The Shirelles

The Shirelles were the first major female vocal group of the rock era, defining the so-called girl group sound with their soft, sweet harmonies and yearning innocence. Their music was a blend of pop/rock and R&B — especially doo wop and smooth uptown soul — that appealed to listeners across the board, before Motown ever became a crossover phenomenon with white audiences.

The Shirelles were originally formed in 1958 in Passaic, NJ, by four high school friends: Doris Coley, Addie "Micki" Harris, Shirley Owens, and Beverly Lee. Christening themselves the Poquellos, the girls wrote a song called "I Met Him on a Sunday" and entered their school talent show with it. A school friend had them audition for her mother, Florence Greenberg, who ran a small record label; she was impressed enough to become the group's manager, and changed their name to the Shirelles by combining frequent lead singer Owens' first name with doo woppers the Chantels. The Shirelles' recording of "I Met Him on a Sunday" was licensed by Decca and climbed into the national Top 50 in 1958. Two more singles flopped, however, and Decca passed on further releases. Greenberg instead signed them to her new label, Scepter Records, and brought in producer Luther Dixon, whose imaginative, sometimes string-heavy arrangements would help shape the group's signature sound.

"Dedicated to the One I Love" (1959) and "Tonight's the Night" (1960) both failed to make much of an impact on the pop charts, although the latter was a Top 20 R&B hit. However, they broke big time with the Goffin-King composition "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"; released in late 1960, it went all the way to number one pop, making them the first all-female group of the rock era to accomplish that feat; it also peaked at number two R&B. Its success helped send a re-release of "Dedicated to the One I Love" into the Top Five on both the pop and R&B charts in 1961, and "Mama Said" did the same; a more R&B-flavored outing, "Big John," also went to number two that year. 1962 continued their run of success, most notably with "Soldier Boy," a Luther Dixon/Florence Greenberg tune that became their second pop number one; they also had a Top Ten pop and R&B hit with "Baby It's You." Unfortunately, Dixon subsequently left the label; the Shirelles managed to score one more pop/R&B Top Ten with 1963's "Foolish Little Girl," but found it difficult to maintain their previous level of success.

The group went on to record material for the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, headlined the first integrated concert show in Alabama, and helped a young Dionne Warwick get some of her first exposure (subbing for Owens and Coley when each took a leave of absence to get married). A money dispute with Scepter tied up their recording schedule for a while in 1964, and although it was eventually settled, the Shirelles were still bound to a label where their run was essentially over.

They scraped the lower reaches of the charts a few more times, making their last appearance, ironically, with 1967's "Last Minute Miracle." Doris Kenner left the group the following year to concentrate on raising her family, and the remaining Shirelles continued as a trio, cutting singles for Bell, United Artists, and RCA through 1971. The group continued to tour the oldies circuit, however, and appeared in the 1973 documentary Let the Good Times Roll.

Shirley Owens left for a solo career in 1975, upon which point Doris Kenner-Jackson returned. Micki Harris died of a heart attack during a performance in Atlanta on June 10, 1982, upon which point the group went into what turned out to be a temporary retirement; the three remaining charter members recorded together for the last time on a 1983 Dionne Warwick record. Different Shirelles lineups toured the oldies circuit in the '90s, though Beverly Lee eventually secured the official trademark. They were officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Doris Kenner-Jackson passed away after a bout with breast cancer in Sacramento on February 4, 2000. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. On February 4, 2000, Coley lost a battle with breast cancer (age 58). The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002. Find more at: www.vocalgroup.org/inductees/the_shirelles.html

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Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American jazz oriented popular singer and Academy Award-winning actor. He was also indisputably the 20th-century's greatest singer of popular song. Though influenced by Bing Crosby's crooning, and by learning from trombonist Tommy Dorsey's breath control and blues singer Billie Holiday's rhythmic swing, Frank Sinatra mainstreamed the concept of singing colloquially, treating lyrics as personal statements and handling melodies with the ease of a jazz improviser.

Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey,he became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid 1940s, being the idol of the 'bobby soxers'. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He signed with Capitol Records, and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs For Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly With Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records (finding success with albums such as Ring-A-Ding-Ding, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally and fraternized with the Rat Pack and President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s.

Sinatra turned fifty in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way". He attempted to weather the changing tastes in popular music, but with dwindling album sales and after appearing in several poorly received films, he retired in 1971. Coming out of retirement in 1973, he recorded several albums, scoring a hit with "(Theme From) New York, New York", and toured both within the United States and internationally until a few years before his death in 1998.

He had three children; Nancy, Frank Jr., and Tina by his first wife Nancy Barbato. He married three more times, to the actresses Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow, and finally to Barbara Marx, to whom he remained married until his death.

