Streetlight Harmonies (2020) - full transcript

Everything has to begin
somewhere, everything.

No matter where you went in 1956, no
matter what neighborhood, what project,

there was a group doo-wopping,
they were singing, making harmony.

You heard harmony
every place you went.

What is doo-wop? I wish I knew.

If you talk to ten people
in this music business,

they'll give
you ten different answers.

Doo-wop means great music.

Harmony, harmony, harmony.
No band, no nothing.

I don't know who came up
with that term.

I looked it up, doo-wop
in the Webster's dictionary...



Street corner.

Homegrown music.

Acapellas,
street corner harmony.

It's a feeling.

I would call it
really rhythm and blues.

Doo-wop. Do-bee-do-bee-do-wop.
Do-bee-do-bee-do-wop.

They would doo-wop,
we were R&B singers.

Four or five guys standing on the
corner singing that wonderful music.

And we said, "Well if they
can do that, we could do that."

One lady said that she had
conceived four children on that song.

I don't know if I should
take credit for it or apologize.

We paved the way for Rihanna,
Beyoncé, Destiny's Child.

When I first heard Boyz II Men, New Edition,
Backstreet Boys, all that's doo-wop.

They should acknowledge us because
if it wasn't for us, they wouldn't be here.



There would be nobody out there
doing anything if they didn't reach back

into what we put down
as that foundation.

You know as long as there's
teenage girls out there,

I think vocal harmony groups
will be around.

It was good music then,
it's good now,

it's gonna be good in the future
when the next generation recreates it.

That period of time,
some of the greatest music,

greatest singers,
greatest groups in history.

That was the beginning of a
revolution that has never ended.

When I was in gospel, we learned how
to hum before we learned to ever sing.

You know, my mother
used to go...

I said, "Whoa!"

The do-wop as you call them, I call
them street corner harmony groups,

came from gospel.

If you did have some talent, it was...
usually it came out in the church.

We imitated a lot of the groups
that were by the church groups

that's where it basically
comes from. Soul Stirrers...

Whatever they were,
the patterns they would use,

we would use that into rock
and roll and rhythm and blues.

My mom was a gospel singer.

And through that
is where I met Sam Cooke

and he sang with a group
called the Soul Stirrers.

So, I got to meet a lot
of wonderful gospel singers

and my mom used to take me around to all
of the churches and places she would sing

in the tri-state area. So, I
would sit there and listen to her

and listen to them sing
and... and I got very inspired.

I would listen to the High Lows which
weren't really a doo-wop group necessarily,

but they were male vocal group. The Swan
Silvertones and... and groups like that

that were gospel in nature. So,
you had call and response happening

or where you'd have a lead vocalist
and then the other three vocalists

echoing what he was singing.
That was doo-wop.

It was kind of like standing under
the streetlight on the street corner

and just starting parts
and just... just singing.

So, it was always a part
of our heritage.

Pretty soon when I got... so I'd say,
"I'm tired of going to church singing.

I gotta make some money."

The evolution of doo-wop
music or harmonizing of music

came from these guys like
the Mills Brothers, the Ink Spots.

Let's take the Ink Spots.

Now that's the early 40s,
during World War II.

The Ink Spots were singing
pop music. "If I Wouldn't Care."

And we would hear that stuff
and go, "God, dad what was that?"

They used to rap, the Ink Spots.
♪ Oh, honey child, baby ♪

In the middle... eighth
of the song.

♪ Honey child
More than words can say ♪

Spiritual music
gave birth to blues,

blues gave birth
to rhythm and blues,

rhythm and blues
gave birth to rock and roll,

rock and roll
gave birth to hip hop.

No doo-wop. I don't know where
that is. It doesn't fit in the category.

It was the Ink Spots, it was the
Ravens, but there was the Orioles.

When they first heard
"Does She Loves Me"

that earthy sound
from the Orioles with Sonny Til

and by the time "Crying
in the Chapel" came out,

you could see that
the music had changed

and it gave it
a more sophisticated sound.

Oh, that was beautiful.

They hung out on Pennsylvania
Avenue which many of us believe

was the birthplace of rhythm
and blues vocal harmony

and it was rhythm and blues vocal harmony,
which would later develop into doo-wop.

The Orioles were fantastic,
but they weren't doo-woppers.

The groups from then,
don't like that term

because that's not what they were.
They were rhythm and blues singers.

Groups started springing up all over
the country trying to imitate the Orioles

and I dare say, I don't know of a group
that formed between 1948 and 1952

that was not influenced
strongly by the Orioles.

It was just soul.
It was the soul of Baltimore.

The Orioles hooked up with a
manager named Deborah Chessler.

Deborah Chessler was a twenty-five-year-old
songwriter from Baltimore.

She was Jewish and she
happened to stumble on the Orioles

and decided she wanted
to manage them and use them

as an outlet for her songs,
which she did.

Deborah Chessler was the first
white woman to manage a black group.

She went to a pool in Baltimore and
there was a sign, "No blacks, no Jews."

She swam and she was coming out
and she saw the sign

and she went up to the girl
at the thing and said,

"I just want to tell you
something. Uh, I'm Jewish,

and I just swam in your pool."

She understood discrimination.

She identified, I think,
with African Americans.

She was happy that...
That her songs fit their styles.

My wife, she was in love with
Sonny Til in the Orioles, you know.

I guess that's what made me
sing the way I sang.

They called him "The Voice." They
called him Sonny... Sonny Voice.

His real name was...
Was Earlington Tilghman.

His voice was so smooth.

Sonny would go get on stage, when he
started singing, he had women falling out.

That song was recorded
by every major artist.

It was a new song
not written by a major composer,

but by an unknown girl and it
was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald,

Dinah Washington, Irma Thomas
and Sonny Til which had the hit.

What does a thirteen-year-old
boy know about love?

Well, Mr. Laine, I've been
falling in love since I was only five.

Five?

