• The Sonics (2)

     

    The Sonics (2) (Newark, New Jersey)

     

    Personnel :

    Donald Sheffield (Lead)

    William Franklin (Second Tenor)

    Larry Davis (Baritone)


    Discography ;

    1957 - Evil Eye  /  Triangle Love (Nocturne 110 / RKO Unique 411)
    1958 - Once In A Lifetime / It Ain't True (X-tra 107 / Candlelite 416)
    1959 - This Broken Heart / You Made Me Cry (Harvard 801/ Harvard 922 / Checker 922)
    1962 - Funny / I Get That Feeling (Armonia 102)
    1962 - Preacher Man / It's You (Amco 001)

     

    Biography :

    Since The Kodoks, whose former tenor William Franklin and baritone Larry Davis subsequently became two-fifths of The Sonics, hailed from Baxter Terrace Newark, New Jersey (their Oh Gee, Oh Gosh came out on Bobby Robinson's Fury label in 1958, it seems a relatively safe bet that The Sonics hailed from that same vicinity as well. A group by the same name had a 1958 single on the New York-based X-Tra imprint coupling Once In A Lifetime and It Ain't True; the assumption is that it was the same quintet.

      
    William Franklin & Larry Davis                                                                                                                                  

    Franklin wrote the delectable ballad This Broken Heart, but it was tenor Donald Sheffield who ably fronted The Sonics on the engaging platter. Sheffield also led the flip side, You Made Me Cry, another Franklin composition. The number made enough East Coast noise on Art Gottfried's Harvard Records, another tiny New York imprint, that Chicago's Checker label picked it up in April of '59 for national consumption (Sheffield's featured billing went by the boards). It was a one-time deal for the group, which bounced from one highly obscure label - Nocturne, Amco, Armonia - to the next during the early '60s without ever attracting the interest that This Broken Heart


    Songs :
    (updated by Hans-Joachim) 


      
    Evil Eye                                             Triangle Love

      
    Once In A Lifetime                                It Ain't True     

      
    This Broken Heart                            You Made Me Cry

      
    Funny                                            It's You

      
    I Get That Feeling                           Preacher Man

    ...


  • Comments

    1
    Thursday 15th December 2022 at 11:38
    2
    jeffib
    Sunday 29th January 2023 at 22:49

    You say that William Franklin and Larry Davis formed two-fifths of The Sonics.  That implies the Sonics were a five man group. But you list only three members. Who were the other two members? You refer to Franklin and Davis as FORMER members of The Kodaks on "Oh Gee, Oh Gosh", but "Evil Eye" / "Triangle Love" has a release date of 1957 on Nocturne, and "Oh Gee, Oh Gosh" has a release date of May, 1958, so The Sonics on Nocuren/Unique  were released BEFORE The Kodak's record. I don't believe The Sonics on Nocturne/Unique had any connection with the other Sonics groups.

    Next. The Sonics on Armonia and The Sonics on Amco are California records with the group being a trio. They have no connection with the other Sonics records you are listing. You are lumping together a whole bunch of groups that have no business being listed together. What proof do you have? Where does your information come from? What's worse is everyone else looks at your biographies and copies them, so this incorrect information gets pasted all over the internet. 

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