The Zebulons

The Zebulons (Brooklyn, New York)

Personnel :

Shawn Syville

Billy Hamilton

Leroy Harper

Clarence Ellis

Troy Mangum


Discography :

1960 - Falling Water / Wo-Ho-La-Tee-Da (Cub 9069)


Biography :

Billy Hamilton and Leroy Harper began to sing together in their spare time in the Navy, and when they returned to their hometown of Brooklyn (New York) they decided to form a Doo wop group, along with another guy they had met in the Marine, Clarence Ellis, and a neighbour, Troy Mangum. After some trials the success of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers was overwhelming, so they rushed to sign a singer with the voice of a child like that of Lymon, Harper's cousin, Shawn Syville, who although he was 19 years old was able to sing with falsetto tone.They called themselves the "Zebulons. The Zebulons only did a couple of shows, both at schools, appearing with the Crests and the Passions. Gribble got the guys a six-month with the record division of M-G-M., From where they sent them to their cheap subsidiary, Cub records.There they published the single "Falling water" (1960), Barely a month after the album was released and when it started to start, Harper and Syville went to a party where Sherman Williams was, a boy who wanted to join the Zebulons but was rejected because I did not know how to sing. This one, still hurt, told Syville that at least he danced better than he and the thing was more, when Syville, a drunken Harper and two other friends assaulted with punches, kicks, stabs, bottles, even with an antenna, to Williams until it killed him and left him almost unrecognizable. The four found their bones in jail and spent six and a half years behind bars, despite constant appeals to their innocence. The other Zebulons had tried to maintain the group, but the voice of Syville was irreplaceable and in addition Gribble died of a heart attack in 1962, reason why the group decided to separate.
http://www.uncamarvy.com/Zebulons/zebulons.html

Songs :

  
Falling Water                             Wo-Ho-La-Tee-Da


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