Where did “Doo-Wop” come from?
Doo-Wop originally sprouted up on the east coast of America particularly in New York City, Baltimore and Philadelphia, in the mostly urban African American neighborhoods in the years during and after World War II. Groups would gather on street corners, in the subways, in school stairways, halls and even in alleys that had good acoustics.
The singers would gather and sing a cappella. These groups would employ what is called scat singing and/or a technique of “signifyin'” musical instruments. The term signifyin’, in Jazz, is an expression that means to mimic other musical instruments or voices, such as a saxophone mimicking a laugh or, in Doo-Wop, a voice mimicking a piano, a guitar, bass, drums or brass and stringed instruments, examples include non musical sound like a car horn “beep beep” or the “click clack” of a train going by on the train tracks.
Doo-Wop soon spread in the late 40s, early 50s to the mid-west cities like Chicago and Cincinnati, and to the west coast cities like Los Angeles. The genre soon grew to enormous heights in many urban cities, mostly in the United States and would topple older mainstream genres like Swing, Popular Standards, and Broadway & Vaudeville music.
Below is a cursory glance of the key groups and songs that made up the genre Doo-Wop. It is by no means complete and lists some of the more popular songs. The genre is so big that there are literally thousands of groups and songs. I will attempt in the future to cover the basics of key groups and songs in separate posts. For a greater detailed and comprehensive look at the groups and their songs, I suggest you check out Marv Goldberg’s R&B Articles or doo-wop.blogg.org.
New York City
A whole new world opened up to the absolutely beautiful and musically clever close range harmonies of R&B vocal/Doo-Wop groups that began to sprout up from cities all across America, primarily the east coast cities. The first groups initially came out of east coast cities like New York with the Ravens (“Write Me a Letter” to “Rock Me All Night Long”), the Dominoes (“Sixty Minute Man”, “Have Mercy Baby”, the cover of “Stardust” and “Jennie Lee”), the Crows (“Gee”) and the Chords (“Sh-Boom”).
New York City would be, by far, “the” major hub of Doo-Wop with more groups like the great hit makers the Drifters, who lasted the whole 20 years of the Doo-Wop era; they had multiple revolving lead and backing singers. From Clyde McPhatter (1953-1955), Johnny Moore (1955-1957, 1964-1967), Bobby Hendricks (1958), Ben E. King (1958-1960) and Ruby Lewis (1962-1964) the Drifters were a Doo-Wop super-group.
Later in New York there would emerge the Cadillacs (“Speedo”), Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers (“Why Do Fools Fall in Love” and “I Want You to Be My Girl”), Earl Lewis & the Channels of regional fame, the Bobbettes (“Mr. Lee” and “Loop De Loop”) one of the first “girl groups”, the very popular and authentic white group Dion & the Belmonts (“I Wonder Why”, “No One Know” and “A Teenager In Love”), Little Anthony & the Imperials (“Tears On My Pillow” and “Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Pop”), the Chiffons ( with the song “He’s So Fine”, which was later to be the subject of a legal suit against George Harrisons’ song entitled “My Sweet Lord” in the 70s; the Chiffons also had the Gerry Goffin/Carol King penned hit song “One Fine Day”). New York City definitely takes the crown for being the city that produced an overwhelming amount of doo-wop groups.
Other East Coast Cities
Baltimore had one of the first two pioneer groups of the era (second to the Ravens), the Orioles (from “It’s Too Soon To Know” to “Crying In The Chapel”) as well as the Swallows (“Will You Still Be Mine” and “Itchy Twitchy Feeling”), the Cardinals and the Four Buddies. The city of “Brotherly Love”, Philadelphia had the Cheers (“Bazoom, I Need Your Lovin'” and “Black Denim Trousers”), the Turbans (“When You Dance”), the Castelles of regional fame, Danny & the Juniors (“At the Hop” and Rock & Roll Is Here To Stay”), and the Silhouettes (“Get A Job”); Pittsburg had the Del-Vikings (Come Go With Me”), the Marcels (“Blue Moon”) and the Skyliners (“Since I Don’t Have You”). Even Toronto Canada contributed the Diamonds (with the remake from the Gladiolas “Little Darlin'” which became a mega hit).
New Jersey
Cities in New Jersey like Newark had the Ad-Libs (the original “Boy from New York City”), the Kodaks of regional fame, the Monotones (“Book of Love”) and of course Frankie Valli who started out in Doo-Wop as early as 1953 and went through many name changes until 1962 as Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons with so many #1 hits (“Sherry”, “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, “Walk Like A Man” and “Rag Doll”); too many to list here. (See the Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons post, later to be posted); Passaic had one of the biggest, most successful groups, the Shirelles (who started recording in 1958 with hits like the Goffin/King “Tonight’s the Night”, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”, “Dedicated to the One I Love”) also too many to list (see the post, to come); and Orange, NJ had the Angels (“My Boyfriend’s Back”).
