The Doo Wop Era

great site Garg-why do the Germans honor American music so thoroughly?

Check out Bear Family Records
http://www.bear-family.de/

What I really like how they sometimes recorded the same song twice but switched out the lead singer. Like, on the Flamingos Greatest Hits, there are 2 versions of "Dream of a Lifetime". I loooooove that song.

When you hear songs like these, it's no wonder how so many babies got started in the back seats of cars.

"I Only Have Eyes For You" is the most romantic song of ALL TIME. Whos' with me on this?

I tend to remember street corner (or school yard) doo wop singing done by Italian-American teenagers that went to public school, not Parochial school. Irish tended to dominate the demographic that went to Parochial school, in my opinion. Italian-Americans went to public school, and were not the type of teenagers that attended church. The female members of the family likely went often, but not the Doo Wop singers. Dey wuz just tooo busy.

I have never lived in any areas in which street singing was practiced. No doubt some really good sounds never got recorded. I've noticed that many artists of the time are now labeled "doo wop" but I never had thought they were. An example is Jerry Butler. I love that Ice Man, but I thought of him as soul, with a bit of rock n roll sometimes. Am I wrong?


Jerry Butler
For Your Precious Love

I have not had time to check out some earlier posts and links. Am cooking dinner just now, but I will check out all posts.

I have the Belafonte and Jerry Lee Lewis on Sun label collections from these people. They are the best, in my book.

I'm wid you

no...Butler is not doo wop unless he's leading a doo wop group

My thought exactly.

When Jerry Butler fronted The Impressions (with Curtis Mayfield) on "For Your Precious Love", that was doo-wop, imo. The background is pure. But by the time he got to "Western Union Man", he was soul. The Iceman.

Wolfman Jack, AM station XERF, Del Rio texas and of course WBAP out of Dallas texas.

I heard THe Wolfman's radio show a number of times. - eb

Wolfman Jack (January 21, 1938-July 1, 1995) was the stage name of a disc jockey hugely popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

Born Robert Smith, he came to prominence in the United States in the 1960s as a disc jockey on Mexican radio stations, including a stint with XERF-AM, which broadcast into the United States with a transmission of 250,000 watts, five times more powerful than any American stations.

The hip, sexually suggestive Wolfman Jack persona allowed Smith to ignore the prevailing racial segregated of American radio.

Wolfman Jack's program was broadcast to much of the United States and into Canada. He played whatever music he liked, regardless of the performer's ethnicity. Any night a listener might hear a mix of blues music, rockabilly, doo-wop, zydeco, rock and roll, jump blues, rhythm and blues or jazz.

He frequently punctuated his broadcasts with howls, which, along with his gravelly voice, made him instantly recognizable. This style was modelled, at least in part, on bluesman Howlin' Wolf. Smith was Caucasian, but many listeners assumed he was African American.

Despite--or perhaps because of--his widespread popularity, Smith chose to keep Wolfman Jack a mystery. Stories appeared in national newspapers, reporting rumors of his true identity.

Only in 1973 by appearing in the George Lucas film American Graffiti, did Wolfman Jack allow the public to see him. His broadcasts tie the film together and a main character catching a glimpse of the mysterious Wolfman is a pivotal scene.

Afterwards, he appeared in several films and television shows (including The Midnight Special and his own show, The Wolfman Jack Show). He also furnished his voice in the 1974 Guess Who's tribute, the top 40 hit single, "Clap for the Wolfman".

JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer
Friday, December 3, 1999
Breaking News Sections

(12-03) 09:58 PST LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Growing up in Chicago in the 1950s, Jerry Butler used to think he and the Impressions had all but invented DOO WOP, that distinctly American style of harmony singing that came to life on big-city streets.

``We used to think that because we were in Chicago that this was the home of street-corner singing,'' Butler, rock's original Ice Man, recalls with a chuckle.

``But we'd never been to New York or Pittsburgh or L.A. When we finally got there, we found out that the kids in L.A. were just like the kids in New York and the kids in Chicago. They were all singing on street corners.''

And they still are, adds Butler, who with help from a score of musical groups with familiar names like the Penguins, the Platters and the Del Vikings, brings the sound of 1950s harmony singing back to life this month on a PBS special, ``Doo Wop 50.'' (It airs on many stations tonight at 9 p.m. EST.)

As the show's title implies, it's been nearly half a century since harmony singing moved out of the barbershops and onto urban street corners all across post-World War II America.