But I've been a fool
about it since I was eleven.

I think we've had
enough of this little chitchat.

- Are you ready to rock and roll?
- That's right.

I was watching television,
of course, black and white

and I hear this ruckus. I'm
watching the Frankie Laine Show.

And I see these five guys
jump over this brick wall

and they had on these white
sweaters with tees on them

and they start singing
"Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"

Well, when I tell you this
turned my whole life around.

I believe that Frankie Lymon and
The Teenagers were put together

to become Jackie Robinson
of doo-wop.

There wasn't the internet then,
you didn't have home recorders.

So. In order to be
in the record industry,

if you have a group
and wanted to be a singer,

you had to go find an agent,
or start knocking on doors

and hopefully they would open
their door and listen you sing.

Richie Barrett moved into the
neighborhood. We were so excited.

He's a recording artist,
he's a star, he has a group,

he's getting ready to perform
at the Apollo Theater.

Richard Barrett became a big star as
a singer singing with the Valentine's,

but then he also became big on
the other end of the microphone

just managing groups,
producing records, writing songs.

Richard Barrett...
the king of all this stuff.

Richard Barrett was living
in an apartment in Washington Heights

and he kept hearing these
kids singing beneath his window.

And they were trying to get
attention. They knew he was a big star.

He sees us singing
and he says, "You know what?

I'm gonna take you guys downtown
and get an audition."

And we were thrilled. We had
Richie Barrett of the Valentines

who had a song out called
"Lily Maebelle"

who's going to take us downtown
and make us stars.

The first week in September,
Richard Barrett of the Valentines

takes us down to George Goldner
and there we do a live audition.

Let me tell you
about George Goldner.

He was one of the unsung heroes
of doo-wop street corner, trust me.

So, we're auditioning in front of
George... "You know, you guys sound great.

You guys sound... Richie, Richie, do
they... do they do any original music?"

I said, "Well, there's a song
that we've been working on."

It's called Why Do Fools Fall in
Love." And on December 3rd 1955,

we went into the studio and we
recorded "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"

And we were about sixteen, and
Frankie was thirteen. Thirteen-years-old.

I don't know what I can say
about this next act.

What can you say?
But sensational.

All over the world, Frankie
Lymon, a 13-year-old youngster

with a great way
with the song and The Teenagers.

That was the beginning of a
revolution that has never ended.

That was a big bang
we were looking for.

There had never been
no teenage group before.

I'm 16 years old. Frankie Lymon
is younger than me.

And the people that related to
The Teenagers were not just black,

they were white.

The lyrics were something
that we got,

you know,
"Why Do Fools Fall in Love"

because when you're
14-years-old, 15-years-old

you're falling in love constantly
and hoping for the best.

And they would get
to the Brooklyn Paramount

with Alan Freed,
and I lived down the street.

And me and a couple of other kids, we
knew that place like the back of our hand.

We didn't let a little thing about the
theater and not having any money...

We'd sneak in the theatre.
You know what I'm saying?

And I remember seeing him, and
he was singing with The Teenagers

and Herman Santiago and
Sherman Garnes and all the guys.

I said, "Oh, shoot!"
I just so... was so overwhelmed

not knowing that I was gonna
meet him someday.

Frankie could...
He was a natural.

I always felt that way
and he could sing too.

You know, I'm talking
about a kid about that tall.

I tried to sing his song, but I wasn't
able to hit the notes that he could hit.

He was fabulous.
He was fabulous.

He was a great singer and he
had a great stage personality.

He was a genius.

Frankie Lymon, of course, I
mean that's... he was the best.

I know Joey Fatone,
that's his favorite too.

Some star, he was a star,
he was a star.

It was written
all over him, man. "I'm good."

- He had his swag on early.
- He had swag.

The first time we met he said,
"Oh, yeah. You're that cat, man.

We call you little Anthony, man.
You're that cat." I said, "Yes, sir."

Then he tells me, "Hey, man you
want to go to this here, restaurant?"

And... and he took me to Japanese
restaurant that specializes in soul food.

Figure that one out, man. So,
Frankie took me there and it became...

We'd go there all the time.

We figured together, man,
we had the power.

I'm Little Anthony,
he's Frankie Lymon,

literally women they
would just come from everywhere.

For the next eighteen months,

Frankie Lymon and The
Teenagers were on top of the world.

Can you imagine in eighteen
months, they had six top 10 records

and they even made a tour of England
where they played the London Palladium.

And remember we on the
road with men. They were like sailors.

You know, these guys in
the clothes and The Coasters

and The Drifters,
they had women in every town.

And we started copying them,
you know.

And we got rebuked out of the
hotel because Park West Hotel

wasn't gonna have it,
you know.

Crazy!

During the tour,
Frankie Lymon was...

Was no longer being managed
by Richard Barrett.

They picked up some new managers
and they said,

"Why are we dealing with five kids
when we only need to deal with one?

We're gonna split Frankie
Lymon away from the group."

They split the group up and Frankie Lymon
after that never had another hit record.

And The Teenagers on their own
with different leads

never had another hit record
after that.

I watched him in happy times and I saw
him when he had become self-destructive

and there was nothing we can do.
And... and I mean, I remember,

he was getting worse, and worse,
and worse. He was taking heroin.

And... and then we started.
So did the... you know,

that's something I couldn't...
I didn't want to deal with.

I saw my brother get caught up
in that thing and I said,

"You know, I... that's not...
That's not where I want to go."

But I just... I just wanted...
I didn't know how to help him.

But he was still my friend.

Eventually,
I got to meet Frankie Lymon.

I was working at the Apollo
and it was sad

that he would hang around
backstage,

you know, and he was on drugs,
and he didn't look good at all.

And he would, you know, try to
borrow some money, or ask for money

and stuff like that. I mean,
he was... I looked up to him

and when I'm... here
I am appearing at the Apollo,

and I see the guy
that I look up to

in this bad state,
you know, so...