More East Coast Cities
Washington D.C. had the pioneering group, the Clovers (“One Mint Julep”, “Ting-A-Ling” way too many R&B hits to list) and the Pastels (“Been So Long”); Durham, North Carolina had the pioneering group the Larks (“Eyesight to the Blind”). As the 50s progressed, other northern east coast cities caught the bug of doo-wop such as Boston’s the Tune Weavers (Happy, Happy Birthday Baby”); New Haven’s the Five Satins (“In the Still of the Night”) and the Nutmegs (“Story Untold”). Charlotte’s the Four Knights, Providence’s the Castaleers, and Winston-Salem had the 5 Royals in North Carolina, just to name a few.
The Mid-West Cities
Many mid-western cities had successful groups as well. Chicago had the El Dorados (“At My Front Door”) and the Flamingoes (“I Only Have Eyes for You”); Cleveland gave us Johnny Cymbal (“Hey, Mr. Bass Man”), the Coronets (“Nadine”) and the Moonglows (“Sincerely”); and Cincinnati brought us Otis Williams & the Charms (“Heart of Stone”, “Ling, Ting, Tong” and “Ivory Tower”).
Detroit the then future capitol of Soul Music, Motown, gave us Hank Ballard & the Midnighters (the pioneering songs “Work with Me Annie”, “Sexy Ways” and “Annie Had A Baby”) that were very suggestive for the time in, 1954. The Falcons had (“You’re So Fine”), the female mega hitters the Marvelettes (“Please Mr. Postman”). Detroit also gave us the future super Soul artists Martha & the Vandellas (“Heatwave”, “Quicksand” and “Dancing in the Street”), as well as Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (“Shop Around” and “You Really Got a Hold on Me”). The two aforementioned groups started out as Doo-Wop but then helped invent Soul Music. There were many other mid-western cities that produced great Doo- Wop groups like Akron’s Ruby & the Romantics (the #1 Billboard hit “One Day Will Come”), Gary Indiana’s The Spaniels (“Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight” and “Everyone’s Laughing”), Kansas City’s the Chandeliers and in Memphis the Astors.
A special note should go to the city of Indianapolis, who gave us the very influential vocal group the Ink Spots. They are generally not considered Doo-Wop but had an enormous impact on the pioneering groups like the Ravens, the Orioles and the Clovers.
The South
Also cities in the South like New Orleans had the Dixie Cups (“Chapel of Love”), Lancaster S.C. had the Gladiolas/Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs (the original version of “Little Darlin'” and the #1 hit “Stay”), Charlotte N.C. had the pioneering group the Four Knights, Jackson Miss. had the Orbits. All these southern groups had many regional hits, thereby adding a little spice to the Doo-Wop genre.
Los Angeles & the West Coast
Doo-Wop was mostly an East Coast and Midwest phenomenon. However, Los Angeles was one of the biggest hubs of Doo Wop on the west coast. Good old L.A. produced quite a few successful groups that would become genre-defining groups, such as the Robins (“Riot in Cell Block #9” and the crossover hit “Smokey Joe’s Cafe”). The Robins would later become the mega hit group the Coasters (“Young Blood”, “Searchin'”, “Yakety Yak” and “Charlie Brown” among many more). There was the Penguins with their 1954 pivotal crossover hit (“Earth Angel”), the Meadowlarks (“Heaven and Paradise” and “The Jerk”), Marvin & Johnny’s (“Baby Doll” and Tick Tock”), the Blossoms (“He’s A Rebel”), the Olympics (“Western Movies”), Bobby Day & the Satellites (“Rockin’ Robin”), Thurston Harris & the Sharps (“Little Bitty Pretty One” and “Do What You Did”). Los Angeles also gave to us the extremely successful #1 mega hit vocal group the Platters (“Only You”, “The Great Pretender”, “The Magic Touch”, “The Prayer” and many, many more. Another notable city on the west coast was Seattle, who gave us the mega hitters the Fleetwoods (“Come Softly to Me” and “Mr. Blue” just to name a few).
Again, there are way too many to name here and I have missed some great acts. There were literally over a thousand regional groups. However, I am going to do a year by year analysis soon and hope to cover all the great acts including chartless regional acts that have added to the vast cannon of Doo-Wop.
For specific info, please see the micro analysis posts of Doo-Wop coming soon or check out the in depth website of Marv Goldberg’s R&B articles.