After suffering a second heart attack, he died at 10:50 pm on May 14, 1998, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with wife Barbara and daughter Nancy by his side. He was 82.

Legend has it that Sinatra was buried in a blue suit with a flask of Jack Daniel's and a roll of ten dimes which was a gift from his daughter, Tina, along with a card that said "Sleep warm, Poppa — look for me." The ten dimes were a habit dating back to the kidnapping of his son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., due to the kidnappers' demands that negotiations be made via pay phone. A Zippo lighter (which some take to be a reference to his mob connections) is purported to be buried with him as is a pack of Camel cigarettes. The words "The Best Is Yet to Come" are imprinted on his tombstone. He remains one of my favorite recording artist of all time. When I think of swing music I think of Sinatra and Holiday because they were what Swing was all about. Find out more at: http://www.franksinatra.com/

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John Lee Hooker

Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1917 to a sharecropper family, John Lee Hooker was one of the last true links to the blues of the deep South. He moved to Detroit in the early 1940's and by 1948 had scored his first number-one jukebox hit and million-seller, "Boogie Chillun." More hits followed, "I'm In The Mood," "Crawling Kingsnake," and "Boom Boom" among the biggest. During the 1950s and '60s, Vee Jay Records released a remarkable string of more than 100 of John Lee's songs.

By 1970, John Lee had moved to California and begun working with rock musicians, notably Van Morrison and Canned Heat, with whom he collaborated on several albums and tours. Hooker continued to tour the U.S. and Europe throughout the '70s and '80s, but it was the release in 1989 of his album, The Healer, that catapulted him back to million-seller status and began what has been the most successful period of his extensive career. He followed The Healer with Mr. Lucky, Boom Boom, Chill Out, Don't Look Back and Best of Friends.

In 1991, John Lee was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. On September 11, 1997 he received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and on October 3rd, 1997 John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room* opened in San Francisco. Don't Look Back, produced by Van Morrison and featuring a track by long time admirers, Los Lobos, was released in Spring of '97. He received two Grammy Awards for this album in 1998. In late October of '98, John Lee released his latest album, Best Of Friends, which features the best of his collaborations with legendary musicians and friends over the last 10 years and includes a 50th anniversary version of his first hit, "Boogie Chillun."

He recorded over 100 albums. He lived the last years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where, in 1997, he opened a nightclub called "John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room", after one of his hits.

He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83. The last song Hooker recorded before his death, is "Ali D'Oro", a collaboration with the Italian soul singer Zucchero, in which Hooker sang the chorus "I lay down with an angel". He was survived by eight children, nineteen grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren and a nephew.

Among his many awards, Hooker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1991 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two of his songs, "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom" were named to the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. "Boogie Chillen" was included as one of the Songs of the Century. He was also inducted in 1980 into the Blues Hall of Fame. In 2000, Hooker was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Find out more at: http://www.johnleehooker.com/

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Brenda Lee

Brenda Lee was one of the biggest pop stars of the early '60s, although she has never attracted as much critical respect as she deserves. She is often inaccurately characterized as one of the few female teen idols. More crucially, the credit for achieving success with pop-country crossovers usually goes to Patsy Cline, although Lee's efforts in this era were arguably of equal importance. While she made few recordings of note after the mid-'60s, the best of her first decade is fine indeed, encompassing not just the pop ballads that were her biggest hits, but straight country and some surprisingly fierce rockabilly.

Lee, born in 1944 in the charity ward of a local hospital in Atlanta, was a child prodigy, appearing on national television by the age of ten, and making her first recordings for Decca the following year (1956). Her first few Decca singles, in fact, make a pretty fair bid for the best preteen rock & roll performances this side of Michael Jackson. "BIGELOW 6-200," "Dynamite," and "Little Jonah" are all exceptionally powerful rockabilly performances, with robust vocals and white-hot backing from the cream of Nashville's session musicians (including Owen Bradley, Grady Martin, Hank Garland, and Floyd Cramer). Lee would not have her first big hits until 1960, when she tempered the rockabilly with teen idol pop on "Sweet Nothin's," which went to the Top Five.

The comparison between Lee and Cline is to be expected, given that both singers were produced by Owen Bradley in the early '60s. Naturally, many of the same session musicians and backup vocalists were employed. Brenda, however, had a bigger in with the pop audience, not just because she was still a teenager, but because her material was more pop than Cline's, and not as country-sounding. Between 1960 and 1962, she had a stunning series of huge hits: "I'm Sorry," "I Want to Be Wanted," "Emotions," "You Can Depend on Me," "Dum Dum," "Fool #1," "Break It to Me Gently," and "All Alone Am I" all made the Top Ten. Their crossover appeal is no mystery. While these were ballads, they were delivered with enough lovesick yearning to appeal to adolescents, and enough maturity for the adults. The first-class melodic songwriting and professional orchestral production guaranteed that they would not be ghettoized in the country market.