I get a call
from my wife. She says,

"He's not with us anymore."

I said, "What?"

"He's not with us anymore,"
she said.

I was told by street people
that he took almost pure heroin

and he shot it up.

He was in the bathroom
and he slumped over and died.

It just... it was ended.

It was over.

When Frankie Lymon and The
Teenagers jumped over that wall,

I think the next day teenage
groups popped up from coast to coast.

All of a sudden,
we realized that as a teenager,

we can actually,
you know, maybe make a record.

Frankie Lymon was
about the same age I was,

so I said, "Well,
if he can do it, I can do it."

They caused the epidemic. There
were the groups in every schoolyard.

They were all over
and no matter where you went

in 1956, during the summer,

no matter what neighborhood,
what project,

you heard harmony
every place you went.

We used to sing
on street corners.

If you were a singer, then you
know what I'm talking about.

Most the time we was...
We'd get together and sing.

Come on, I'll meet you at the
corner, and I see you walking up,

they gotta me, all good stop and
start singing on the corner together.

You know,
a long time before I got

with the Drifters I was with
The Crowns... The Five Crowns,

and we used to sing on the
street corner of 8th Avenue.

It used to be the Cadillacs
on one corner,

it used to be The Five Crowns on one
corner, The Harptones on another corner.

You know, you know you
light the fire in the garbage can

and you take a little nip of something
and then you hit a little doo-wop song.

And this is where this whole thing
called doo-wop developed in the inner city

and that to me is what doo-wop
really is. It's a homegrown music.

There was a lot of poverty, you
know, there was no one who was rich,

everybody was struggling.

Everybody was trying to get out

and you'd rely
on whatever skill,

talent, ability
you had to do that.

That was a way of releasing
tension and to form brotherhood.

Brooklyn was not
a high-end community.

There really wasn't any money
for... for instruments.

Nobody could afford to buy
instruments, so you had to...

You wanted to make some money,
you had to imitate the instruments.

Well not only could we not
afford them, we couldn't play them.

We didn't know how to play them.

Started sundown, as soon
as the streetlights came on,

uh, you would find
various groups taking positions.

It seems like there was a
group under every streetlight.

It was
just street-corner singing,

getting that harmony to ring,
usually standing under the streetlight.

It would be like a concert
and it was just an amazing,

amazing evening until of course, about nine
o'clock, everything shut down about 9:00.

We would have a lot of parents saying, "Stop
that noise and get out of my back door."

And that was the good days.

Well, the schoolyards
they would assemble.

Various groups would show up,
and they'd find a spot.

Yeah everybody's going in like
a prizefighter. You're going in,

one group is standing in the corner
and standing in another corner,

in another corner, you know. And it's... when
it's your turn... when it's your turn to sing,

you go up
and you do the best song.

About what we gonna do? We gonna
burn them and all that kind of stuff

that's... that was the term back then. We
gonna burn. We gonna burn them tonight.

That's right. That's right.

And it was really trial and error.
We were imitating all the other groups.

So basically, we were doing
their songs,

but then we were here,
"Well, wait a minute."

If we just singing it in the
streets, it didn't sound the same

"as it was... as they sound
on the records."

Well, somehow,
we stumbled up in the hallways

of Brooklyn
and in Fort Greene projects

and other projects where other
groups came from and it had echo.

There was natural echo. We said,
"Oh! That's what we're hearing

on the record. We could do this
in the hallway."

You must be in

a stairwell

or a bathroom for harmony.
I mean, it was like...

It was amazing to scramble
around the fire,

"Where are we gonna sing today?
Oh, shucks! They're in the bathroom."

Then we found out

that when we're down in
the subway, it was even better

and that's how we learned.
We learned by trial and error.

This is how we talked. It wasn't
you're the tenor, you're the baritone,

you're the second tenor...
No, nobody...

It's like,
"You do the high part,

man and you...
You do the low part."

When you're singing those...
those sweet love songs like that on...

On the street corners where
there were girls always around.

- All right.
- And that was... that was it.

- That's what you all gonna do?
- I would put my baseball glove down, my bat down...

- This is what I wanted to do.
- And everything, right?

Yes, yes indeed.

But the main thing it was all the
girls used to come to the best group

and we were the best group. Over The
Harptones and The Moonglows and all.

We were the best group. They used to
come and crowd and load up our corner,

you know, and that was them...
That's the most marvelous...

Excuse me wife,
this is my younger days.

We wanted attention, you know,

and that was the easiest way
to get attention.

Well, it was
because of the girls.

Hell, all the fellas
wanted the girls, so.

That was the coolest thing in the
world that you didn't need a band.

You didn't need anything. That you and
your friends could go on a street corner

and... and sing... and...
And girls would like that.

That's a big deal.
That's a really big deal.

So that was the beginning that
evolution. It went from the street corner,

to the subways,
in the hallways of Brooklyn.

And you remember, as we keep
doing this, we're getting better and better

and better at our craft.

It wasn't thought
that we would eventually

go on to be professional.

- It was just the fact that we were enjoying ourselves.
- Yeah.

As long as they
had a streetlight,

or a bunch of guys together
staying on the corner,

on the stoop, it didn't matter. For
me, it was the inner-city urban sound.

For me, it was camaraderie,
it was achievement,

it was a coming together
of a bunch of guys

singing their hearts out,
making harmony together.

Before the 50s, no one
was writing songs for kids.

They didn't have money,

but in the 50s, Eisenhower was
President and things were good,

and the kids literally had a
buck to spend on a record.

In the late 50s, young people
started writing songs for kids.

It was kids
writing songs for kids now.

Growing up in New York
area was luckiest thing in the world

because you could take
a ferryboat to Manhattan

from Staten Island
and go up to the Brill Building,

which was the mecca
of all music at the time.

The Brill Building.
Oh, man! How sweet!

The building wasn't a concept,
there was a building

and it was just...
It was no more than that.

