robi left the group. Nate Nelson, a former member of the Flamingos, joined the Platters in 1966.

The group had some success with a few songs on which Sonny Turner sang lead, including I Love You 1000 Times and WITH THIS RING, (listen to Volume 9) both of which had been co-written by Luther Dixon and released on the Musicor label. Some of the members of the Platters began to have a falling out. In 1956 Buck Ram had tried to avert these kind of troubles after he had seen what had happened with the Ink Spots. He had established The Five Platters Inc. and had issued shares to the members, with the provision that none could use the group name after leaving the Platters. It didn't work. Other competing groups began to appear, including one led by Herb Reed. Lawsuits were filed and injunctions were issued. The Platters' final top forty song, WITH THIS RING, left the charts in 1967. David Lynch and Paul Robi both died of cancer, in 1981 and 1989, Buck Ram died at the age of 83. Some compilations of the Platters' songs are not originals. The best sources for original recordings are those issued by Mercury or a two-disc Anthology issued by Rhino. There are several groups still touring as the Platters, althoughsome do not have even a remote connection to the original group.
The only surviving member Of Paul Robi's group, that toured New Zealand that I (Joh) met is Elmer Hopper. He was a member of the Robi's group for 21 years and worked with Paul Robi for 15 years till his death from Cancer back in 1989. He stayed on with the group another 6 years with hope to keep the name The Platters from being trashed by people that will use any group name and profit from the hard work of original members. Elmer was the only guy that Tony Williams said sounded good singing the hits that he made famous.
http://www.hotshotdigital.com/OldRock/PlattersBio.html

Like the Platters, the Penquins were a well-known doo wop group of the 50’s. Early in 1955 the Penguins became one of the first black acts to crack the top ten on the pop charts with EARTH ANGEL (WILL YOU BE MINE), which is featured as the seventh track of this volume.

Best known for their hit single EARTH ANGEL, the doo wop quartet the Penguins were never able to replicate the success of their only Top 40 hit, but the song became a rock & roll classic. The Penguins formed in 1954, when the members -- Cleveland Duncan (lead vocal), Curtis Williams (tenor vocal), Dexter Tisby (baritone vocal), and Bruce Tate (tenor vocal) -- were all attending Fremont High School in Los Angeles, CA.

Although he wasn't the lead singer, Williams was the leader of the group. He learned EARTH ANGEL from vocalist Jesse Belvin -- some sources claim that Williams wrote the song alone, others say he co-wrote the song with Belvin, while others claim Gaynell Hodge, a member of the doo wop group the Turks, wrote the song with the duo (in fact, Hodge won a lawsuit filed in 1956 that gave him a co-writing credit) -- and had the Penguins sing the song.
Around 1954, the Penguins signed with the local Los Angeles independent label Dootone Records.

The group's first single was going to be the up-tempo "Hey Sinorita," and the ballad EARTH ANGEL was going to be the B-side.

Upon the release of the single in the latter half of 1954, Los Angeles radio stations were receiving more requests for EARTH ANGEL than "Hey Sinorita," and the song soon became the record's A-side. By the beginning of 1955, the single had scaled the national charts, spending three weeks at the top of the R&B charts and peaking at number eight on the pop charts.

For the next few years, the Penguins continued to record singles for Dootone Records. Shortly after the success of EARTH ANGEL Tate left the group and Randolph Jones became their baritone vocalist. Around 1956, the Penguins left Dootone Records and signed with Mercury Records. After cutting some sides for Mercury, the group moved to Atlantic Records, where they had their second and final hit, "Pledge of Love," which climbed to number 15 on the R&B charts in the summer of 1957. That same year, the group released their only album, The Cool, Cool Penguins.

By 1959, the group had returned to their hometown of Los Angeles; shortly after their relocation, they broke up. Over the next four decades, Cleveland Duncan led various incarnations of the Penguins through reunion tours and re-recordings of their hits. In 1963, Duncan, Tisby, and two new members recorded "Memories of El Monte," a song future Mothers of Invention members Frank Zappa and Ray Collins wrote specifically for the group; the single failed to make any impact. Duncan went back to leading new incarnations of the Penguins, while Tisby briefly joined the Coasters.

Track eight of this volume continues with The Five Satins largest hit, IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT. As mentioned in the artist descriptions of Volume 1, the Five Satins are best-known for this oldies classic, a song that was popular enough to make the group one of the most famous doo wop outfits, although they never had another top 40 hit of the same magnitude. (read the biographical information about the group in Volume 1).

For track nine, we visit Lee Andrews and the Hearts, performing one of their many doo wop classics, TRY THE IMPOSSIBLE. One of the finest R&B vocal groups of the '50s, the Philadelphia-based Lee Andrews & the Hearts specialized in smooth ballads and were influenced by similar vocal acts like the Moonglows, the Orioles, the Drifters, the 5 Royales, the Five Keys, the Midnighters, and the Ravens, while lead vocalist Lee Andrews' influences were mostly solo artists like Bing Crosby, Frankie Laine, Frank Sinatra, and especially Nat King Cole. These two key influences -- a harmonizing four-part vocal base with a strong but tender tenor voice leading the way -- was the foundation of the Hearts' hard-to-beat sound.

The group scored three charting hits in the span of a single year (1957-1958). Their "Long Lonely Nights" (recorded for the tiny Mainline label) managed to barely beat the former Drifter Clyde McPhatter's version by a few chart points (number 45 to Clyde's number 49). It scored even higher on the R&B charts (number 11). At its peak, the group's next single for Mainline, "Teardrops," was picked up for wider distribution by Chess. It was their biggest hit, making it to at number 20 on the pop charts (on November 25, 1957), and by January 1958, it had jumped over to the R&B charts, where it ended up listing at number four. A third hit, TRY THE IMPOSSIBLE for the United Artists label, charted at number 33 on the pop charts (June 22, 1958).

Lee Andrews (b. Arthur Lee Andrew Thompson) was raised by a musical family in Goldsboro, NC. His father, Beechie Thompson, sang with the Dixie Hummingbirds. The Thompson family soon moved to Philadelphia, PA, when little Arthur Thompson was two. By the time he was a student at Bertram High School in 1952, Thompson had begun singing with four friends: Royalston "Roy" Calhoun (first tenor), Thomas "Butch" Curry (second tenor), James "Jimmy" McCalister (baritone), and John Young (bass). The quintet -- from the neighborhood of 49th and Woodland in South Philly -- first began calling themselves the Dreams and later, the Dreamers.

Between 1952 and 1954, the Dreamers rehearsed after school (often tutored on spirituals by Curry's aunt) and soon began incorporating R&B stylings into the mix. In early 1954, they visited the local WHAT radio station and danced in the studio adjacent to the DJ booth, where on-air personality Kae Williams held court. On one particular night, Williams asked a group of teens dancing in the next room about what local acts they liked and was told he should listen to the Dreamers. They later auditioned two Top Ten charters from previous decades and Williams was so awed by this unique assemblage that he offered to manage them on the spot.

In the spring of that year, Williams squired the Dreamers into Reco Arts Studio and cut two sides. The group then traveled with Williams to New York City and to the offices of Eddie Heller and Bobby Heller's Rainbow Records, a label so small it shared space with a Hell's Kitchen storefront known as Sonny's Deli. The two also ran a club in North Philly and had previously associated with Williams.

It was here that they learned there was already an act calling themselves the Dreamers and it was Jimmy McCalister who came up with the Hearts after spying a small plastic heart on a secretary's desk -- actually Heller's wife. Since Thompson was to be featured on as the group's leader, he began shuffling his names around to come up with something he felt would sound better -- and read better on the labels -- than Arthur Thompson and the Hearts. He finally settled on calling himself by his two middle names and thus the name Lee Andrews & the Hearts was finally born.

The Hearts' first single was a version of the Orioles' then-charting "Maybe You'll Be There" (accompanied only by piano). It was issued in mid-May 1954 and received airplay in Philadelphia, but couldn't compete with the polished and established Orioles' version and sank like a stone. "The White Cliffs of Dover," their second single, was a better overall group performance but saw even less airplay activity. A third single from October 1954, "The Bells of St. Mary's," battled on the charts with a better-produced version of the same song by the Drifters. Williams obviously thought three tries was enough for Rainbow and pulled his group from the label.

By 1955, McCalister was Navy bound and soon replaced by Ted Weems, another neighbor from South Philly. As they were now high school grads they had to think of full-time employment. Lee Andrews and Roy Calhoun went to work at Gotham Record Distributors, hoping to also scored a chance to audition for owner Ivan Ballen's Gotham record label. When the group learned that their contract with Williams wasn't valid because they were all minors when they signed it, they reportedly asked Ballen to audition them. However, Ballen's main interest was gospel music and he kept putting the teens off until the very end of 1955 when he finally relented and gave them a listen. Liking what he heard, he signed Lee Andrews and the Hearts to Gotham on January 3, 1956. Soon they were recording at the label's studio, located at 626 Federal Street.

Their first single, the Davies-Heyman standard "Bluebird of Happiness," was released in May, but failed to become a hit. Their next single, the Andrews-penned "Lonely Room," was virtually a note-for-note copy of the Larks' 1952 Apollo single "In My Lonely Room," but managed to gather airplay throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. The group's last Gotham single, which listed Andrews as its songwriter -- even though it was reportedly penned by one Rita Sherwood -- was issued toward the end of 1956. "Just Suppose" also failed to chart.

The Hearts grew frustrated when they realized that many of their best efforts for the label hadn't even been released. In early 1957, they auditioned at Weems' home for Philadelphia (WDAS) and New York (WWOV) jock Jocko Henderson, who -- along with partner Barry Golder -- owned Mainline Record Distributors and the Hearts looked like the perfect vehicle to start up their long planned Mainline label. Before they could record, however, bass vocalist John Young left the act (moving to New York) and the group continued to fill the low-register position with a series of replacements, including their piano player Gerald Thompson, Tom Hackett, and, finally, Roy's brother Wendell Calhoun, aka "Breeze."

By mid-year, however, the group was pleased to discover that their song "Long Lonely Nights" had caught on and found a new audience. The tiny Mainline label responded by issuing a new recording of the Hearts doing the song; meanwhile, Atlantic Records had their ace Clyde McPhatter record the song, and to further complicate things, a group calling themselves "the Kings" cover the song as well for their Baton label.

As it turned out, the Kings were actually the popular act the Ravens, who were then signed to Chess Records' affiliate label Argo. With all of these versions of the same song competing for airplay, it's a wonder that the race was a close one at all and while there's no doubt the Hearts recording could have hit the Top Ten pop charts without the fierce competition, it managed to barely beat the former Drifters' version by a few points (number 45 to Clyde's number 49). It scored even higher on the R&B charts: number 11. (The Hearts' can be consoled in the fact that their version has become the choice of oldies radio stations, while McPhatter's is now known only by hardcore collectors).