Lee's last Top Ten pop hit was in 1963, with "Losing You." While she still had hits through the mid-'60s, these became smaller and less frequent with the rise of the British Invasion (although she remained very popular overseas). The best of her later hits, "Is It True?," was a surprisingly hard-rocking performance, recorded in 1964 in London with Jimmy Page on guitar. 1966's "Coming on Strong," however, would prove to be her last Top 20 entry. In the early '70s, Lee reunited with Owen Bradley and, like so many early white rock & roll stars, returned to country music. For a time she was fairly successful in this field, making the country Top Ten half-a-dozen times in 1973-1974. Although she remained active as a recording and touring artist, for the last couple of decades she's been little more than a living legend, directing her intermittent artistic efforts to the country audience. My favorite Lee tune is "I'm Sorry", a real tear-jerker if there ever was one. Find out more about her music at: http://www.brendalee.com/


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The Four Tops

The Four Tops are an American Motown musical quartet, whose repertoire has included doo-wop, jazz, soul music, R&B, disco, adult contemporary, and showtunes. Founded in Detroit, Michigan as The Four Aims, lead singer Levi Stubbs and groupmates Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, and Lawrence Payton remained together for over four decades, finally forced to endure a lineup change when Payton died in 1997. At that time, Theo Peoples was added to the lineup; Peoples later replaced Stubbs, who fell ill from cancer, and Ronnie McNair assumed Peoples' spot.

In July, 2005, Benson died of lung cancer with Payton's son Roquel replacing him. And as of April, 2005, Fakir, McNair, Payton and Peoples still perform together as The Four Tops.Among a number of groups who helped define the Motown Sound of the 1960s, including The Miracles, The Marvelettes, The Temptations, and The Supremes, The Four Tops were notable for having Stubbs, a baritone, as their lead singer; most groups of the time were fronted by a tenor.

The group was the main male vocal group for the songwriting and production team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, who crafted for the group a stream of popular hit singles, including two #1 hits: "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" and "Reach Out I'll Be There".

After Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown in 1967, the Four Tops were assigned to a number of producers, primarily Frank Wilson.

When Motown left Detroit in 1972 to move to Los Angeles, California, the Tops stayed in Detroit and moved over to ABC Records, where they continued to have charting singles into the late-1970s.

Since the 1980s, The Four Tops have recorded for, at various times, Motown, Casablanca Records, and Arista Records. They still tour and make concert appearances. They were always one of my favorite Motown artist. They had so much class and charm and an act that was unmistakable. My favorite hit is "I Can't Help Myself" which is one of the finest examples of the music that made Barry Gordy a living legend. Find out more about them at: www.vocalgroup.org/inductees/the_four_tops.html

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Roy Orbison

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988), nicknamed "The Big O," was an influential American singer-songwriter, guitarist and a pioneer of rock and roll. His recording career spanned more than four decades. By the mid-1960s Orbison was internationally recognized for his ballads of lost love, rhythmically advanced melodies, characteristic dark sunglasses, and his taut, powerful alto voice coupled with his occasional distinctive usage of falsetto, typified in songs such as "Ooby Dooby," "Only The Lonely," "In Dreams," "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Crying," "Running Scared," and "You Got It." Elvis Presley once said Orbison had the best singing voice he'd ever heard.

In 1987 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and posthumously in 1989 into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Two misconceptions about Orbison's appearance continue to surface: that he was an albino, and that he wore his trademark dark glasses because he was blind or nearly so. Neither is correct, though his poor vision required him to wear thick corrective lenses. From childhood he suffered from a combination of hyperopia, severe astigmatism, anisometropia, and strabismus.

His trademark sunglasses were a fashion statement arising from an incident early in his career. He had left his regular glasses in an airplane. Due to go on stage in a few minutes and unable to see without corrective lenses, his only other pair of glasses were dark prescription sunglasses and he "had to see to get on stage." He wore the sunglasses throughout his tour of England with the Beatles in 1963 and continued the practice for the remainder of his professional career. "I'll just do this and look cool." However, he once said in an interview that he wore sunglasses on the plane because the sun was bright and forgot he was wearing them on stage. Shortly after he finished performing, he looked in the mirror and noticed he had not taken them off, so he laughed about it and continued to wear them for the rest of his career, without taking them off once. "Pretty Woman", the song that got a new lease on life in the movie of the same name. For a long time his music was as close to country music my taste would wander, unless you want to include Ray Charles. Find out more about his music and his life at: http://royorbison.musiccitynetwork.com/

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