That's where they were making
a star, right in the Brill Building.

It really wasn't magical then,
it's magical now.

This is the building
where all the record companies,

Scepter Records and Gone
Records and a host of others.

It was like fourteen, fifteen
floors of music publishers,

managers, record companies,
and even a recording studio.

So, everything was linked
to this... this one area.

It was just a cool place
with brass front doors,

and a long hall leading
to the elevators,

black and white marble floors,
and a restaurant on either side

you could access from the
street, or from the interior hallway.

The whole building
was filled with music.

There were people
in the elevators singing.

You know, they were actually
elevator operators who would tell you...

That's when they didn't have
automatic elevators,

they would tell you which publishing
companies are looking for people.

We were rabid Heartbeat fans,

so we followed the address
on that label.

We started knocking
on the doors, on every door

in that building
until somebody said okay.

I once met Paul Simon and he was
just starting out and he said to me,

"You don't have to start on
the first floor, second floor."

He said, "Go to the top
and walk down each flight

and stop at the publisher's
offices and the manager's office

because it's easier coming down
than going up."

One of the places we stopped at was
a record label called Whole Records

and the woman and her husband
that owned the label said,

"You don't have to go no further
than this. We're very interested."

They gave us a contract
to take home to our parents

because we were all minors
at the time

and that's what we did.

We signed,
we were in the studio,

and we recorded "Little Star."

We were all seventeen-years-old when
we had our first hit record "Son in Law."

When I was sixteen-years-old,
I recorded my first hit record,

a group called The Chips, the
record was called "Rubber Biscuit."

I think we started when I was
about fourteen-fifteen years old.

I was thirteen coming up,
thirteen, twelve, you know.

I was nineteen-years-old when we
recorded, "I only have eyes for you."

When I wrote Little Star and
recorded it, I was sixteen-years-old.

I was coming out of summer
school for the last time I thought

and I saw Jimmy Moschello who
was still singing with me today,

one of the original members, and I'm coming
down the walkway, and he's beeping the horn

and he's yelling, "It's number
one. It's reached number one."

And we knocked out Perry Como and I
didn't want to tell my grandmother that.

She would kill me. I took my
books and I saw a big garbage pail

and I threw my books in the
garbage pail and I jumped into his car

and we took off and I said,
"That's it. I'm... I'm a singer now.

I don't...
I don't need a diploma."

It's all in the writing baby. It's all in the
writing. The real stars are the songwriters.

It really was an occupation that we
would get up and... and go in and write.

And we would get to work every day. Some
guys would get there ten in the morning.

We had four or five, six, maybe eight
piano rooms and you'd close the door

and then you'd start
to write your song.

See, we were with a couple of
guys named Leiber and Stoller.

These are white Jewish guys
that went to church

and they loved the black sound
in the churches.

Leiber and Stoller were the man.

They were the ones, Jerry
and Mike. They was the man.

We were the first white act
they ever touched other than Elvis

and they wrote for him and
produced some of the stuff,

but they produced all of
The Drifters and The Coasters

and all this great music that
had complicated arrangements.

They were too me...
They were the best.

They could just out of clear blue
sky... just give you some words.

They were the hippest guys
out there on the streets.

Their lyrics were always cool...

- Right on.
- Right on.

Jerry said, "Billy,
you talk too much, man."

And Billy said, "No, I don't
talk too much." "Yes, you do it."

Said, "Yeah you just yak, yak,
yak all the time."

And when we came back the next day,
Jerry had put some words to "Yakety Yak."

They had a million hits and
they were with the best people.

Oh, Yakety Yak, Charlie
Brown, Along came Jones,

Down in Mexico, One kiss
led to another, Searchin',

on and on.

It was happening. We were
inventing. I called it Kitty Hawk,

you know, that's where the
Wright Brothers threw their...

Pushed their first plane off the hill
and went, "Hey, it flies," you know.

And that's what we were doing.

People have said,

"You made history.
Did you know it?"

We didn't know we were making
history. We were making records.

See back then, especially in
Philadelphia and New York City too,

most radio stations were playing
the popular music of the day;

Rosemary Clooney,
The Four Lads, but all the...

At the other end of the dial,
you had the little black stations.

You ready for the big
ride from outer space, huh?

Passengers fasten your seat
belts. Three, two, one, take it off.

I was listening to a disc
jockey from North New Jersey

where you could hardly hear it
on the radio, there was such static,

but you could hear the
doo-wop sound coming through.

I was fooling around with
the dial and I hit black radio

down the right end of the dial
and I found it much more interesting.

They played records
that I never heard,

that never got over
to the white stations.

It was much more interesting.

There was a disk jockey
called Jocko

who had a rap...
Who had a persona.

He will come out the Apollo
Theater in a rocket ship

and in a spaceman's suit
and he was the persona.

... through Jocko and the
engineer the big rocket ship sure thing.

Greeting salutations.

Jocko knew the ghetto,
the street corner,

the music
in the black neighborhoods

and was playing music
because he had an ear.

So, all the black cats
Lord Fauntleroy,

Sir John Bandy, all the
black cats had a persona.

So, what happened
when rock and roll happened,

the white cats,
all had to get a handle.

I became the Geator.

Jocko, if he
would have been white,

he would have been bigger
than Alan Freed.

- The Moondog Show.
- Hi, everybody. Hi y'all.

This is yours truly,
Alan Freed welcoming you

to the Big Beat
once again on radio.

Alan Freed, my main man.

Alan Freed
was the king of the DJs.

Anyone who was anyone had
to go through my main man.

Alan Freed was
a disc jockey from Cleveland,

who was one of the first white
deejays to play black music.

People didn't like that
too much really.

He was not initially into this.

He knew enough to visit record
stores and see what kids were buying

and when he saw white and
black kids buying black music

like this he said,
"Well, maybe I can start

playing some of this
on the radio."

He realized that this was
a new form of music.