In November 1957, the Hearts' next single, "Teardrops," was picked up by Chess nationally, but in Philadelphia, it was released on the Argo affiliate as part of a distribution deal between Chess and Mainline. The song was an instant classic, eventually charted at its peak at number 20 on the pop charts (on November 25, 1957), but by January 6, 1958, it had jumped over to the R&B charts, and hit number four.

After two hits and getting shorted on royalties from Chess, Lee Andrews & the Hearts moved over to United Artists, where the group charted for the last time in 1958 with the typically polished TRY THE IMPOSSIBLE. Jocko Henderson -- managing the group at this point -- finagled a deal in the Philadelphia area with the single, which ended up being released on his locally distributed Casino label (which was co-owned by Mickey Golder (Barry's brother). It charted at number 33 on the pop charts (June 22, 1958). The group never again charted on the R&B charts.

By 1963, the Hearts had stopped ticking and their recordings became very collectable, so Grand Records struck a deal with Gotham and issued some of the group's old sides. Collectors' demand for more recordings prompted Lee to form a new Hearts group in the summer of 1966 with a few familiar names paired up with a few new ones: Booker, Mason, alongside new Hearts Robert Howard and Victoria McCalister. They recorded "You're Taking a Long Time Coming Back" which was issued on single by RCA.

The group signed the dotted line with Crimson Records, and eventually wound up two singles later on Crimson's parent company, Lost Night, recording three original singles (an unusual move for this all-oldies reissue company) which were issued in 1968. By the time they did a live LP for Lost Night -- recorded at a club in Fairless Hills, PA -- the Hearts were Lee Andrews, Richard Howard, Richard Booker, and Tommy White.

Eventually, Andrews went into semi-retirement and opened a successful dress shop. In a 1971 interview he stated that he formed a new group called First Born and they were in the process of recording for Columbia, though no such record release ever took place. Andrews later re-emerged at the urging of producer friend Billy Jackson (the Tymes), who knew Lee's interests were now leaning in a 5th Dimension-style direction. Together, they formed Congress Alley with Booker, Jackie Andrews (Lees wife), and Karen Brisco. This group managed two singles and an LP for Avco Embassy, but the releases weren't successful.

In 1981, Collectible Records unearthed the original first studio session tapes from Gotham and issued three singles, including yet another version of "Long Lonely Nights" which was lyrically different from the hit song, with just a piano accompaniment and crystal-clear harmonies. The oldies circuit revival of the '70s provided momentum for Lee to form one more Hearts, this one a family affair with Lee, his wife Jackie, son Ahmir, and daughter Dawn.

Roy Calhoun died in an apartment fire in 1979, Butch Curry became ill with multiple sclerosis, Wendell Calhoun still lives in Philadelphia, and Ted Weems joined the Pheasants ("Out of the Mist," Throne) in 1963 and later had a group called Tribute, but had no other hits.

This volume continues in tracks ten and eleven with songs from the famous Flamingos, MIO AMORE and YOUR OTHER LOVE. (read the biographical information about this group in Volume One.)

The Swallows were another one of the pioneer groups of doo wop that started their development in the late 40’s. Track 12 of this volume features one of their early hits, IT FEELS SO GOOD, from 1953. This song was actually the flip side of the bigger hit, entitled "I’ll Be Waiting," the group’s last recording for King Records.

The Swallows are best remembered for "Dearest" (number nine R&B in August 1951) and a handful of other great doo wop tunes. The group -- like their neighborhood influences the Vibranaires -- were from Baltimore, MD, and began singing shortly after, forming in 1946. Originally called the Oakateers, by 1949 the group was renaming themselves the Swallows (in deference to Baltimore's hugely successful Orioles). T

he original lineup featured lead tenor vocalist Lawrence Coxsen and Irving Turner, but by the late '40s, both were gone. Tenor lead Eddie Rich was Coxson's replacement, joining Frederick Johnson, Herman "Junior" Denby (baritone, tenor, and string bass), Norris "Bunky" Mack (bass vocals, guitar, piano, drums), and Earl Hurley.

After a number of local gigs in the Baltimore area, they came to the attention of King Records of Cincinnati in 1951. A recording session produced their first single, "Dearest" (King 4458). It climbed to number nine on the R&B charts in August 1951 and was a big seller in the both San Francisco and Oakland, which led to the group's first tour (with the Count Basie Orchestra and vocalist Earl Williams).

Other singles failed to top the success of their initial outing, although "It Ain't the Meat (It's the Motion)," the ribald jump B-side of their third single, was a big seller in the South, especially in Georgia and the Carolinas. Sometimes Junior Denby took over singing lead chorus. They also released a version of the pop standard "I Only Have Eyes for You," predating the Flamingos' version by six years. (Interesting note: as an added bit of circumstance, the Flamingos were originally known as the Swallows until they discovered the King group had first dibs on the name.)

The group continued to tour the U.S. extensively, while King released additional singles. As mentioned earlier, their last single for King was "I'll Be Waiting" (King 4676). Shortly after leaving the label, the group disbanded, then re-formed again with Earl Hurley (lead), Eddie Rich, original late '40s member Irv Turner, and new Swallows Al France, Ernie "Buddy" Bailey (not the Clovers' Bailey), and "Money" Johnson. By the spring of 1954, the new lineup recorded for Lexy "Flap" Hanford's After Hours label, but the group disbanded shortly afterwards, for a second time. In 1956, France and Turner were replaced by Bobby Hendricks and Buddy Crawford, but no recordings are credited to this contingent. The group went on hiatus afterwards.

In 1958, the Swallows came together with original members Eddie Rich and Earl Hurley, Bailey, Johnson, and new Swallow Calvin Collette. They signed with Syd Nathan's Federal label (based in Cincinnati at the time), who issued four sides, including a cover of Bobby Hendricks' "Itchy Twitchy Feeling" (which just barely touched the national pop charts in late 1958). Soon afterwards, the Swallows called it quits after more than a decade of making music.

The Paragons were right in the middle of the doo wop scene during the 50’s. Although the group wasn’t as well known and spotlighted as so many of the other vocal groups, their contributions deserve mention. Track 13 features one of their doo wop arrangements, DIAMONDS AND PEARLS, which was mainly a local hit.

Founded in Brooklyn, NY, the Paragons were a black vocal harmony quintet signed to the New York-based Winley label, which was also home to the Jesters ("The Wind"). Julius McMichael (lead), Ben Frazier (first tenor), Donald Travis (second tenor), Ricky Jackson (baritone), and Al Brown (bass) had a distinctive sound with McMichael's high tenor voice as the lead, very much defining this distinctly New York-centered doo wop sound. They began their recording career for Winley with the single "Florence" b/w "Hey Little School Girl," which was released in early 1957 and was a regional hit.
Julius McMichael lasted through three more notable singles, "Let's Start," "Twilight," and "So You Will Know," all of which did well without ever charting nationally, before he exited the lineup to become a member of the Olympics. His replacement in the Paragons' lineup was Bill Witt.

The Paragons endured into the early '60s with more lineup changes and label changes as well, to Musicraft and then to Tap. They lucked out with Tap right out of the starting gate when their first single for the new label, "If," charted, which prompted Winley, their original label, to release more material that it was holding on the quintet.

The group's success on the charts in the early '60s seemed to presage their subsequent history -- the Paragons remained active throughout the 1960s, right into the rock & roll revival, where new audiences, consisting both of old fans of '50s music and new appreciators of harmony vocal groups, discovered the work of this fine, enduring group and boosted their listenership. In more recent years, the group have recorded new versions of their classic material, and continue to play to audiences at rock & roll revival shows.

The Shields perform their largest hit, YOU CHEATED, for track 14 of this volume. This R&B vocal group came from Los Angeles, California, USA. The Shields were an ad hoc group formed in 1958 by producer George Motola to record a cover version of the Slades' "You Cheated". The membership has always been conjectural, but it is generally accepted to have comprised lead Frankie Ervin (b. 27 March 1926, Blythe, California, USA), falsetto Jesse Belvin (b. 15 December 1932, San Antonio, Texas, USA, d. 6 February 1960), Johnny "Guitar" Watson (b. 3 February 1935, Houston, Texas, USA, d. 17 May 1996, Yokohama, Japan), Mel Williams and Buster Williams. "You Cheated", which went to number 11 R&B and number 12 pop in 1958, was the group's only hit, and the song remains one of the most enduring legacies of the age of doo-wop.
Source
http://music.lycos.com/artist/default.asp?QT=A&QW=SHIELDS

Jackie Wilson was a legend in his own time. Although he was better known as a dancing entertainer, track 15 demonstrates what a great love ballad solo singer Wilson was. Featured here is his recording of TO BE LOVED (not to be confused with TO BE LOVED (FOREVER) by the Pentagons).
 

 Jackie Wilson was one of the most important agents of black pop's transition from R&B into soul. In terms of vocal power (especially in the upper register), few could outdo him; he was also an electrifying on-stage showman.

He was a consistent hitmaker from the mid-'50s through the early '70s, although never a crossover superstar. His reputation isn't quite on par with Ray Charles, James Brown, or Sam Cooke, however, because his records did not always reflect his artistic genius. Indeed, there is a consensus of sorts among critics that Wilson was something of an underachiever in the studio, due to the sometimes inappropriately pop-based material and arrangements that he used.

Wilson was well-known on the R&B scene before he went solo in the late '50s. In 1953 he replaced Clyde McPhatter in Billy Ward & the Dominoes (listen to the 60-Minute Man track at the end of this volume), one of the top R&B vocal groups of the '50s. Although McPhatter was himself a big star, Wilson was as good as or better than the man whose shoes he filled. Commercially, however, things took a downturn for the Dominoes in the Wilson years, although they did manage a Top 20 hit with "St. Therese of the Roses" in 1956. Elvis Presley was one of those who was mightily impressed by Wilson in the mid-'50s; he can be heard praising Jackie's on-stage cover of "Don't Be Cruel" in between-song banter during the Million Dollar Quartet session in late 1956.

Wilson would score his first big R&B (and small pop) hit in late 1956 with the brassy, stuttering "Reet Petite," which was co-written by an emerging Detroit songwriter named Berry Gordy Jr. Gordy would also help write a few other hits for Jackie in the late '50s, "To Be Loved," "Lonely Teardrops," "That's Why (I Love You So)," and "I'll Be Satisfied"; they also crossed over to the pop charts, "Lonely Teardrops" making the Top Ten. Most of these were upbeat, creatively arranged marriages of pop and R&B that, in retrospect, helped set the stage both for '60s soul and for Gordy's own huge pop success at Motown.

