The Playmates (2) (Newark, NJ.)
aka The Three Playmates
 

Personnel :

Gwen Brooks

Lucille Beatty

Alma Beatty

 

Discography :

The Playmates (2)
1957 - It Must Be Love / Giddy-Up-A-Ding-Dong ‎(Savoy 1523)   

The Three Playmates
1957 - Sugah Wooga / Lovey Dovey Pair (Savoy 1528)
1958 - Give Your Love To Me / (Do-oo, Do-oo) I Dreamed (Savoy 1537)

 

Biography :

The 3 girls from Newark, New Jersey (sisters Lucille and Alma Beatty and Gwen Brooks) only ever had 3 singles released in the late 1950s for Savoy Records, a label launched in Newark in 1942 by Herman Lubinsky, and had just one of them make any of the national charts. Their first release was the summer 1957 Giddy-Up-A-Ding-Dong (not the same song as one released with that title in 1956 by Freddie Bell & The Bell Boys for Mercury's Wing subsidiary) b/w It Must Be Love on Savoy 1523 billed as The Playmates (Alma, Gwen, Lucille). It failed to chart, although Savoy arranger Ernie Wilkins certainly provided them with quality backing, using tenor saxophonists Jerome Richardson and George Barrow, baritone saxophonist Budd Johnson, guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Sam Price, bassist Joe Benjamin and drummer Bobb Donaldson. They appeared on Savoy at the same time Roulette's guys put out their first single.

For their follow-up Sugah Wooga the label assembled tenor saxophonist Buddy Lucas, organist Bobby Banks, bassist Leonard Gaskin and an unidentified orchestra and this time, to avoid record store/juke box label confusion with the all-male quartet The Playmates, they were billed as The Three Playmates (Lucille, Alma, Gwen) and in March 1958 it peaked at # 89 Billboard Pop Top 100 on Savoy 1528 b/w Lovey Dovey Pair. For some reason, however, it made no impact whatsoever on the R&B charts despite the facts Savoy was designed mainly to appeal to that market and the arrangement was so close to that of the 1957 R&B/Pop smash Little Bitty Pretty One by Thurston Harris. Their only other single, also billed as The Three Playmates (Alma, Lucille, Gwen), was (Do-Oo, Do-Oo) I Dreamed b/w Give Your Love To Me on Savoy 1537 later in 1958 and, with the same backing musicians as their first effort (it was actually recorded in July 1957), it failed to chart.


Songs :
(updated by Hans-Joachim) 
 

The Playmates (2)

  
Giddy-Up-A-Ding-Dong                       It Must Be Love       
 
The Three Playmates

  
Lovey Dovey Pair                               Sugah Wooga

  
Give Your Love To Me                                  I Dreamed           


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