He moved to
New York basically on the fame

that he had developed
in... in Cleveland

and of course now,
he had an even bigger audience

and he could push hard.

But what he really did was mix
R&B music with... with the white pop

that was out there
and play it all.

So, you would hear Elvis Presley
and then you'd hear The Platters,

then you would hear The Moonglows,
then you would hear The Elegants.

You would hear different groups
on your radio and that opened it up.

They just couldn't hardly
separate it.

It was very difficult to separate it
after Alan Freed started playing it.

They had hit the major markets, you
know, like Jocko was on a limited station.

Tommy Smalls, Dr. Jive
was on a limited station.

You couldn't get him, let's say,
in the five boroughs

just like you could get
Alan Freed.

You ever heard of a Clyde McPhatter?
Alan Freed, you know who Alan Freed was.

They had a song that said
"That's what you're doing to me."

That they were playing
over the air

and here's
where this expression came from.

"I want to rock.
I want to roll.

I want to feel it deep down
in my soul.

Oh, can't you see.
That's what you're doing to me."

Alan Freed would play
that every day on the air

and when Alan would come back
on the air

and say, "Everybody,
it's time to rock n roll"

because he got it
from the record.

So, he was playing this music

and at... at an alarming rate
and it was growing so fast

and so many people
were digging it, kids.

It just grew like wildfire.

All of a sudden black music became
the number one music in the world.

Once Alan Freed pulled
the covers off of that music

and had the audacity to make
movies integrated with this music

that was shown
from coast to coast,

I think that's one of the
reasons why they got rid of him

and really tried to hurt him.

They tried to blackball him.

They tried to threaten him
that he couldn't do this.

He couldn't do that. And he
just went against the odds.

To me, he was the king of
rock and roll. I'm sorry he's gone.

This is the Geator, the big boss with
the big cat sauce, the man with the planet.

Let's go back to the year 1959. Dion
and the Belmonts, ladies and gentlemen,

out of the Bronx. The name of the
song is called "I Wonder Why?" My man.

The black groups really
were the R&B soul singers.

They were really the earthy
singers, but there were other groups

and there were white groups.
They could not sing the way we did.

They couldn't get that soul.
So, they created their own style.

We often look at the late 50s

as a time when a lot of white
doo-wop groups started singing

and, in the beginning, of course,
they were singing black music.

We were all kids and they... they
heard the same thing that we heard.

Now, I would... I wouldn't even
buy a record that was recorded

by a white artist at that time.

You know I was like, you know,
it was like going against

everything that I...
That I believed in musically.

My first exposure to doo-wop
music came from my cellar

because there was a local group, The Elegants
and they would rehearse in my cellar.

So, I would hear these great
harmonies coming out of the cellar

and my dad would say, "But
they're never gonna make it."

"How are they gonna get a record
made?" And about three months later,

they had the number one record in the
country and they sold a million records.

It has been stated that the first two
groups to create and open the door

for this whole Italian-American
doo-wop movement

was ourselves The Elegants
and Dion and the Belmonts.

The Italian-American groups were
basing their singing on their own culture.

They grew up listening to Frankie
Laine and Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra.

And there's a little bit of
that in their style of singing.

Some of it is spiritual, some guys sang
bluesy, but it was all in a city feeling.

It had no color cause Dion and
the Belmonts was doo-wop group,

Frankie Valli the Four Seasons
was a doo-wop group.

White groups and black groups
do sound slightly different

even when doing the same song
in similar style.

This was pretty much brought
on by the fact that in many cities

the Italian-American
neighborhoods

were right next to the
African-American neighborhoods

and there was
some interaction between groups.

All the groups, all the white
groups and the black groups

there was no difference
after a while.

This music is
for whoever wants to do it.

It's basically
a black form of music,

but the fact that we had two
Puerto Ricans in our group

lets the world know that Puerto
Ricans love the music as well.

You know, I like to think
that music is the great uniter.

It was especially noticeable
in doo-wop music,

I think, because here were
cases where all of a sudden

you started having racially
integrated groups singing.

There were several of them that were very
big The Romancers out on the west coast,

The Del Vikings were another.
Johnny Maestro in The Crests.

I came from a place called South
Beach in Staten Island New York.

Johnny Maestro's family
lived not too far from us

and he also wanted to doo-wop,
to sing with his own group

at that time
when he had The Crests.

Johnny Maestro and The Crests.
The first integrated group.

Spanish, black, white.

Johnny Maestro greatest voice
of them all.

It was black and white kids singing
together, emulating that harmony.

Music has no color. This is about
love. It's for the love of the music.

Before I actually played
the Apollo,

I often wondered what they
did when the show was over,

they went to another... and... and...
and I would hear them talk about...

"Well, we're going on a big tour.
We're gonna go to the Howard Theatre.

"We're gonna play this
out there tomorrow." Oh, man,

that's like running away
and going to the circus.

Touring and so forth, shows
this was all new to us, to all of us.

We went to almost every state
with Dick Clark.

We went from Canada to Texas,
New York to California.

We did ninety one-nighters in ninety
days and we did three of them in one year.

Get on a bus, you get off a bus. You
do your show, you get back on the bus.

You go to the hotel, you... you
didn't have time to even hang out.

It's time to go to sleep,
get up, get on the bus.

Well the buses were fine. Actually,
there was always somebody,

a group of somebody's
playing cards in the back.

There was a great sense
of camaraderie on it.

We just had each other and the jamming
and the kidding around and the joking.

It was a big... big family. I was working
with some of the biggest acts at the time.

We didn't think of anyone
as being a legend,

but here I am, you know, thirty days and
sixty days, you know, eating and drinking,

and laughing and joking with Buddy
Holly, and Dion, and Frankie Avalon,

and Bobby Darin, and
The Coasters, The Drifters.

We were all
just having a good time.

I made lifelong friends
on those tours.

There was a lot of fun.
It was all brand new to us.

The South was different.