The early Gordy-Wilson association has led some historians to speculate how much differently (and better) Jackie's career might have turned out had he been on Motown's roster instead of the Brunswick label.

In the early '60s, Wilson maintained his pop stardom with regular hit singles that often used horn arrangements and female choruses that have dated somewhat badly, especially in comparison with the more creative work by peers such as Charles and Brown from this era. Wilson also sometimes went into out-and-out operatic pop, as on "Danny Boy" and one of his biggest hits, "Night" (1960). At the same time, he remained capable of unleashing a sweaty, up-tempo, gospel-soaked number: "Baby Workout," which fit that description to a T, was a number five hit for him in 1963.

It's true that you have to be pretty selective in targeting the worthwhile Wilson records from this era; 1962's At the Copa, for instance, has Jackie trying to combine soul and all-around entertainment, and not wholly succeeding with either strategy. Yet some of his early Brunswick material is also fine uptown soul; not quite as earthy as some of his fans would have liked him to sound, no doubt, but worth hearing.

Wilson was shot and seriously wounded by a female fan in 1961, though he made a recovery. His career was more seriously endangered by his inability to keep up with changing soul and rock trends. Not everything he did in the mid-'60s is totally dismissible; "No Pity (In the Naked City)," for instance, is something like West Side Story done uptown soul style.

In 1966, his career was briefly revived when he teamed up with Chicago soul producer Carl Davis, who had been instrumental in the success of Windy City performers like Gene Chandler (read his background in Volume 9), Major Lance, and Jerry Butler (read his background in Volume 9). Davis successfully updated Wilson's sound with horn-heavy arrangements, getting near the Top Ten with "Whispers," and then making number six in 1967 with "Higher and Higher." And that was really the close of Wilson's career as either a significant artist or commercial force, although he had some minor chart entries through the early '70s.

While playing a Dick Clark oldies show at the Latin Casino in New Jersey in September 1975, Wilson suffered an on-stage heart attack while singing "Lonely Teardrops." He lapsed into a coma, suffering major brain damage, and was hospitalized until his death in early 1984.

Don and Juan entertain us for the sixteenth track of Volume 3. This dynamic duo had a number of doo wop hits in the 50’s and 60’s. Featured here is their biggest hit, WHAT’S YOUR NAME, a Top 10 ballad that has since become a doo-wop classic. It was originally recorded in 1962. Don (b. Roland Trone) and Juan (b. Claude Johnson) were members of a vocal quartet called the Genies in Brooklyn, New York, USA. In 1959 the Genies released the up-tempo single "Who's That Knockin'", which reached number 71 in the US charts on Shad Records. Unable to follow it with another hit, the group was dropped from the label, and subsequent recordings for Hollywood Records and Warwick Records also failed to chart.

Trone and Johnson left the group and became house painters in the Long Island, New York area, until they were rediscovered, this time by an agent named Peter Paul, who arranged for the pair to sign with Big Top Records. Under their new name, they recorded "What's Your Name", which reached number 7 in the Billboard charts in February 1962. Only one other single, "Magic Wand", charted, although Don And Juan continued to record until 1967. Trone died in 1983 and Johnson rekindled the act with Alexander "Buddy" Faison, another former member of the Genies, as the new Don.
SOURCE
http://music.lycos.com/artist/bio.asp?QT=A&QW=Don & Juan&AN=Don & Juan&MID=37124&MH=53

During the early 60’s the Duprees were one doo-wop group heavily involved in the recording industry. Their easy-listening style captured a large audience nation wide, and specialized in recording updated versions of old pop hits in a smooth rock and roll style. Included in this volume is there biggest hit remake, YOU BELONG TO ME (track 17), along with another top charter, entitled MY OWN TRUE LOVE (track 18).
 
A rock 'n' roll vocal group from Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. They were one of the most pop-sounding of the Italian-American groups that were in abundance during the late 50s and early 60s. The group comprised lead vocalist Joseph (Joey Vann) Canzano (d. 28 February 1984), Mike Arnone, Tom Bialablow, John Salvato, and Joe Santollo (d. 3 June 1981). The Duprees signed with Coed, who with their other acts, notably the Rivieras, revived old pop hits using teenage vocal harmony groups to convey them to the new rock 'n' roll audience. The Duprees' biggest hit was their 1962 remake of the old Jo Stafford hit, "You Belong To Me" (number 7 pop). The best of their other seven chart entries were "My Own True Love" (number 13 pop, a vocal version of "Tara's Theme") and "Have You Heard' (number 18 pop), a remake of the decade-old Joni James hit. The Duprees" last national hit record was in 1965. Recording for Jerry Ross's Heritage/Colossus label complex during 1968/9, the Duprees failed to chart with the same formula of updating old pop hits, such as Bobby Helms' "My Special Angel" and Don Rondo's "Two Different Worlds". The group's last recording was "Delicious", a disco song for RCA Records in 1975. Santollo died in 1981 and Canzano in 1984, but remnants of the Duprees have subsequently built a successful career playing the oldies doo-wop circuit in the New York and New Jersey area.
SOURCE
http://music.lycos.com/artist/bio.asp?QT=A&QW=THE DUPREES&AN=The Duprees&MID=50663&MH=

One of the final Italian doo wop groups to make a wave in the early '60s, the Duprees were in some senses not a rock & roll act at all. They relied on updates of pre-rock pop standards for most of their material, dressed up in classy big band arrangements. Their New Jersey street-corner roots were still audible in their doo wop harmonies, giving their treatments of moldy oldies enough of a contemporary flavor to compete in the rock and pop marketplace. They were very good at what they did, and in 1962-1963, they were very successful: "You Belong to Me" (previously recorded by Jo Stafford, Patti Page, Dean Martin, and Joni James) made the Top Ten, and "My Own True Love" (from the soundtrack of Gone With the Wind), "Have You Heard," and "Why Don't You Believe Me" were also Top 40 hits. The Duprees were already retro when they were at their peak, and were washed out by the British Invasion, although they continued to record throughout the late '60s, sometimes in a Jay & the Americans/Vogues style
SOURCE
http://artistinfo.spinner.com/cg/x.dll?UID=11:50:31|PM&ot=Windows&pt=1&spu=F&ug=1&fn=null&p=spinner&sql=1:4143

Tracks 19 and 21 feature two Lloyd Price classics, JUST BECAUSE and COME INTO MY HEART. Both songs were recorded in the 50’s and provide two excellent examples of the solo vocal ability of Price, often called "Mr. Personality." (Hear this doo wop classic in Volume 5)

Not entirely content with being a 1950s R&B star on the strength of his immortal New Orleans classic LAWDY MISS CLAWDY (listen to Volume 5) singer Lloyd Price yearned for massive pop acceptance. He found it, too, with a storming rock & roll reading of the ancient blues "Stagger Lee" and the unabashedly pop-slanted PERSONALITY (listen to Volume 5) and "I'm Gonna Get Married" (the latter pair sounding far removed indeed from his Crescent City beginnings).

Growing up in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, Price was exposed to seminal sides by Louis Jordan, the Liggins brothers, Roy Milton, and Amos Milburn through the jukebox in his mother's little fish-fry joint. Lloyd and his younger brother Leo (who later co-wrote Little Richard's "Send Me Some Lovin'") put together a band for local consumption while in their teens. Bandleader Dave Bartholomew was impressed enough to invite Specialty Records boss Art Rupe to see the young singer (this was apparently when Bartholomew was momentarily at odds with his longtime employers at rival Imperial).

At his very first Specialty date in 1952, Price sang his classic eight-bar blues LAWDY MISS CLAWDY (its rolling piano intro courtesy of a moonlighting Fats Domino). It topped the R&B charts for an extended period, making Price a legitimate star before he was old enough to vote. Four more Specialty smashes followed -- "Oooh, Oooh, Oooh," "Restless Heart," "Tell Me Pretty Baby," "Ain't It a Shame" -- before Price was drafted into the Army and deposited unhappily in Korea.

When he finally managed to break free of the military, Price formed his own label, KRC Records, with partners Harold Logan and Bill Boskent and got back down to business. JUST BECAUSE, a plaintive ballad Price first cut for KRC, held enough promise to merit national release on ABC-Paramount in 1957 (his ex-valet, Larry Williams, covered it on Price's former label, Specialty).

"Stagger Lee," Price's adaptation of the old Crescent City lament "Stack-A-Lee," topped both the R&B and pop lists in 1958. By now, his sound was taking on more of a cosmopolitan bent, with massive horn sections and prominent pop background singers. Dick Clark insisted on toning down the violence inherent to the song's story line for the squeaky-clean American Bandstand audience, accounting for the two different versions of the song you're likely to encounter on various reissues.

After Price hit with another solid rocker, "Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day)?" in 1959, the heavy brass-and-choir sound became his trademark at ABC-Paramount. "Personality," "I'm Gonna Get Married," and COME INTO MY HEART all shot up the pop and R&B lists in 1959, and "Lady Luck" and "Question" followed suit in 1960.

Always a canny businessman, Price left ABC-Paramount in 1962 to form another firm of his own with Logan. Double L Records debuted Wilson Pickett as a solo artist and broke Price's Vegas lounge-like reading of "Misty" in 1963. Later, he ran yet another label, Turntable Records (its 45s bore his photo, whether on his own sizable 1969 hit "Bad Conditions" or when the single was by Howard Tate!), and operated a glitzy New York nightspot by the same name.

But the music business turned sour for Price when his partner, Logan, was murdered in 1969. He got as far away from it all as he possibly could, moving to Africa and investing in nonmusical pursuits. Perfect example: He linked up with electric-haired Don King to promote Muhammad Ali bouts in Zaire (against George Foreman) and Manila (against Joe Frazier). He indulged in a few select oldies gigs (including an appearance on NBC-TV's Midnight Special), but overall, little was seen of Price during the 1970s.

Returning to America in the early '80s, he largely resisted performing until a 1993 European tour with Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Gary "U.S." Bonds convinced him there was still a market for his bouncy, upbeat oldies. Price's profile went on the upswing since -- he guested on a PBS-TV special with Huey Lewis & the News, and regularly turned up to headline the Jazz & Heritage Festival in his old hometown.

 Track 20 of this volume features a beautiful ballad by Chuck Willis, entitled WHAT AM I LIVING FOR? The song represents another strong example of the powerful solo performances in Volume 3. the flip side of this song was also a top 40 hit, entitled HANG UP MY ROCK AND ROLL SHOES (listen to Volume 6). Unfortunately, Willis died shortly after these songs were released at the young age of 30 from an attack of peritonitis.

