The Lovettes (2)  (Chicago)
aka The Gems (5)

Personnel :

Jessica Collins (Lead)

Verdine Harrison

Theresa Washburn

Dorothy Hucklebee

Bertha Watts

Raynard Miner (Pianist)

Discography :

Singles :
1962 - One More Year / The Crush (Checker 1033)
1962 - Hands Off / A Love of Mine (Checker 1053)

Unreleased :
1962 - Two Lovers (Checker)

Biography :

The Gems' career began for Leonard and Phil Chess' Chess/Checker/Cadet setup as the Lovettes (no connection to the Lovettes on Carnival Records). Marshall High School students  cut two unsuccessful singles on Checker Records.  Blind pianist/writer Raynard Miner was the secret Gem, and he and Billy "Roquel" Davis, either together or in other combinations, supplied nearly all their material.

                                         1964 - The Gems

Roquel was Chess' A&R director, but despite his clout, the Gems never charted high or established a significant career. Miner accompanied them on piano, but not at all of their performances. These five beautiful girls couldn't help but wow the audience with their singing and looks; their most successful record was "I Can't Help Myself."Roquel renamed the Lovettes the Gems and switched them to Chess Records.

Songs :

(updated by Hans-Joachim)

  
Crush / One More Year                   A Love Of Mine

 ...

Kathy Young & The Innocents (Los Angeles)



Personnel :

Kathy Young (Lead)

Al Candelaria

Darron Stankey

Jim West

Discography :

Singles :

Kathy Young & The Innocents
1960 - A Thousand Stars / Eddie My Darling (Indigo 108)

1961 - Happy Birthday Blues / Someone to Love (Indigo 115)

1961 - Our Parents Talked It Over / Just As (Indigo 121)

1961 - Magic Is the Night / Du Du'nt Du (Indigo 125)

1961 - Baby Oh Baby / Great Pretender (Indigo 137)
1962 - Lonely Blue Nights / I'll Hang My Letters Out to Dry (Indigo 146)

1962 - Dream Awhile / Send Her Away (Indigo 147)

Kathy Young
1962 - Dream Boy / I'll Love That Man (Monogram 506)

Chris & Kathy (duet with Chris Montez)
1964 - All You Had to Do (Was Tell Me) / Love Me  (Monogram 517)


LPs:

1961 -The Sound of Kathy Young (Indigo 504)
A Thousand Stars / Angel On My Shoulder / Please Love Me Forever / Lonely Blue Nights / Baby Oh Baby / Eddie My Darling / Happy Birthday Blues /  Sparkle And Shine / Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes) / Will You Love Me Tomorrow / Angel Baby / Someone To Love /

Biography :

Kathy Young was born in Santa Ana, California, on October 21, 1945. When she was fifteen years old, she and her mother happened to be attending The Wink Martindale Show, a daily dance program in Los Angeles.

As luck would have it, a local trio called The Innocents was performing their current hit, "Honest I Do," on the show. Afterward, when Kathy approached the group to congratulate them, she mentioned that she was a singer. Jim Lee, the Innocents' manager, as well as the owner of their record label, took one look at the photogenic teenager and invited her to come to his studio the following week for an audition.

When Kathy showed up with her mother at Lee's Indigo Records office at 3330 Barham Boulevard in Hollywood (near Burbank), she sang one of her favorite songs, "A Thousand Stars," which had originally been written and recorded six years earlier by The Rivileers, a black vocal group from Queens, New York. Kathy gave a rousing performance, but Jim Lee thought something was missing. She needed a background group to fill out her sound. And he had one: The Innocents.

The Innocents, who would eventually sing under their own name or behind someone else on almost a third of the 50 Indigo singles that Jim Lee released from 1960 to late 1962, were Al Candelaria, guitarist Darron Stankey and Jim West, three young guys from the San Fernando Valley.

They had an unusual blend of three voices harmonizing slightly off-key, backed by a reverb-heavy guitar. They had begun as a quartet, The Echoes, for the Andex label, but after the company folded in 1960, one of the members quit and the remaining trio renamed themselves after their car club, The Innocents. They recorded "Honest I Do" for producers Gary Paxton and Kim Fowley, who then sold the masters to Jim Lee at Indigo.

"Honest I Do" and its follow-up, "Gee Whiz," became national sellers (both creeping into the Top 40), but these singles were mere blips compared to the huge success of "A Thousand Stars," with Kathy Young. The song rocketed to #3, followed by two more chart records, "Happy Birthday Blues" and "Magic Is The Night."

But the demands of heavy record sales had a way of sinking tiny, undercapitalized labels, and by 1962 Indigo folded. Kathy eventually went to Monogram Records, where her voice was overdubbed onto a Chris Montez tape from three years earlier. It turned out to be a minor hit, "All You Had To Do (Was Tell Me)."