The South was a lot
different. It was... it wasn't as much fun.

I'll never forget Birmingham,
Alabama. It was scary.

It was a scary time in my life.

During 1959, we did

a six-week tour
of one-nighters in the south

and that was a mind-boggling

and eye-opening situation
for all of us.

We would see people outside
with sticks, guns,

"better not get off that bus boy,"
you know, it was a heck of a time man.

You know, we knew what
we were reading on... in the papers.

We heard it on the news.
We saw things on TV

about what was happening in the
south, but we really didn't have a clue.

To play the South was like, it was hard
for me as a teenager, as a young teenager.

I don't know about the other
girls because they were eighteen

and maybe they were
more mature than I was.

I wasn't as mature to understand
racism and I was angry.

Rough, man. Some of them
was rough, you know.

We had to go to the back room.
When we would go into the south,

we had to go to the back room to eat.
We couldn't sit down and rest around.

Mmm-hm, they wouldn't...
They wouldn't serve you.

They wouldn't serve you
back then.

We're kids. We go,
we sit at the counter

and we go to order and somebody
said, "You can't order sitting here."

"What do you mean
we can't order?"

You know and then, you know, we
went and did the, "We're from New York."

And a guy, a black guy came and
tapped us, and he said, "Come here."

And he said, "You're gonna get us
killed. You cannot order at a counter.

You can only order over there
and you can't eat here."

White artists, they were allowed
to sleep in the Sheraton Hotels

when we were not allowed
to sleep at Sheraton Hotels.

We had to sleep
on some floors of hotels.

We had to stay in these,
you know, backstreet motels

that no kid should have been in
because of the things that we heard.

We couldn't see because we were pretty much
locked in our rooms for our own protection.

Cops would have to escort us in.
They'd be looking at us, "Don't look,

don't you look at no white
girl. Don't look at a white girl."

I mean, yep...

You have to keep your eyes
like this, guns all around you,

I mean, you know,
it's frightening.

We did a show in Georgia
with James Brown and they say...

The producers say, "You're not
allowed to sing to black or white"

and they put our microphones to
the wall. We had to sing to the wall.

First time I went to venue
where the orchestra's to my back,

I'm singing to the wall,

there's white on this side,

black on that side and they
all screaming for the music.

We're not looking to either
side, we're looking to the wall.

I mean, it was hard to...

Hard to believe that I'm
being hated on one side

and getting so these kids
are loving us. It was strange.

By me being thirteen and, you know, a
thirteen-year-old got a little fire in her.

When the white kids would come
and they would say to us,

you know, with the southern
accent, "Could I have your autograph?"

And I would say no.

Why do I have to give my
autograph? You know that was my way

of rebelling and that was
my way of being heard.

We went down to Charleston,
South Carolina

and the bus driver was a white guy.
His name was Little Willie, you know.

So, him and I went down
to.

A water faucet for the black
and water faucet for the white.

You know, so Willie said, "I'm gonna
get me a drink of water," you know.

I said... he said, "Come on,
go with me Charlie."

So, I went with him.
He was up to this, you know,

and so he went to the white faucet.
He said, "Come here, Charlie."

Said, "You drink out that one,
I'm gonna drink out of this one."

Like then we took a quick sip

and went back. He said,
"How do you feel?"

"I feel like I drunk water."
He said, "I do too."

He said, "I do too."

He said, "Now you can see how
the water tastes on the white side.

And I can see how the water tastes
on the black side." I said, "Okay."

In my mind as a kid,
I'm performing for you.

I'm doing everything I can and I
hear all this applause and you like me.

And I'm happy that you like me,
you know.

I'm good enough to perform when
I'm on stage and I'm good enough

for them too like me
as a performer,

but I'm not good enough for
them to like me as a person.

But then as I got older,
I realized that, uh,

color doesn't matter, you know.

And I know that I had to
develop from inside

and not outside. I had
to learn that it didn't matter.

Obscenity and vulgarity
of the rock and roll music

is obviously a means
by which the white man

and his children can be driven
to the level with a nigger.

Rock and roll has got to go.
And go it does at KWK.

This was a time
when there were movements

within the country to ban rock and
roll from radio and everywhere else

because first of all they
considered it the devil's music

and the people that did not
consider it the devil's music,

considered this Negro music.

Most of the great songs were
coming from the R&B singers

and all those songs were copied by
at least four or five or six white artists.

As soon as the black artists had
a great hit, they jumped right on it.

And so you can see when The
Chords came out with "Sh-boom"

which is very black sounding
rhythm and blues song,

then The Crew Cuts out of Canada
started doing it

as a white group and they toned it
way down and made it more commercial.

When I heard their version,
I was livid. I was so angry

because first of all it wasn't...
it didn't have the same rhythm

that you really wanted
to dance... at least we didn't.

And I just thought it was...
It was so awful

that they gave this
such airplay and the guys...

The Chords never got a chance.

Pat Boone was doing Little Richard, which
to me was, you know, it was unheard of.

Pat Boone covered Little
Richard's "Tutti Frutti,"

you know, and tamed it down
some and then that was played

on the white stations
that would not play black music.

Pat was covering
everybody's songs

and he was really making this
and it was a disheartening thing

to hear something
that was recorded by these guys

and watch a white guy take over
and reap the rewards,

and the financial
and the success. It was a drag.

They didn't put black
people on th cover of their records.

Fats Domino just sold
twenty-five million records

and you don't put his picture
on the cover?

At that particular time,
they didn't.

"I Only Have Eyes for You" was
on our album "Flamingo Serenade."

We wanted our picture on it.

I'm sitting on a stool with
my guitar Tommy Hunt's there.

Nate's at the table with the
champagne, and what a great picture,

but George had to stop
doing that. He said,

"We can't use... we can't use
the photographs anymore."

We said, "Why?" He said,
"Because down South they...

Down South is
not gonna play it."

They're not gonna play it because
they see us black guys, we can't do that.