There were two distinct sides to Chuck Willis. In addition to being a convincing blues shouter, the Atlanta-born Willis harbored a vulnerable blues balladeer side. In addition, he was a masterful songwriter who penned some of the most distinctive R&B numbers of the 1950s. He can't be granted principal credit for his 1957 smash adaptation of "C.C. Rider," an irresistible update of a classic folk-blues, but Willis did write such gems as "I Feel So Bad" (later covered by Elvis Presley, Little Milton, and Otis Rush), the anguished ballads "Don't Deceive Me (Please Don't Go)" and "It's Too Late" (the latter attracting covers by Buddy Holly, Charlie Rich, and Otis Redding) and his swan song, HANG UP MY ROCK AND ROLL SHOES.

Harold Willis (he adopted Chuck as a stage handle) received his early training singing at YMCA-sponsored "Teenage Canteens" in Atlanta and fronting the combos of local bandleaders Roy Mays and Red McAllister. Powerful DJ Zenas "Daddy" Sears took an interest in the young vocalist's career, hooking him up with Columbia Records in 1951. After a solitary single for the major firm, Willis was shuttled over to its recently reactivated OKeh R&B subsidiary.
In 1952, he crashed the national R&B lists for OKeh with a typically plaintive ballad, "My Story," swiftly encoring on the hit parade with a gentle cover of Fats Domino's "Goin' to the River" and his own "Don't Deceive Me" the next year and "You're Still My Baby" and the surging Latin-beat "I Feel So Bad" in 1954. Willis also penned a heart-tugging chart-topper for Ruth Brown that year, "Oh What a Dream."

Willis moved over to Atlantic Records in 1956 and immediately enjoyed another round of hits with "It's Too Late" and "Juanita." Atlantic strove mightily to cross Willis over into pop territory, inserting an exotic steel guitar at one session and chirpy choirs on several more. The strategy eventually worked when his 1957 revival of the ancient CC RIDER (listen to Volume 4), which was originally recorded by the Clovers, proved the perfect number to do the "Stroll" to. American Bandstand gave the track a big push, and Willis had his first R&B number one hit as well as a huge pop seller (Gene "Daddy G" Barge's magnificent sax solo likely aided its ascent).

Barge returned for Willis's similar follow-up, "Betty and Dupree," which also did well for him. But the turban-wearing crooner's time was growing short -- he had long suffered from ulcers prior to his 1958 death from peritonitis. Much has been made of the ironic title of his last hit, the touching WHAT AM I LIVING FOR but it was no more a clue to his impending demise than its flip, the joyous HANG UP MY ROCK AND ROLL SHOES. Both tracks became massive hits upon the singer's death, and his posthumous roll continued with "My Life" and a powerful "Keep A-Driving" later that year.

In the twenty second track of this volume we feature Annie Lurie’s largest hit, IT HURTS TO BE IN LOVE. This entertainer’s roots date back to the mid-forties.

Rumoured to be Dinah Washington's favorite singer and a big influence on Joe Williams, Annie Laurie sang professionally with the territory bands led by Snookum Russell and Dallas Bartley (the latter with whom she made her recording debut - "St. Louis Blues" - in 1945), before arriving in New Orleans where she was hired by Paul Gayten.

With Gayten's band she had a string of successful records between 1947 and 1950, such as her covers of Buddy Johnson's "Since I Fell For You" on DeLuxe Records and Lucky Millinder's "I'll Never Be Free" on Regal - both of which spawned numerous cover versions. Following Regal's demise in 1951, Annie Laurie commenced her solo career on Columbia's reactivated OKeh subsidiary, subsequently recording for Savoy (1956), DeLuxe again (1956-59 - where she had her biggest hit in 1957 with "It Hurts To Be In Love"), and Ritz (1962). In the 60s she gave up secular singing and has devoted her voice to the church ever since.

The final track of this volume involves a doo wop group that developed many rock and roll star entertainers. Once again we have a doo wop recording group with origins from the mid-forties. Featured here is one of the Dominoes biggest top 40 R & B hits, SIXTY MINUTE MAN.

The Dominoes (also sometimes known as Billy Ward & the Dominoes) had one of the finest musical pedigrees of any R&B vocal group of the 1940s, at least based on its founder's training and experience. A lot of R&B acts came out of a gospel background, and Bo Diddley even studied violin as a boy, but rare is the R&B vocal group whose founder was trained at Juilliard. Billy Ward (born September 19, 1921, Los Angeles) had a minister father and a musician mother, and was a musical prodigy as a child, schooled in classical music theory and composition as well as performance. Before he was in his teens, Ward was good enough on the organ to play at his father's services and he won a composition award at age 14 from Walter Damrosch, the celebrated New York music educator, composer, and administrator.

Following his military service during World War II, Ward studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he later became a voice coach; he also began working on Broadway during the late '40s. It was from the ranks of his ex-students that he recruited the original members of the Dominoes: Clyde McPhatter (read his profile in Volume 4) as lead singer, Charlie White (tenor), Joe Lamont (baritone), and Bill Brown (bass).

The Dominoes won a series of talent contests, including a competition on the television show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, which got them a lot of engagements and an audition with Ralph Bass, the head of the newly established Federal Records label, part of Syd Nathan's King Records, during the final months of 1950.

The Dominoes, with McPhatter's high tenor lead, had a startlingly fresh sound and enjoyed a number six R&B hit in early 1951 with one song from their first session, "Do Something for Me." It was in May of that year that the group broke through to the top of the R&B charts with "Sixty Minute Man," which also established them as one of the leading crossover acts between gospel and blues. Riding the wave of demand for their performances off of that hit -- one of the first great double-entendre records of the '50s, and a very early example of what would be considered a "rock & roll" record -- the group spent the next seven months on the road, building up a lot of public good will and a reputation as one of the top R&B acts of the era.

What made the Dominoes special, besides the excellent arrangements and McPhatter's unique voice, was their appeal beyond the usual racial lines of demarcation. They were huge in the black community, but they were also one of a relative handful of R&B acts that developed a small but fiercely loyal following younger white listeners as well during the early '50s, which didn't matter a lot at the time -- and, as things worked out, was only incidental to their fate -- but helped to plant a seed that blossomed into the full-blown rock & roll boom four years later.

The Dominoes' star seemed poised only to rise, but there was already trouble within the lineup as early as 1951, when Charlie White quit and was succeeded by James Van Loan, followed by Bill Brown, who was replaced by David McNeil, formerly of the group the Larks. White (who later joined the Clovers) and Brown passed through a short-lived vocal group called the Checkers, while the reconstituted Dominoes continued scoring hits with "I Am With You" and "That's What You're Doing to Me," before scaling the top of the R&B charts again with "Have Mercy Baby," which was number one for two and a half months in 1952.

Amid these successes, and the constant touring and occasional recording, there was rising dissension within the ranks of the group over the way that Ward had it organized, musically and financially. Nobody disputed that Ward had the musical training to run the group on that level, and his ruling it with an iron hand where arrangements and repertory were concerned was understandable. The problem was that the ticket-buying and record-buying public was enamored of the singing itself, especially that of lead tenor Clyde McPhatter, and the singers were seeing very little of the money the group was earning.

McPhatter himself was being paid barely enough to live on, which was bad enough, but to add insult to injury, he often found himself billed as Clyde Ward in order to fool fans into thinking that he was Billy Ward's brother. In the spring of 1953, it all hit the fan at once, as McPhatter exited the lineup in April.
 

Under the encouragement of Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun, he quickly organized a new group of his own called the Drifters. McPhatter's exit from the Dominoes hit the group's core audience within the black community like news of an earthquake, so beloved was the lead singer among their fans. The group and the singer enjoyed the adulation appropriate to a pop/R&B outfit, but they also evoked deep passions that were more akin to those elicited by a gospel outfit, and his departure from the Dominoes should have derailed the group.

Ward must have sensed that there was trouble coming, however, because during the prior year he had approached a young boxer-turned-singer named Jackie Wilson, who had a voice that, if anything, was better than McPhatter's. A high tenor similar to McPhatter, he moved right into the fold with the latter's departure and the Dominoes picked right up with their performances and their contract at King/Federal. Wilson's singles with the group included "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down" and "Rags to Riches," which kept their demand reasonably high for the next year. The Dominoes seemed to be on track once more, despite more lineup shifts, including the departure of David McNeil for military service.

The new Dominoes lineup was Jackie Wilson (lead), James Van Loan (second tenor), Milton Marle (baritone), and Cliff Givens (bass), with Billy Ward still in charge. In 1954, Ward decided to forego renewing the group's contract at King Records -- it seemed as though they hardly ever saw anything from their work in the studio, despite having sold so many records that, at one point, Nathan had put his pressing plant on overtime just to meet the demand for the group's records. Ward made his move in 1954, taking the group to Jubilee Records that August, where they lasted through two singles. Finally, in early 1955, the Dominoes moved to Decca Records, where they enjoyed that long-sought national hit with "St. Teresa of the Roses." The group was unable to replicate that success over the next year, however, and in late 1956, Wilson quit to begin a solo career that would make him a star.

Ward tried to keep the franchise going with the addition of ex-Lark Eugene Mumford as lead singer, and got the group a new contract with California-based Liberty Records. The new incarnation of the Dominoes suddenly found themselves with a major hit in the form of "Star Dust," which rode the pop charts for 24 weeks and got as high as number 13 nationally.

This proved to be their last serious assault on the charts, however, and the group went hitless despite singles issued on the ABC label into the late '50s. Despite their lack of chart success, the Dominoes continued to perform into the 1960s and LPs -- mostly exploiting Clyde McPhatter's and Jackie Wilson's name and work -- did appear periodically. Today the group is principally remembered in the context of their respective careers, though SIXTY MINUTE MAN does occupy an exalted place in its own right as a breakthrough R&B record. 
 

VOLUME 4 – RARE AND TREASURED DOO WOP GOLD LOVE NOTES

1.  The Capris - The Morse Code of Love

2.  The Jive Five - I'm a Happy Man

3.  The Jive Five - What Time is It

4.  Curtis Lee - Pretty Little Angel Eyes

5.  The Stereos - I Really Love You

6.  The Marcels - Heartaches

7.  The Marcels - Blue Moon

8.  Phil Phillips - The Sea of Love

9.  Little Willie John - Talk to Me

10. Clarence "Frogman" Henry - But I Do

11. The Del Rios - Just Across the Street

12. Ronnie and the Hi Lites - I Wish That We Were Married

13. Donnie Elbert - My Confessions of Love

14. Billy Williams - I'm Going to Sit right Down and Write Myself a Letter

15. The Fiestas - So Fine

16. The Swallows - Beside You

17. The Hurricans - Maybe it's All for the Best

18. Clyde Mcphatter and the Drifters - It's a Lover's Question

19. Ron Holden - Love You So

20. Clyde McPhatter - Lovey Dovey

21. Ray Charles - I Want to Know

22. Ray Charles - Ain't That Love

23. The Hollywood Flames - There is Something on Your Mind

24. The Hurricanes - Yours

25. Chuck Willis - CC Rider

During the 50’s and 60’s, many doo wop songs never made it to the top 40 billboard chart. Usually these songs were at least fairly successful on the R & B charts. A lot of these sounds are featured throughout this doo wop box.

