The Rockin' Chairs

The Rockin' Chairs ( Queens Village, New York)



Personnel :


Lenny Dean (Lead Singer & Sax)

Bob Gerardi (Piano & Background Singer)

Carmine Ray (Drums)

Rick Baxter (Bass)

Joey Cary (Guitar)



Discography :

1958 - A kiss is a kiss / Rockin' Chair Boogie (Recorte 402)
1958 - Please Mary Lou / Come on Baby (Recorte 404)
1959 - Memories of love / Girl of mine (Recorte 412)



Biography :

The Rockin' Chairs all friends from Queens Village and Long Island, New York, were basically an instrumental dance group, who played at record hops. Theywere formed in 1955 and about three years later, at a dance, met Alan Fredericks, who licked them so much that he became their manager. Alan was a friend to the owner of Recorte Records and when the guys auditioned,they were signed on the Spot . The personnel was as follows : Lenny Dean (Lead Singer & Sax), Bob Gerardi (Piano & Background Singer), Carmine Ray (Drums) and Rick Baxter (Bass). The Group was rounded out by Joey Cary on guitar. The Boys had one of the few Self-contained groups of that day in addition, they also wrote, produced and arranged their own records.
Their first release was "A kiss is a kiss" which sold over 200,000 copies and made the top 20 on the New York Charts.

The distributor of Recorte Records had an associate, Johnny Holonka, who was a friend of Alan Freed's and so the group appeared on Alan's Live show and also on his television program.
"Please Mary Lou" was their second record. this disc was just starting to make some noise until one night when Alan Freed played it on his television show and said that it sounded like Paul Anka's "Diana".

This was enough to kill the record.
Their third and last record for Recorte was "Memories Of Love". Speaking of ill luck - this record was just starting to move when the Payola scandal hit and the promotion of this record (Like so many others then) was stopped.

The group really had high hopes for this side and got very discouragead at it's failure to reach the charts.
At this point, the group disbanded and Lenny & Bob became a duo. They wrote, rehearsed and did some demos and then the draft notices came for both of them.
They Joines the same reserve unit and in six months were out.

At that time, Chubby Checker was the rage and Bob and Lenny had to change their style which they did. As luck would have it, the Berlin Crisis broke and the guy were back in the army. Coming out of the Army for the second time, the two of them did club dates with back-up musicians under the name Bob Gerardi and The Classic Four.
Marcia Vance (Bim Bam Boom)



Their songs :

   
Please Mary Lou                     A kiss is a kiss


   
Memories of love                      Girl of mine


   
Come on Baby                        Rockin' Chair Boogie