So Flamingo Favorites,

they had a whole field
of green grass

and then they had
all these pink flamingo birds.

They could accept our music
and, you know, our singing, but not...

Wrong color, man. Wrong color.

When rock and roll
and doo-wop started,

there was no script. There was no rhyme
or reason. There was no how-to book.

In 1955-56, uhm, you know,
black artists,

and especially, young; Their parents
didn't know anything about copyright.

They didn't know
about music law.

They didn't know
about royalties.

Our parents believed everything
that our manager told them.

We didn't know any better.
We were all young and dumb

and because the record companies
knew that so they took advantage of it.

Our manager was George Goldner. He said,
"Hey, this is for the board. Sign this."

Okay, they signed, but they didn't know
that they were signing away our rights.

My lyrics have been taken.

I've gotten...
Not one royalty in my life

and I wrote practically
everything that we... we recorded.

This is one of the...
The parts of the music industry

that people need to know about.
Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers

also represents the great
American Royalty Rip-off.

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love"
is played in elevators.

I heard it on American Idol.
Numerous people have recorded it;

Diana Ross, The Beach Boys.

Frankie's wife is getting
royalties,

but he didn't get no money
while he was alive and we don't.

I'm working on it now, I'm
trying to get... to get my royalties.

They're selling my records,
they're still playing

them and they're still out
there doing it.

They ain't changed, you know.

They're still doing it.

Look at the body of work.
We sold seventy...

Seventy-some million records

over the years.
We didn't even know it.

Somebody got the money
and it sure wasn't me.

Every time I saw a girl group
on television I always wondered,

"Oh, I bet they're having so
much fun and look at their clothes,

and their singing, and their
vocals and their harmonies."

When I moved to New York City
from Philadelphia

and I saw and heard
various groups,

I mean, even more so than in
Philadelphia, on the street corners

and that tight harmony
just gave me chills.

I knew that I wanted
to be a part of that.

The guys on the block used to
stand on the corners and sing.

Then we said, "Well, if they
can do that, we can do that."

We used to get on, like I said,
on the porch and just sing

with one another
in schools after school,

that's what you did for fun in the
summertime. That was what we did.

- We loved to sing.
- A-ha.

I don't know how we became
professional.

It just happened

as my becoming
a Clickette just happened.

You know and we were classy. We
came from good families, good parents,

you know, we may have
not had money,

but we had morals. That's
what The Crystals were about.

We knew how to dress,
we knew how not to be sleazy,

we knew that when we'd go on the
road, we'd have to protect ourselves.

We just went out and did what we had to
do and then went back to the dressing room

and weren't allowed
to socialize.

For a woman in the industry,

especially once she decides
to get married and have kids,

she's juggling now. You know,
she... she... her attention is divided,

she can't be very
as focused on her music,

or you know, on the music side
of her life because she's torn.

And I experienced this...
As a mom, you know, and a wife.

You know, when they called us
and told us they wanted us to go on tour,

and to be gone
for maybe two months, oh.

I was devastated.
I mean, I had one small boy.

It was just the hardest thing
I've ever had to do.

As young girls, it wasn't easy.
The pay was horrible.

We still struggled, no matter if
the people were dancing to it,

enjoying our music, we as
artists, we were struggling.

Let's forget about the intro for now,
let's just come right in. One, two, three.

When we did work with Phil,
we knew that we were gonna have a hit.

With all the music that
was around us in the studio,

you knew, that there was
something special

that's gonna come out
of this studio.

He was a genius.

He was different.
He was a different producer.

He knew exactly what he wanted

and we did exactly,
you know, what he told us to do.

He would go into the studio
and create a wall of sound.

And then when he heard
"Then He Kissed Me," it was like...

They thought it was like
as if it was an opera. I know...

All they're saying about "Then
He Kissed Me" is like, "Huh?"

I'm just putting down the track.

I didn't even have a boyfriend
at the time

to even know
what the lyrics meant.

That's what Phil
picked up on, innocence.

And when you're innocent and
pure, and you're putting down the track

that's what came in.
I think, if I had been dating,

even though I was fifteen,
maybe I was like dating a little bit,

I may have had
a little attitude.

Well, the experience that
we got from working with Phil Spector

was endurance because we
had to have patience with him.

And he'd work you to death. I
mean, I remember going to the studio

and working with Phil, Sonny Bono
picking me up at the Knickerbocker Hotel,

would share, and he would
pick me up at 12 o'clock.

And I wouldn't leave the studio
until five o'clock in the morning.

He would call us sometimes
at four o'clock in the morning,

to come and do the background.

And my husband wasn't very
happy about that at the time,

but we got up and, you know, we...
we went and did what we had to do.

His sound was so big that
they call it the Wall of Sound.

He taught me how to produce
records. How to produce guitars,

and pianos,
combine them together,

drums and bass.
I learned a lot from him.

Phil was a genius,

but as all geniuses sometimes,
you get a little nuts.

You know, when we were
at Fremont High School

walking down the halls,
singing a cappella,

I had no idea

that I would have a career
like this,

being able to see the world,

just had no idea this...
You know,

that it would happen
to a little girl like me.

What I'm most proud of for
The Chantels is that through all of...

What we went through,
we maintained our integrity,

our sense of who we were,
and we never lost that.

The white folk did not listen
any longer and silenced.

They were bold about the fact that
they liked doo-wop, they liked black music.

With the kids,
there was no problem.

It was a grown-ups... they
were the ones that didn't like it,

but the kids,
they were getting into it.

- That music was restricted in your white families.
- Yeah.

- It was called jungle music...
- Yeah.

Or jigaboo music, whatever, but
see, the white kids loved the music.

So, I mean, it was coming.

All of a sudden, these black artists are
breaking out everywhere and crossing over,

but we crossed over
in such a remarkable way,

we bridged it.

I went to Dallas and right down
the center they... they had a rope

right down the center of the place
and they had the black on this side,

and the white on this side.