However, this volume features more of these "backdoor" sounds than any other CD in our program. At least half of these tracks are indeed rare classics. In addition, this is the first volume that features some doo wop hard rockers. Some of the hard rockers are also "backdoor" sounds.

Also, we take a sneak preview of the New Orleans sound in this volume. Phil Phillips, Ron Holden, and Clarence "Frogman" Henry sing their popular Madigras styled recordings.
 

The volume begins with a doo wop favorite from the Capris, entitled THE MORSE CODE OF LOVE. Not to be confused with the Philadelphia group of the same name, the New York City Capris were a white doo wop group. Although strongly associated with the 1950s rock & roll sound, the two records they are best known for, "There's a Moon out Tonight" and MORSE CODE OF LOVE didn't become hits until the '50s were over.

The group originally formed in 1957 in the borough of Queens, NY, when all were teenagers. The original lead was Nick Santa Maria (aka Santo), Mike Mincelli (first tenor), Steve Reina (second tenor), Vinnie Narcardo (baritone), and John Apostol (bass). In selecting their name, the guys were apparently unfamiliar with the Philadelphia group that had preceded them by a few years. Previous interviews with different members of the group make it unclear whether the group was named for the Isle of Capri, or the car of the same name. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

By 1958, the group had been gaining experience performing at local venues, and had even started adding some of their own original material to their repertoire. They attracted the attention of some independent record producers, and were soon in the studio cutting an original ballad called "There's a Moon out Tonight." For the B-side, they recorded an interesting up-tempo novelty tune titled "Indian Girl." With it's strong 1950s rock & roll flavor, the sides were quickly picked up for release by Planet, a small New York City label.

Unfortunately for the Capris though, Planet was not able to effectively promote the record and it became an almost instant obscurity. Original Planet pressings of "There's a Moon out Tonight" can now fetch up to 1,000 dollars in collectors circles, when one of these rare platters surfaces.

Soon thereafter, the group members all went their separate ways, and one would think that's where the story would end. But, for the Capris, things took a different and an interesting turn. By 1960, much of what was being passed off to teenagers as rock & roll was polished pop with a beat; lacking the original vitality of what preceded it in the mid-'50s.

Discerning and disgruntled teenagers were looking backward, and radio programs were starting to focus on "oldies," even though these "oldies" may have been released only two or three years earlier. As luck would have it, the Capris' record found it's way in to the hands of Jerry Greene. At the time, Greene worked for Times Square Records, a legendary New York City "oldies" store that supplied DJ Alan Fredericks with material for his Night Train radio show. Fredericks played the record and now kids were looking to buy it.

Greene was initially able to get a few hundred of the remaining copies of the record from Planet. With the demand exceeding the dwindling number of available copies, Greene finally purchased the masters from Planet, started his own label, and reissued "There's a Moon out Tonight" as Lost Nite 101. But the demand kept growing and so Greene turned to Hy Weiss, who released the disc again, now on his Old Town label.

By early 1961, the record had made the national charts and stayed there for over three months. With a national hit on their hands, the Capris reunited and soon were playing some of the country's most prestigious venues, like the Regal in Chicago and the Apollo in New York City.

Trying to capitalize on the success of "There's a Moon out Tonight," Old Town released three more singles by the group, all in 1961. "Where I Fell In Love" was an average ballad that borrowed lyrically from "Moon" but lacked it's energy. The flip side "Some People Think," another ballad, was a stronger effort by the group. It probably would have done better without the syrupy strings that were added. It barely broke in to the national charts, and quickly dropped out of sight.

Their next release, "Why Do I Cry," was a cliché-filled ballad, again with too much strings added. The flip side, "Tears in My Eyes," was another pleasant ballad by the group. But again, neither side registered with the fans.

For their last Old Town pairing, they broke with the back-to-back ballad formula of the previous two releases. "My Island in yhe Sun" was a nice mid-tempo number with a cha cha feel. The flip "Girl in My Dreams" was a decent ballad, although with some overly busy string bass work that somewhat intrudes on the group's vocal efforts. This one also scratched at the bottom of the charts but never took off. Some previously unreleased Capris tracks for Old Town have now been made available on a series of CDs put out by England's Ace Records.

1962 saw the group leave Old Town and move over to the Mr. Peeke label for a single release "Limbo" backed with "From the Vine Came the Grape." Neither of these tunes captured the public's attention. So, by 1963, the Capris were dissolving again, with Santo becoming one of New York City's finest. Over the next few years there would be other personnel changes as the group continued on with performances. But for the next big event in the history of the Capris, we'll fast forward about 20 years.

In 1982, Nick Santo re-joined the group and they went in to the studio to record a new album,There's a Moon out Again, for Ambient Sound. Besides doing covers of some doo wop classics, the Capris also included a couple of original tunes. One of these was a song called "Morse Code of Love." The tune sounded like it came right out of the late '50s, and many thought it was in fact an overlooked "oldie." It was also released as a single in 1982, backed with "There's a Moon out Again." And the song got even more exposure when Manhattan Transfer decided to cover it.

Over the years, MORSE CODE OF LOVE has only grown in popularity and has become one of the most requested tunes on oldies-type radio stations. Once again the Capris scored a home run with a 1950s sound that touched the heartstrings of the listeners and evoked the spirit of a time when life was simpler.

Tracks two and three in this volume are performed by The Jive Five, one of the largest doo wop groups of the 50’s. I’M A HAPPY MAN and WHAT TIME IS IT are featured here. The group’s biggest hit was "My True Story." From Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA, the Jive Five were one of the last doo-wop groups to have a national hit and one of the few to make a successful transition to the soul era.

The group members were Eugene Pitt (b. 6 November 1937; lead), Jerome Hanna (first tenor), Richard Harris (second tenor), Billy Prophet (baritone) and Norman Johnson (d. 1970; bass). "My True Story" (number 1 R&B, number 3 pop) was recorded in 1961. A particularly outstanding feature of the group's approach was the counter pointing exchanges between lead Pitt and bass Johnson. Continuing with the same sound, the group had lesser hits during the next two years with "Never Never" (number 74 pop),

WHAT TIME IS IT (number 67 pop) and "These Golden Rings" (number 27 R&B). By 1964 the group had developed a soul sound and had joined United Artists Records. At this point Pitt and Johnson were supported by new members Casey Spencer (second tenor), Beatrice Best (baritone), and Webster Harris (first tenor).

The group found success in 1965 with I’M A HAPPY MAN (number 26 R&B, number 36 pop), and followed with "A Bench In The Park", which received good airplay in Washington, DC, but nowhere else. The group left United Artists Records in 1966, and their last chart record was in 1970, for Decca Records. In the 80s Eugene Pitt And The Jive Five made two fine albums for Ambient Sound, who were unable to break the group out of the limited audience for doo-wop harmony.

The fourth song of this volume was Curtis Lee’s largest hit, PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES. Lee occupies the era of rock 'n roll in between the death of Buddy Holly and the arrival of the Beatles -- a period usually thought of as "lost years," because, apart from the Beach Boys, few of the artists involved lingered long on the charts or left an obvious legacy into the next era. Neither did Lee, but two of his songs,

PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES and "Under the Moon of Love," evoke vivid associations with that innocent, romantic era.
Lee hailed from Arizona, and cut three songs for small labels while he was still in his teens. He was heard by Ray Peterson ("Tell Laura I Love Her"), who'd just started a label of his own, Dunes, and invited to cut a demo if he came to New York. By the time he made it to New York in late 1960, he'd started writing songs in partnership with a friend, Tommy Boyce, who later one half of the Boyce & Hart songwriting-producing-singing duo.

Lee's first two singles, "Special Love" and "Pledge of Love," were passionate but otherwise unexceptional performances that understandly failed to chart, but for his third record, Dunes agreed to cut a Lee-Boyce original called "Pretty Little Angel Eyes." Phil Spector, who had previously produced a hit for Peterson ("Corinna, Corinna"), ran the session, and laid the orchestra and, especially, the chorus on very heavily, the latter deliberately working in a late 1950's doo wop style. The resulting record made the top 10, and Lee's biggest hit.

Lee and Boyce next turned in the jaunty "Under The Moon of Love," which used less of a doo wop style, in favor of a thick sax sound and a soaring girl chorus, and made the charts in late 1961. Unfortunately, this was to be Lee's last recording success. Lee never charted another record, and he left the music business.

PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL EYES is a fixture on oldies stations, however, with its distinctive sound, and both it and "Under The Moon of Love" are considered prime representatives of Phil Spector's early sound

For the fifth song of Volume 4, we hear the Stereos singing I REALLY LOVE YOU. This vocal group from Steubenville, Ohio, USA, consisted of lead Bruce Robinson, first tenor Nathaniel Hicks, second tenor Sam Profit, baritone George Otis and bass Ronnie Collins.

The Stereos were typical of the early 60s transition from doo-wop to soul-singing in a style that utilized doo-wop harmonies, but was propelled by gospelized lead vocals. The genesis of the group lay in the Buckeyes, who recorded several tracks for Deluxe Records in 1956. Three members of the group - Robinson, Collins and first tenor Leroy Swearingen - joined with Profit and Otis to form the Stereos in 1959.

After they made an unsuccessful record for Otis Blackwell's Gibralter label, Swearingen left and was replaced with Hicks. The group was signed to MGM's Cub subsidiary in 1961, and immediately found success with the Swearingen-penned "I Really Love You" (number 15 R&B, number 29 pop). The Stereos were not able to successfully follow up with their two further singles on Cub, or later singles on Columbia, World Artists, and Val.

The group broke up in 1965, but reassembled as a self-contained band in 1967. After two singles on Chess' Cadet subsidiary during 1967-68, the Stereos disbanded for good.

The Marcels, a Pittsburgh doo wop group, was very popular in the early 60’s. Their largest hit was BLUE MOON, featured on track seven. In addition, the group had success with HEARTACHES, featured on track six.

The Marcels were one of several doo-wop-influenced American vocal groups to achieve success in the early 60s, despite the passing of the genre's golden age. Cornelius "Nini" Harp (lead singer), Ronald "Bingo" Mundy (tenor), Fred Johnson (bass), Gene Bricker (tenor) and Richard Knauss (baritone), all native to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA, achieved fame for their distinctive version of Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart's classic "Blue Moon", previously a UK Top 10 hit for Elvis Presley in 1956, which topped both the US and UK charts in 1961.

