I loved listening to Dion in the youtube. It is a painful watch when he recounts Buddy's love for his wife and that she was pregnant. He doesn't seem to think that the crash was, "the day the music died." Instead, he sees it as the birth of real rock and roll and enduring music. Thanks for that youtube. It was fascinating, very sad but fascinating,.
I want to acknowledge another legend, Buddy Holly. I thought Gary Busey did a superb job in the movie The Buddy Holly Story. I recently saw the traveling Broadway production of The Buddy Holly Story, and it was very good. As a kid I didn’t realize how he changed a lot rock music until I saw the movie and the play.
Sadly he died with the Big Bopper and Richie Valens.
"My Own True Love" by The Duprees reached #13 on the pop charts in 1962. The Original Duprees (Joey Vann Canzano, Mike Kelly, John Salvato, Tom Bialoglow, Joe Santollo, and Mike Arnone) were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006. (Canzano and Kelly alternated in the quintet.) Most of the original group have passed on.
Today, an entirely new group (of four) continue to sing the group's songs. Here they are in one of those PBS Doo Wop specials recreating "My Own True Love". Max Steiner, who lived to hear the original recording, would be proud.
We've covered this before, but I don't consider the Patty Duke song to be Doo Wop--not even female Doo Wop. Just having a background chorus chime in periodically does not make a song Doo Wop.
The Del Vikings (everyone seems to misspell it Dell Vikings) were the first successful racially integrated group in rock and roll and one of the few hit makers organized in the U.S Air Force. The group was formed by Clarence Quick at the NCO Service Club located in Pittsburgh’s airport in 1956. Bass singer Quick joined together with Corinthian “Kripp” Johnson (lead and tenor), Samuel Patterson (lead and tenor), Bernard Robertson (second tenor), and Don Jackson (baritone) to form The Del Vikings. The Vikings was the name of a basketball-playing social club in Brooklyn that Quick belonged to. When he put Del (meaning “the”) in front of Vikings he unintentionally created a redundant moniker – like saying “the The Vikings”. Unbeknownst to most, the five original members were all black.
After one of their Pittsburgh talent shows The Del Vikings were approached to record by local disc jockey Barry Kaye and producer Joe Averback. Before the sessions, however, Patterson and Robertson were assigned to an air base in Germany and were replaced by Norman Wright (of Philadelphia) and the group’s first white member, Dave Lerchey of New Albany, Indiana.
One of the nine songs they recorded in their first session, “Come Go With Me,” took off like an Air Force jet, rising on Billboard’s Pop chart to number four (#2 R&B). It lasted an amazing 31 weeks on the charts, became a million seller, and became the first top 10 hit by a racially mixed rock and roll group.
Norman Wright, David Lerchey, and Wright's two sons, Norman Wright, Jr. and Anthony Wright performed as The Del Vikings for the PBS show "Doo Wop 50" in 2000, and Wright toured and performed with his sons for the remainder of his life, passing away in 2010 at age 72.
We've covered this before, but I don't consider the Patty Duke song to be Doo Wop--not even female Doo Wop. Just having a background chorus chime in periodically does not make a song Doo Wop.
Bob, do you have a definition of Doo Wop or certain criteria that makes songs Doo Wop? I'm a bit confused.
We've covered this before, but I don't consider the Patty Duke song to be Doo Wop--not even female Doo Wop. Just having a background chorus chime in periodically does not make a song Doo Wop.
Bob, do you have a definition of Doo Wop or certain criteria that makes songs Doo Wop? I'm a bit confused.
(1) It's almost always by a named group - Duke's background singers are just unnamed studio hires.
(2) The background singers usually sing some nonsense syllables - Duke's chorus just repeat her vocals or sing "ahhh."
(3) The background singers feature a wide range of vocal parts, usually from bass to falsetto - that's why female Doo Wop is so rare.
The more of these criteria that the song meets, the more likely it is Doo Wop.
