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

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