Johnson's distinctive bass introduction to the song has remained one of the most enduring vocal phrases of the time. The quartet scored a further US Top 10 hit that year with "Heartaches', but its personnel was unstable, with Allen Johnson (d. 28 September 1995) replacing Knauss, and Walt Maddox (read his profile in Volume 9) replacing Bricker. Mundy walked out on the group during this same period, which did little to prepare them for the ever-changing trends prevalent during the early 60s, and eventually undermined the Marcels" long-term aspirations.

One final note about the Marcels: This Pittsburgh ensemble deserved a much better fate than being known primarily for a novelty-tinged cover of BLUE MOON. Baritone vocalist Richard F. Knauss teamed with Fred Johnson, Gene J. Bricker, Ron Mundy, and lead vocalist Cornelius Harp, an integrated ensemble. They named themselves after Harp's hairstyle, the marcel. The group did a string of covers as demo tapes that were sent to Colpix.

The label's A&R director had them cut several oldies at RCA's New York studios in 1961, one of them being BLUE MOON. They used the bass intro arrangement from the Cadillacs' "Zoom" and the results were a huge hit. It eventually topped both the pop and R&B charts, and also was an international smash. The group eventually appeared in the film Twist Around the Clock with Dion and Chubby Checker. They eventually recorded an 18-cut LP for Colpix.
Phil Phillips was one of the one-hit doo wop performers of the 50’s. He is featured here singing his only top 40 hit,

THE SEA OF LOVE, on track eight. Phillips wrote his one hit, SEA OF LOVE to impress a would-be girlfriend in 1958. He was introduced to producer George Khoury, who recorded the song at the Goldband Recording Studio and released it on his own label, credited to Phil Phillips And The Twilights.

Although the song never had the intended effect upon the girl, the single sold well locally, resulting in the larger Mercury Records picking up distribution and the ballad reached number 2 in the US national chart and number 1 in the R&B chart. The song was typical of the "swamp-rock' sound that Cajun community of the bayou of southern Louisiana was producing by such artists as Rod Bernard, Tommy McLain, and Johnnie Allan

Phillips recorded several other songs during the next few years, but never again managed to chart. His song later resurfaced recorded by Marty Wilde (UK number 3, 1959), Del Shannon and the Honeydrippers (a rock supergroup with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Nile Rodgers), the latter nearly matching the original's performance by reaching the US number 3 position in 1985. In 1989, Phillips" original recording made news again as the title song for Al Pacino's film of the same name. Phillips was working as a Louisiana disc jockey in the late 80s.

Little Willie John was one of the best doo wop vocalists during the late 50’s. His satin smooth voice is included in this volume on track nine with his 1958 recording of TALK TO ME..

He's never received the accolades given to the likes of Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, and James Brown, but Little Willie John ranks as one of R&B's most influential performers. His muscular high timbre and enormous technical and emotional range belied his young age (his first hit came when he was 18), but his mid-'50s work for Syd Nathan's King label would play a great part in the way soul music would sound.

 Everyone from Cooke, McPhatter, and Brown to Jackie Wilson, B.B. King, and Al Green has acknowledged his debt to this most overlooked of rock and soul pioneers. His debut recording, a smoking version of Titus Turner's "All around the World" from 1955, set the pattern for a remarkable string of hits: "Need Your Love So Bad," "Suffering with the Blues," "Fever," "Let Them Talk," and his last, "Sleep," from 1961. His version of "Fever" was copied note for note by Peggy Lee and Elvis Presley, both of whom had bigger hits with it; John's version, however, remains definitive. His second hit, "Need Your Love So Bad," contains one of the most intimate, tear-jerking vocals ever caught on tape.

John had a volatile temper, fueled by a taste for liquor and an insecurity regarding his slight height (5 ft 4 in). He was known to pack a gun and knife; in 1964, he stabbed a man and was sent to the Washington State penitentiary, where he died of pneumonia in 1968. James Brown recorded a tribute album to John that year, and his material has been recorded by scores of artists from the Beatles to Fleetwood Mac to the Blasters. Nevertheless, Little Willie John remains a stranger to most listeners and has never received the respect his talent deserves.

Little Willie John was one of the first artists featured in Rhino's King reissues series. Fever was issued late in 1993, and the single-disc, 20-track anthology included such John releases as "Need Your Love So Bad," "Suffering with the Blues," and the title cut.

The New Orleans sound of Clarence "Frogman" Henry gives us a preview of the type of music in Volume 5. For the tenth track of this volume, Henry performs the beautiful love ballad, entitled BUT I DO.

He could sing like a girl, and he could sing like a frog. That latter trademark croak, utilized to the max on his 1956 debut smash AIN’T GOT NO HOME (listen to Volume 5) earned good-natured Clarence Henry his nickname and jump-started a rewarding career that endures to this day around the Crescent City.

Naturally, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair were young Clarence Henry's main influences while growing up in the Big Easy. He played piano and trombone with Bobby Mitchell & the Toppers from 1952 to 1955 before catching on with saxist Eddie Smith's band. Henry improvised the basic idea behind "Ain't Got No Home" on the bandstand one morning in the wee hours; when the crowd responded favorably, he honed it into something unique. Paul Gayten (New Orleans A&R man for Chess Records) concurred, hustling Henry into Cosimo Matassa's studio in September of 1956. Local DJ Poppa Stoppa laid the "Frogman" handle on the youngster when he spun the 45 (issued on the Chess subsidiary Argo), and it stuck.

Despite some fine follow-ups -- "It Won't Be Long," "I'm in Love," the inevitable sequel "I Found a Home" -- Frog sank back into the marsh sales-wise until 1960, when Allen Toussaint's updated arrangement melded beautifully with a country-tinged Bobby Charles composition called "(I Don't Know Why) BUT I DO." Henry's rendition of the tune proved a huge pop smash in early 1961, as did a Domino-tinged "You Always Hurt the One You Love" later that year.

Frogman continued to record a variety of New Orleans-styled old standards and catchy originals for Argo (Chess assembled a Henry album that boasted what may be the worst cover art in the history of rock & roll), even recording at one point with Nashville saxist Boots Randolph and pianist Floyd Cramer. But the hits dried up for good after 1961. Henry opened 18 concerts for the Beatles across the U.S. and Canada in 1964, but his main source of income came from the Bourbon Street strip, where he played for 19 years. You'll likely find him joyously reviving his classics at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival every year come spring -- and his croak remains as deep and melodious as ever.

Pittsburgh was a fertile, creative breeding ground for no-holds-barred radio programming from the mid-1950s into the early 60s. The competition between DJs for their share of the audience was fierce and consequently each radio personality played tunes that couldn't be heard anywhere else and certainly nothing that was heard on a national level.

 Pittsburgh in the late 1950s and early 60s was a musical scene unlike any others; songs that had flopped a year or so back could become "instant oldies" if said record "had the sound."

Two of these sounds are featured on tracks 11 and 12 in this volume. The Stax label is usually associated with "the Memphis sound." However, track eleven of this volume features the Del Rios’ 1962 recording of JUST ACROSS THE STREET, a beautiful doo wop love ballad that is included in the fabulous nine CD Stax/Volt box set.

This track is typical of the late era of doo-wop when the listener can also hear chorus sound of soul. The song was very popular locally in the Western Pennsylvania area. Another popular Pittsburgh sound was recorded by Ronnie and the Hi Lites in 1962. entitled I WISH THAT WE WERE MARRIED. Here again is a song that enjoyed plenty of local airplay, but was practically unheard of nationally.

Track thirteen features another song by Donnie Elbert (listen to HAVE I SINNED in Volume 3). MY CONFESSIONS OF LOVE, recorded in 1958, was very popular in the Pittsburgh area, but also received a lot of national airplay. (See the biographical description of Donnie Elbert in Volume 3).

In track fourteen, Billy Williams, sings his beautiful 1959 doo wop love ballad entitled I’M GOING TO SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A LETTER. Williams formed the very successful gospel group the Charioteers in the early 30s while studying theology at Wilberforce College, Ohio. The group had regular radio spots in Cincinnati and New York and worked with Bing Crosby on the west coast. In the 40s they had seven hits of their own and also charted with Frank Sinatra.

In 1949 Williams left and formed the Billy Williams Quartet with Eugene Dixon (bass), Claude Riddick (baritone) and John Ball (tenor). The group were often seen on television including over 160 appearances on Sid Caesar's Your Show Of Shows. They recorded with little impact for Mercury Records and MGM Records before joining Coral Records in 1954 and after a few unsuccessful covers of R&B hits the group collected nine US chart entries. The biggest of these was a revival of Fats Waller's

 "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Right Myself A Letter": a US Top 3 and UK Top 30 hit in 1957. The jazzy R&B artist sadly lost his voice, due to diabetes, in the early 60s. He moved to Chicago where he became a social worker, employed on a model cities project and helping alcoholics until his death in 1972.

In track 15, the Fiestas entertain us with their largest hit, SO FINE, which was recorded in 1959. The Fiestas' career spanned nearly 20 years, and they came along at a time when soul music was gaining prominence in the vocal group scene.

SO FINE reached number three on the R&B charts before crossing over to number 11 on the Hot 100. The Fiestas -- lead vocalist Tommy Bullock, Eddie Morris, Sam Ingalis, and Preston Lane -- were originally from Newark, NJ. They were signed to Old Town by owner Hy Weiss in 1959 after he heard the group singing "So Fine" in the bathroom next to his office (which was run out of the cloak room of the Triboro Theatre on 125th Street and Third Avenue in Harlem). The single shot onto the charts immediately.

Weiss followed suit with the group's next single, "Last Night I Dreamed," which failed to connect. He continued trying, however, issuing soulful R&B sides that were similar to what artists like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson had been doing.

Of these, favorites include "You Could Be My Girlfriend," a cover of Arthur Alexander's "Anna," and its flipside, "Think Smart," which is now a much-coveted Northern Soul rarity. A ballad from 1962, "Broken Heart," scored number 18 on the R&B charts, but failed to chart on the pop lists.
The Fiestas eventually moved over to Strand (a New York label that started as a full-priced label but soon began specializing in budget issues) and then to Vigor, recorded through the '60s and into the mid-'70s, but never again enjoyed any hits.

In track 16 and the Swallows sing their 1952 recording of BESIDE YOU. (listen to volume 3 and hear their 1953 hit of IT FEELS SO GOOD and read the biography for the group)

For tracks 17 the Hurricanes sing their 1955 hit of MAYBE ITS ALL FOR THE BEST. The flip side of this record was a beautiful doo wop dance song entitled YOURS and is featured on track 24.

The Hurricanes are a very popular group among R & B group harmony music aficionados, although they have no chart hits to their credit. "Poor Little Dancing Girl", "Dear Mother", "Fallen Angel", and "Priceless" are the classic favorites with the R & B vocal group collector.

The story of the Hurricanes encompasses twelve records, ten years, four names, four labels, one movie, and a host of fine music, including "Poor Little Dancing Girl," a collectors' favorite.