She later married John Maus of the singing Walker Brothers ("Make It Easy on Yourself") and left show business. The Innocents continued to record, first with Warner Bros./Reprise and then with Decca, but they disbanded in 1964.

http://theinnocentsmusic.com/?page_id=113
http://www.electricearl.com/dws/innocents.html
  http://www.history-of-rock.com/kathy_young_and_the_innocents.htm

Songs :

   
Sparkle And Shine                 A Thousand Stars

   
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow           Angel Baby

   
The Great Pretender                 Du Du'nt Du

   
Just As Though You Were Here        Angel On My Shoulder



CDs :

The Guytones (Philadelphia, PA)




Personnel :

James Brown Robinson (Lead)

Stanley Evans (Lead)

Floyd Richards

Joe Tiggle

Arthur Hunter

Eddie Beasley

Discography :

The Guytones
Singles :
1957 - Ooh Bop Sh Ba (Give All Your Love To Me) / You Wont Let Me Go (Deluxe 6144/Delta 3003)
1957 - She's Mine / Not Wanted (Deluxe 6152)
1958 - Hunky Dory / This Is Love (Deluxe 6159)
1958 - Baby I Don't Care / Young Dreamer (Deluxe 6163)
1958 - Tell Me How Was I To Know / Your Heart's Bigger Than Mine (Deluxe 6169)
Unreleased:
1957 - Lovers And Losers (Deluxe)
 

Donnie Elbert bb The Guytones
1958 -  Peek-A-Boo / My Confession Of Love (Donnie Elbert) (Deluxe 6161)

Biography :

In 1957, James Brown Robinson and a group of other young crooners got together in the Queen Village neighborhood and harmonized wherever they could get a location. They were heard by local DJs Cannonball and Irv Timbers, "who both loved the sonic beam of young ensemble's united voices". The DJs arranged an audition with Cincinnati's De Luxe Records. Along with co-lead singer Stanley Evans, Floyd Richards, Joe Tiggle, Arthur Hunter and Eddie Beasley, the Guytones went to New York City, where they recorded 12 sides for De Luxe.

   
The Guytones were greatly influenced by a popular R&B band, the 5 Royales, out of Winston-Salem, N.C. When the boys got to New York, they were given some songs to sing, besides those that they had brought with them. So they repaired to a bathroom to rehearse. But out of the session with De Luxe came such doo-wop classics as "Ooh Bop Sha Boo," "Young Dreamer," "Hunky Dory," "She's Mine," "This Is Love," and others.

Donnie Elbert                                                                           The Guytones                     

In one of those nasty twists of fate, the group got a contract from Decca Records, which was looking for a Guytones-type group in 1959. But the unsigned contract accidentally was put in a closet and not discovered by the boys until it was too late. Decca hired another group. Meanwhile, James went to work for the resistor company, then at Broad and Callowhill streets, in 1957 to support his wife and seven children.

Songs :

The Guytones

       
Ooh Bop Sh Ba                     You Wont Let Me Go                  Hunky Dory

       
She's Mine                           Not Wanted                           This Is Love

       
     Baby I Don't Care / Young Dreamer      Tell Me How Was I To Know     Your Heart's Bigger Than Mine  

Donnie Elbert bb The Guytones


Peek-A-Boo  

....

    Charles Henderson, Johnny Johnson & Dave Bell - Top : Johnny Banks

The Everglades (1)  (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
aka The Go-Togethers ref The Ebbtides (5)

Personnel :

Johnny Banks

Charles Henderson

Dave Bell

Johnny Johnson

Discography :

The Ebbtides (5)
1956 - Only Be Mine / What's Your Name Dear (Teen 121)

Johnny Banks & The Everglades (1)
1961 - While Sitting In The Chapel / Do You Miss Me (BPV 112277)

The Everglades (1)
1962 - I Went To The S&S / Tell Me Pretty Baby (Brenne 502)

The Go-Togethers
1963 - Train / Time After Time (Coast 100)




Biography :

Charles Henderson began singing with fellow Ben Framklin High Scool. In 1955, Charles Henderson with Johnny Banks, Horace Adams, Robert Lee and Betty McCann formed a group, Following a year of tedious practice, Johnny Banks made the connection with Teen/Sound Records in 1956. At The Reco-Arts Studio , they cut " What's Your Name Dear" with "Only Be Mine". Appearances ensued, most arranged by manage rRobinson. The Baby Grang in Harlem, another in Reading, Pensylvania, the O.V Catto hall at 16th & Fitzwater near Center City, the Ice House in South Jersey, a sleek show at the uptown theater accompanying the Blue Notes the Channels & The Continentals..…

WDAS concert - Uptown Thheater (ca 1960)

Some years later, Dave Bell and Johnny Johnson replaced Horace Adams and and McCann. This reformed aggregation was christened the Everglades by Johnny Banks. Six years or so following their dustup with teen records, they found themselves on the doorstep of BVP Records.  The Everglades cut "While Sitting In The Chapel" /" Do You Miss Me". But the BVP platter wended its way to nowhere and the group cut another record for Brenne "I Went To The S&S" and "Tell Me Pretty Baby". The group have two other songs: "Train" and "Time After Time" released one year later on the Coast Label under the strange name "The Go-Togethers".

Songs :
(updated by Hans-Joachim) 

The Ebbtides (5)

  
Only Be Mine                              What's Your Name Dear

Johnny Banks & The Everglades (1)

  
While Sitting In The Chapel                      Do You Miss Me

 The Everglades (1)


I Went To The S & S / Tell Me Pretty Baby

The Go-Togethers


Train / Time After Time
  

...

The Visions (3) (Dallas)



Personnel :

?


Discography :

1964 - It's You I Love / It's Been A Long Winter (R & R 3002)

Songs :

It's You I Love