Thus those street-corner kids aren't kids any more. Waistlines have thickened; hairlines have grayed or receded or, in some cases, vanished altogether.

But when Gene Chandler proclaims he's now and forever the ``Duke of Earl,'' when Platters founder Herb Reed reiterates that he's ``The Great Pretender,'' when the original Del Vikings reunite for a few more ``Dum De Doo Wahs,'' it's 1955 again. Or 1960. Or 1970. Or whenever it was that you first heard something like Butler, Curtis Mayfield and the rest of the Impressions singing ``For Your Precious Love.''

Not that new DOO WOP singers haven't come along since the 1950s. Butler, 59, notes that groups like 'N Sync and Boyz II Men are carrying on the tradition well, and it wasn't too long ago that he caught the '80s rock group Huey Lewis and the News singing a capella.

``And the gospel groups now have adopted what was always there in DOO WOP,'' he says. ``Singing without instrumentation -- making harmonies, syncopations, vocal characteristics carry the day.''

But ``Doo Wop 50,'' filmed during a concert at Pittsburgh's Benedum Center, offered a rare chance to bring back the genre's original singers, some of whom had drifted into obscurity, even if the names of their groups had not.

``The one thing we tried to do in `Doo Wop 50' was have as many members of the original groups present as possible,'' says Butler, the show's host. ``That's why we used Herb Reed's Platters, as opposed to another group of Platters I recently met on an airplane, who were young enough to be my grandchildren.

``There are six or seven different groups out there today calling themselves the Platters,'' Butler says, noting that in the early days of DOO WOP many of the form's creators didn't know enough about the music business to copyright their names.

``Same thing with the Drifters, the Coasters,'' he says. ``And it's really tragic.''

Tragic perhaps, but not really surprising, given the innocent, freeform way the music came about, says Butler, who lost one of his own early songs to another group from the neighborhood that recorded it without him.

In his case it was a blessing in disguise, as the group's members felt so badly about what had happened that they put Butler and his boyhood pal, Mayfield, in touch with a couple of up-and-coming musicians, Richard and Arthur Brooks, who had just moved to Chicago.

The result was the Impressions, a group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

The Impressions, who were among the precursors of soul music, began like most DOO WOP groups, Butler says, singing on street corners and in church.
``When most of the groups started they didn't have instruments,'' he said. ``So they used voices as instruments. The bass singer would sing a bass line, the tenor would sing what a saxophone might play and the lead singer would sing the lyrics.

``But then when they'd go to perform it in a studio, the producer would say, `Let's use a real piano. Let's use a real guitar and maybe throw in a real saxophone.'''

The result was DOO WOP, a mixture of a capella and instrumentation, often powered by a syncopated vocal beat that came out sounding like, well, ``DOO WOP.''

It was a music that seemed to appeal to everyone, and even in the 1950s, Butler notes, many of its groups were integrated.

He chalks that up to the big-city neighborhoods they come from, where blacks and whites often lived close together. There, people who had learned to sing in church or school would share the same corner when it came time to harmonize.

``Why?'' asks Butler now. ``Because they all enjoyed playing the music. And so the music transcended the community.''

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE9AwR0awVQ&NR=1&feature=fvwp

"When You Dance" ~ The Turbans

{EDIT: Sorry for caps it was pasted from Youtube as is)

"SOME THINK THE TERM "DOO WOP" ORIGINATED WITH THIS SONG. LISTEN TO THE BACKGROUND SINGERS. THIS HIT #3 ON R&B CHARTS AND STAYED ON THE POP CHARTS FOR 5 MONTHS IN 1955-56. DON'T TRY TO HIT THE HIGH NOTES IF YOU TRY TO SING IT. "

"In the Still of the Night" ~ the Five Satins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBT3oDMCWpI&feature=related

If Jerry Butler is 59 years old then me and Jack Benny are still 29! What a TYPO!

"One Summer Night" by the Danleers is good.

I LOVE the doo-wops. In Chicago, we had alot of great deejays but one of the all-time greats was a jock by the name of Herb Kent and he would spin what he termed 'dusties', which were doowops from the 50's. That's where I first heard the Flamingos and the Moonglows, and Dion and the Belmonts and one of my most favorite named groups, the DelVikings. I believe Herb is spinning his dusties somewhere in Chicago still. He's got to be about 135 years old now.
www.radiohof.org/discjockey/herbkent.html

The article is ten years old.

Supposedly the last doo wop song to chart,(1994) it's a cover of The Impressions 1963 recording "It's Alright"