The story begins around 1950 in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section. Some students at JHS 35 started singing together, using the Orioles as their inspiration. They were: Sam Fickling (tenor), Fred Williams (baritone), Vernon Britton (bass), and a friend from Franklin Avenue, Jerry Halfhide (lead tenor). Calling themselves the Tune Toppers, the songs they sang were mostly original compositions, done in an Orioles vein.

Other influences were Clyde McPhatter and the Dominoes, and Jimmy Ricks and the Ravens (although Vernon's favorite bass was gospel singer Jimmy Jones). As a manager, the Tune Toppers used Fred's uncle, Mack Jones, who was known professionally as "Jelly Roll" (of the comedy team of Jelly Roll and Zu Zu).

Along the way, they added a fifth member, lead tenor Henry Austin.
Jelly Roll's first contract for the group brought them to Jubilee Records. At this point, they found out there was another group called the Tune Toppers, so they shortened it to "The Toppers." At Jubilee, they recorded "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box," and the popular ballad "You're Laughing 'Cause I'm Crying." These tunes, both of which were led by Henry Austin, were released in January of 1954. "Crying," although not a big seller (overshadowed in everyone's mind by the pure raunchiness of "Box"), remains one of the group's finest efforts.

While the record never seems to have been sent out for review, its competition was the Drifters' "Such A Night," the Ravens' Mercury rendition of "September Song," the 4 Blazes' "All Night Long," and Louis Jordan's "Dad Gum Ya Hide Boy."

Soon after, the group reorganized, with Jerry Halfhide and Sam Fickling leaving. They were replaced by James Brown (second tenor) and Gabriel Gill (pianist and arranger). The Toppers were now Henry Austin, James Brown, Fred Williams, Vernon Britton, and Gabriel Gill.

The Jubilee record didn't click, but through his connections (since he was an established performer), Jelly Roll got the group a contract with King Records, and it was at Bell Sound Studios on June 15, 1955 that the Toppers recorded their first two sides for King. Most of the leads over the years would be done by Henry Austin, who was capable of many different sounds.

There were only two songs recorded that day: "Pistol Packin' Mama" and "Poor Little Dancing Girl" (both led by Henry Austin). However, King Records didn't like the name Toppers, so once again the group underwent a name change, this time to "The Hurricanes" (a name someone at the company picked out for them).

The tunes were released in July 1955, and were reviewed the week of July 30 (with "Pistol" getting a "good" review and "Dancing" only getting a "fair"). Note that the song was originally "Poor Little Party Girl," but someone at King felt that the title could be misinterpreted as being about a prostitute. However, if you listen closely, some guys are saying "party" and some "dancing." This is the price you pay for last-minute changes. Other reviews that week were for the Flamingos' "I Want To Love You," the Midnighters' "Give It Up," the Penguins' "Walkin' Down Broadway," Mickey & Sylvia's "Se De Boom Run Dun," and Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knocking."

One quick way to pick up some extra cash was to do backup work. Early in their career at King they got to back up Bubber Johnson on "Come Home" (one of those rare R&B songs with a harp). Vernon says: "Everyone was looking for a group sound. Groups were making extra money doing backup work." "Come Home" was given a "good" rating on September 10, along with the Moonglows' "Starlite," the Empires' "I Want To Know," the Chimes' "Zindy Lou," the Feathers' "Love Only You," and the Sheiks' "So Fine."

The Hurricanes' next session was held on November 29, 1955, and four tracks were laid down: "Raining In My Heart," "Maybe It's All For The Best," "Yours," and "Tell Me Baby." The first two are led by Henry Austin; "Yours" features Henry and Fred Williams; and "Tell Me Baby" is led by Fred.

In January 1956, King issued "Maybe It's All For The Best," backed with "Yours." The disc was reviewed on January 14, with both sides rated "good." Other reviews that week went to the Flamingos' "I'll Be Home," the Clovers' "Devil Or Angel," the Midnighters' "Partners For Life," Richard Berry's "I Am Bewildered," the Mello-Harps' "I Love Only You," the Fi-Tones' "It Wasn't A Lie," the Teen Queens' "Eddie My Love," and the Dikes' "Don't Leave Poor Me."

When these failed to take off too, King released "Raining In My Heart" and "Tell Me Baby" in February. They were reviewed (both "good") on March 10, along with Little Richard's "Little Richard's Boogie," the Rainbows' "Mary Lee," Charlie & Ray's "Little Fool," and Sam Taylor's "Blue Suede Shoes."

On April 9, it was back into the studio, where they recorded "Your Promise To Me" (led by Henry Austin), "Little Girl Of Mine" (led by James Brown), "Dear Mother" (James Brown, once again), and "You May Not Know" (Henry Austin). While they were there, they got to back up Jerry Dorn, a white singer who wanted a black backup group, on "Sentimental Heaven" and "Wishing Well." There were also some uncredited backup sessions, for Ruth Brown and Little Willie John, but those songs never became hits.

Later that month, King released "Your Promise To Me" (a mistitled cover of the Drifters' "Your Promise To Be Mine), backed with "Little Girl Of Mine" (a cover of the Cleftones' hit). The disc was reviewed on May 5 (with "Girl" rated "good" and "Promise" ranked "fair"). Other reviews went to Little Willie John's "Fever," the Squires' "Venus," Boogaloo's "Big Fat Lie," the 5 Chances' "Gloria," the Rockers' "I'll Die In Love With You," and the 4 Jacks' "Walking And Crying." The two Jerry Dorn sides were issued in May, but the Hurricanes' name never made it to the label.

July saw the issue of "Dear Mother" and "You May Not Know." They both got "good" reviews on July 21, along with the Gassers' "Hum De Dum," the Tempters' "I'm Sorry Now," Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk," the Cues' "Crackerjack," the El Dorados' "Chop Ling Soon," the Spaniels' "Since I Fell For You," the Phantoms' "The Old Willow Tree," and the 4 Dots' "Peace Of Mind."

And then the Hurricanes got a unique opportunity. Jelly Roll got them a spot in Rockin' The Blues, a movie being filmed at the Sunset Studios in Harlem. This film had the thinnest of plots, used to connect DJ Hal Jackson introducing several acts of varying popularity. The story line centered around comedians Mantan Moreland (who had played "Birmingham Brown" in many of the Charlie Chan movies) and Flournoy Miller (who had written the musical "Runnin' Wild," which had introduced the Charlston). The two were ineptly attempting to sneak into a show, which featured the Wanderers, the Harptones, the Miller Sisters, Connie Carroll, Linda Hopkins, Teacho Wiltshire's Band, and, of course, the Hurricanes.

The movie was produced by music impresario Fritz Pollard (who had been the first black All-American football player and manager of the Solitaires and Leslie Uggams). It contains some incredibly primitive editing (for example, much of Hal Jackson's speech is out of synch with the picture, and the scenes with Morel and and Miller seem to be inserted almost at random, instead of in a logical order).

There is also some unintentional comedy when black actors and actresses are filing into the theater as the "audience," and then the camera cuts to a spliced-in stock scene of an audience, which is all white. The Hurricanes only spent one day working on the film (along with Linda Hopkins and the Miller Sisters). They sang two songs: their latest King release, "You May Not Know," and "Army Days" (listed on the soundtrack album as "I'll Be Glad"). Henry Austin led the former, and Fred Williams the latter.

The tunes were pre-recorded that same day and there wasn't much time to practice. This is why, when Fred is distracted by an actress walking across the stage, he forgets to move his mouth to lip synch, although the sound track is still going.

Rockin' The Blues opened at the Apollo Theater on October 19, 1956, when the acts onstage were the Wheels, Sugar & Spice, Marie Knight, and Pigmeat Markham.

The Hurricanes' final session for King took place on January 11, 1957. The four songs recorded that day were: "Fallen Angel," "Priceless," "I'll Always Be In Love With You," and "Now That I Need You" (the song that the Mello-Moods had recorded as "Where Are You"). The first two were led by Henry Austin, and the others have no single lead.

"Fallen Angel" and "I'll Always Be In Love With You" were released later that month, and were reviewed on March 2 (both "good"), along with the Platters' "I'm Sorry," Little Richard's "Lucille," and Jimmy Ricks' "Bad Man Of Missouri."

The final King release was "Priceless," backed with "Now That I Need You," issued in April, 1957. They were reviewed (once again, both sides were ranked "good") on April 27, along with Fats Domino's "It's You I Love," Lavern Baker's "Jim Dandy Got Married," the Tunedrops' "Rosie Lee," the Mello-Tones' "Rosie Lee," Dave Bartholomew's "The Monkey," Little Richard's "Maybe I'm Right," and the 5 Keys' "It's A Groove."

Although the Hurricanes never had any major hits, the fact that their manager was himself a well-known performer was enough to get them bookings out of all proportion to their record sales. They played the Howard, Royal, Apollo, and Earle theaters, as well as headlining many smaller shows.

The Hurricanes produced some lovely ballads for King: "Poor Little Dancing Girl," "Maybe It's All For The Best," "Raining In My Heart," and "Dear Mother," but their biggest seller was probably their cover of the Cleftones' "Little Girl Of Mine." Along the way, they did some old standards: "Pistol Packin' Mama," "Yours," and "I'll Always Be In Love With You."

After the last King session, the group got disgusted with being shafted by the company, and once again Jelly Roll came through. He hooked them up with Jerry Field's new Skyline Records, and they had a November 1958 release called "Once In A Beautiful Lifetime," backed with "I Dare You Baby." While the whole group was on the record, the label only credits Henry Austin (as "Henry Alston").

The disc was reviewed on November 17, 1958, with "Once" rated "good" and "Dare" receiving a "fair." Other reviews that week were for Little Richard's "Early One Morning," the Olympics' "Dance With The Teacher," Dee Clark's "Nobody But You," Lavern Baker's "I Cried A Tear," the Del Vikings' "Flat Tire," and the Chanters' "Over The Rainbow."

"Once In A Beautiful Lifetime" was re-released by Skyline (probably in 1959), but this time it had, as its flip, "What Is There Left For Me." The label still only credits "Henry Alston."

Then Jelly Roll found a man named Bill Lasley, who wanted to start a new record company and was looking for talent. Lasley ended up forming Memo Records (he had originally owned the Amp-3 label) and convinced the Hurricanes to become the "Memos." Before they recorded, however, Fred Williams was drafted; he was replaced by his brother, Eugene.

The first Memo record, released in April 1959, was "I'm Going Home," backed with "My Most Precious Possession." Both sides were led by Henry Austin. "Home" was rated "fair" and "Precious" received a "poor" on May 25, 1959. Other reviews that week went to Dave "Baby" Cortez' "The Whistling Organ," Sam Cooke's "Only Sixteen," Clyde McPhatter's "Since You've Been Gone," the Impressions' "Shorty's Got To Go," the Ravens' "The Rising Sun," and the Desires' "Let It Please Be You."

In September, Memo released another disc: "The Biddy Leg," backed with "My Type Of Girl" (two more songs led by Henry Austin). They were reviewed on October 12 ("My Type Of Girl" received a "good" rating, while "The Biddy Leg" was only ranked "fair).

The other reviews that week were for Fats Domino's "Be My Guest," Little Richard's "Maybe I'm Right," the Jaguars' "Thinking Of You," Nappy Brown's "So Deep," and the Barons' "Gravel Gert."

Although Memo was a small label, the group got more airplay from "My Most Precious Possession," than from all their King sides combined. "The Biddy Leg" was their most popular stage presentation, being a take-off on the Coasters' "Along Came Jones."

In 1959, the group got to do a year-long tour of Canada, with a troupe that contained country singers and a belly dancer. All they received was enough of a weekly allowance to pay the hotel bills and eat. They were told that the rest of the money was being held back, to be paid at the end of the tour in one lump sum. However, before the tour ended, the promoter ran off with the belly dancer, leaving the rest of the acts stranded. This was the last straw, and the Tune Toppers/Toppers/Hurricanes/Memos disbanded.

Vernon Britton has stayed with the music industry, producing acts like Crown Heights Affair and Unyque. Maybe the Hurricanes didn't generate a Force Ten wind, but the gentle breezes of "Dear Mother" and "Poor Little Dancing Girl" are still wafting down through the years.
 

SOURCE
http://home.att.net/~marvy42/Hurricanes/hurricanes.html

Before Clyde McPhatter became a popular solo vocalist, he was the lead singer for the Dominoes and the Drifters. He sings his 1958 recording of IT’S A LOVER’S QUESTION on track 18, when he was a lead singer with the Drifters. In track 20, he performs one of his solo hits from 1959, LOVEY DOVEY.

For three years, McPhatter was the lead singer in the seminal R&B vocal group Billy Ward And His Dominoes. He left in 1953 to form the Drifters, whose early releases were enhanced by the singer's emotional, gospel-drenched delivery. In 1954 McPhatter was drafted into the US Army, where he entertained fellow servicemen.

Such work prompted a solo career, and the vibrant "Seven Days" (1956) was followed by several other superb performances, many of which, including TREASURE OF LOVE (listen to Volume 8), "Without Love (There Is Nothing)" and A LOVER’ QUESTION, became R&B standards. A hugely influential figure, McPhatter inspired a generation of singers.

His work was covered by Elvis Presley, Ry Cooder and Otis Redding, but his departure from the Atlantic Records label to MGM Records in 1959 precipitated an artistic decline. He had several minor hits on Mercury Records during the early 60s, and arguably his finest work was the US Top 10 single "Lover Please" in 1962. The follow-up, "Little Bitty Pretty One", became standard fodder for many UK beat groups in the early 60s (it was recorded by the Paramounts).

The singer became increasingly overshadowed by new performers and his career started to wane in the mid-60s. Beset by personal problems, he came to Britain in 1968, but left two years later without an appreciable change in his fortunes. A 1970 album on Decca Records, Welcome Home, was his last recording. McPhatter, one of R&B's finest voices, died from a heart attack as a result of alcohol abuse in 1972.
 

LOVE YOU SO, sang by Ron Holden and featured in the nineteenth track of this volume, has a very interesting story behind the 1960 recording. Holden's career had a unique beginning: he had been arrested for driving with alcohol and marijuana in his possession and was in the police station when a police officer heard him singing. The officer, Larry Nelson, told Holden that he was planning on quitting the police department for a career in music and gave Holden his phone number.

The teenager called Nelson upon his release from jail and Nelson recorded Holden singing his own composition LOVE YOU SO. The ballad was issued on Nelson's Nite Owl label and then sold to the larger Donna label, reaching the US Top 10 in the summer of 1960. An album was released on Donna but further singles on that and other labels did not recapture the flavor of the hit and Holden retired from the music business.

Ray Charles is often called the "father of soul." His performances in track 21 with I WANT TO KNOW and track 22 with AIN’T THAT LOVE in this volume demonstrate to the serious doo wop listener how Charles earned this distinction. Both of these tracks were recorded in 1957. The Ray Charles Singers in the background chorus form a true soulful harmony in both performances.

 Few epithets sit less comfortably than that of genius; Ray Charles has borne this title for over 30 years. As a singer, composer, arranger and pianist, his prolific work deserves no other praise. Born in extreme poverty, Charles was slowly blinded by glaucoma until, by the age of seven, he had lost his sight completely.

Earlier, he had been forced to cope with the tragic death of his brother, whom he had seen drown in a water tub. He learned to read and write music in braille and was proficient on several instruments by the time he left school. His mother Aretha died when Charles was 15, and he continued to have a shared upbringing with Mary Jane (the first wife of Charles's absent father). Charles drifted around the Florida circuit, picking up work where he could, before moving across the country to Seattle. Here he continued his itinerant career, playing piano at several nightclubs in a style reminiscent of Nat "King" Cole and a vocal similar to Charles Brown.

Charles began recording in 1949 and this early, imitative approach was captured on several sessions. Three years later, Atlantic Records acquired his contract, but initially the singer continued his "cool" direction, revealing only an occasional hint of the passions later unleashed. "It Should've Been Me", "Mess Around" and "Losing Hand" best represent this early R&B era, but Charles's individual style emerged as a result of his work with Guitar Slim. This impassioned, almost crude blues performer sang with a gospel-based fervour that greatly influenced Charles's thinking.

He arranged Slim's million-selling single, "Things That I Used To Do", on which the riffing horns and unrestrained voice set the tone for Charles's own subsequent direction. This effect was fully realized in "I Got A Woman" (1954), a song soaked in the fervour of the Baptist Church, but rendered salacious by the singer's abandoned, unrefined delivery.

Its extraordinary success, commercially and artistically, inspired similarly compulsive recordings, including "This Little Girl Of Mine" (1955), "Talkin' 'Bout You" (1957) and the lush and evocative "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying" (1959), a style culminating in the thrilling call and response of "What'd I Say" (1959). This acknowledged classic is one of the all-time great encore numbers performed by countless singers and bands in stadiums, clubs and bars all over the world. However, Charles was equally adept at slow ballads, as his heartbreaking interpretations of "Drown In My Own Tears" and "I Believe To My Soul" (both 1959) clearly show. Proficient in numerous styles, Charles's recordings embraced blues, jazz, standards and even country, as his muscular reading of "I'm Movin' On" attested.

In November 1959 Charles left the Atlantic label for ABC Records, where he secured both musical and financial freedom. Commentators often cite this as the point at which the singer lost his fire, but early releases for this new outlet simply continued his groundbreaking style. "Georgia On My Mind" (1960) and "Hit The Road Jack" (1961) were, respectively, poignant and ebullient, and established the artist as an international name.

 This stature was enhanced further in 1962 with the release of the massive-selling album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music, a landmark collection that produced the million-selling single "I Can't Stop Loving You". Its success defined the pattern for Charles's later career; the edges were blunted, the vibrancy was stilled as Charles's repertoire grew increasingly inoffensive. There were still moments of inspiration: "Let's Go Get Stoned" and "I Don't Need No Doctor" brought glimpses of a passion now too often muted, while Crying Time, Charles's first album since kicking his heroin habit, compared favourably with any Atlantic release.

 This respite was, however, temporary and as the 60s progressed so the singer's work became less compulsive and increasingly MOR. Like most artists, he attempted cover versions of Beatles songs and had substantial hits with versions of "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby". Two 70s releases, A Message From The People and Renaissance, did include contemporary material in Stevie Wonder's "Living In The City" and Randy Newman's "Sail Away", but subsequent releases reneged on this promise.

Charles' 80s work included more country-flavoured collections and a cameo appearance in the movie The Blues Brothers, but the period is better marked by the singer's powerful appearance on the USA For Africa release, "We Are The World" (1985). It brought to mind a talent too often dormant, a performer whose marriage of gospel and R&B laid the foundations for soul music. His influence is inestimable, and his talent widely acknowledged and imitated by formidable white artists such as Steve Winwood, Joe Cocker, Van Morrison and Eric Burdon. Charles has been honoured with countless awards during his career including induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1986, and receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.

It was fitting that, in 1992, an acclaimed documentary, Ray Charles: The Genius Of Soul, was broadcast by PBS television. My World was a return to form, and was particularly noteworthy for his cover versions of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years" and Leon Russell's "A Song For You", which Charles made his own through the power of his outstanding voice. Strong Love Affair continued in the same vein with a balance of ballads matching the up-tempo tracks; however, it was clear that low-register, slow songs such as "Say No More", "Angelina" and "Out Of My Life' should be the focus of Charles" concentration. In 2000 Charles returned to jazz with an excellent contribution to Steve Turre's In The Spur Of The Moment.

No record collection should be without at least one recording by this "musical genius". His ability to cross over into other musical territories is enviable. He has performed rock, jazz, blues, and country with spectacular ease, but it is "father of soul music" that remains his greatest title.

In track 23 of this volume The Hollywood Flames sing one of the several released recordings of THERE IS SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND (listen to Volume 8 for the version sang by Bobby Marchan) This song was originally wrote and sang by Big Jay McNeely. The version featured in this volume was recorded in 1959

Formed as the Flames in 1949, this R&B group went through a variety of name changes - Four Flames, Hollywood Four Flames, Jets, Ebbtides and Satellites - during its career. However, it was as the Hollywood Flames that they had their biggest success, the 1957 hit BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ (listen to Volume 7) The song was written by founding member Bobby Byrd, (not to be confused with the James Brown band member of the same name) who also had a solo career as Bobby Day. (listen to Volume 6 to his recording of OVER AND OVER). The vocal on the song was not by Day, however, but by group member Earl Nelson, who also recorded as Jackie Lee and as half of Bob And Earl.

The other members of the group at the time of the hit, which reached number 11 in the US pop charts and number 5 in the R&B charts, were founding member David Ford and baritone Curtis Williams, co-writer of the hit "Earth Angel" and a former member of the group that recorded it, the Penguins. "Buzz Buzz Buzz" was released on Ebb Records, run by Lee Rupe, wife of Specialty Records owner Art Rupe. Released in November 1957, the single spent 17 weeks in the charts. Follow-up singles were issued under Day's name, but by 1959 Ebb had folded. The group continued to record with various personnel for several years.

This volume ends on track 25 with Chuck Willis’ version of the doo wop classic CC RIDER. Originally recorded in 1952 by The Clovers (read their biographical description in Volume 2), the version featured here was recorded in 1956, Chuck Willis’ biographical information is included in Volume 3.