And as we were singing,

these on this side was shaking hand
with this hand they were dancing like...

Like, you know, like you have to
dance with a girl and you grab my hand.

The white and the black
were doing this across the rope.

And then after that we stopped.

We stopped the band and stopped
everything and asked the promoter there...

Asked can we take
the rope aloof.

We said, "Look how those kids are
dancing. Look how they're doing together."

And when he took the rope aloof
from the front... at the front of it,

they went together, man, they
started dancing with each other

and it just flipped.

So, from then on, we had
mixed crowds and we loved it.

Things were turning around.
Things were changing.

That was the very beginning
of this integration thing.

As things progressed,

it was not uncommon for
audiences in some of the big concerts

to be mixed, black and white.

And it was in a sense of, people
who then would grow up into the 60s

that realized that this was
just one aspect of black culture.

This was creating
a sea change in America.

Our music kind of like melted
the races together.

If there's one legacy
that doo-wop music has is

that it did help usher
in an era of civil rights.

Music has always had a way of
being the great common denominator

that brought people together.

This music moved
the country to a place

where in the 60s the civil rights
movement was ready to happen.

Doo-wop music really peaked
in the late 1950s,

uh, and of course, you could see
even then it was starting to change.

When you got into the 1960s there were
different styles of music coming through.

As you moved into the 1960s, things
got a little bit slicker in the music.

Doo-wop music had at this point
branched off into a number of styles.

The white groups
that are out there singing

with sort of an Italian-American
influence to them

were the groups that would
evolve into the white groups

of the 1960s
like the Beach Boys.

Doo-wop kind
of became rock and roll.

Those kinds of harmonies
were to lay the foundation for us

to create, you know, music about
more contemporary things, like surfing.

Like, "Surfing is the only life,
the only way for me. Surf with me.

Bop, bop doop-de-doop-de-doo.
Bop, bop."

So, you had a little more
of an evolved doo-wop sound

as the origins of the Beach Boys
incarnation.

Well, the four freshmen taught
me a harmony,

and... and falsetto.
Well, it was four-part harmony.

It spoke to me
in a very spiritual way.

Brian's voice I thought was
beautiful, I mean,

he honestly captured that
Frankie Lymon quality to me.

Real, real pure
even and Brian had that.

Boy did we get lucky with the
voices and composition and roots

to work from, you know,
the basic roots. Very fortunate.

When I heard "Surfin'"...

My family and I were listening to
the radio and they played "Surfin'."

And we couldn't believe it. We said,
"Oh, my God! Surfin's on the radio."

I was proud as hell, you know.
Proud as hell.

Now, Motown started out
in the late 1950s

and Berry Gordy was writing
songs for Jackie Wilson.

Jackie Wilson, of course,
had a strong doo-wop background.

He started with The Dominoes
and then went out on his own.

Berry Gordy, in my opinion, did

probably
as much as Martin Luther King

did to bring the races
together. He did it through music.

Berry Gordy was
looking for talent and he stumbled upon

none other than Smokey Robinson
and The Miracles.

Smokey Robinson
and The Miracles,

you listen to his early recordings
then you can hear the influence

of the other Detroit
doo-wop group that was so big,

Nolan Strong and the Diablos.

Berry Gordy came along.

He said, "I'm gonna make music
for young America.

I'm gonna have song writers to
write hits for just this particular act."

Berry had a stable of young
writers,

you know, kids out of Detroit.

Holland-Dozier-Holland,
everybody's writing,

Smokey's writing,
they're all in house,

and they're coming out
with this whole new sound.

The sound of doo-wop and Motown

were distant cousins in a sense.

The doo-wop era in the 50s were
basically just a way to get started.

Get your opinion, your feeling,
into that genre of R&B music.

Motown is
a little more sophisticated.

They have more lyrics, more
melodies, more chord progressions.

The stuff is still around
and the people are still...

When they throw parties,
the first thing they want to hear

is a bunch of Motown songs when
they're having a party, you know.

You're not partying, unless
you got Motown on Jukebox.

Oh, my gosh! You can listen to that
stuff now and it stills sounds fresh.

I think doo-wop had its time.
I mean, it was sort...

It was here
and then it was gone, but...

In one way but in another way,

it was always there
in like an undercurrent.

The instrumentation
sort of changed it

and it gave it
a more sophisticated sound,

but the root of all of it
is still doo-wop.

There are rumors
around that this is Britain's revenge

for the Boston Tea Party. Three
thousand screaming teenagers

are at New York's
Kennedy Airport to greet,

you guessed it, The Beatles.

Beatles!

The musical Shack
that was heard around the world.

Well, this jet pulls in,
707 and one by one,

a mop top came down
on the steps.

The Beatles, the phenomena, it's
just nothing ever happened like it before.

They just took over.

They had the song.
They had the writers, you know.

They had the writers
singing the song.

They taught the world. I
respect them highly, always have.

Their first
meeting with the American press

brings forth an interview
laced with quips and humor.

You'd laugh too with a gross
of 17 million dollars last year.

The only thing is
when they came here, they

killed our music. Yeah, our
music stopped dead in its tracks.

We had that... that feeling against
the Beatles and English music

and what...
How could you do this to us?

Just as music was
at it's highlight,

- the black music, you know, they came in with a rush.
- Yeah.

And that really knocked us
to our knees.

The British Invasion
had put an effective end

to the record sales of the 50s,
early 60s style.

And they came, even doing
some of our music.

The world had changed
so rapidly, uhm, in the 60s.

The most turbulent decade
of any of our lives,

who have lived that long, uhm.
Turbulent in every possible way,

you know. Turbulent politically,
turbulent geopolitically,

you know, war in Vietnam
was going on.

The innocence by the end of the 60s
was kaput, if... there was no innocence.

End of an era.

Doo-wop groups have never
gone away. They just... they evolved.

It comes back, you know. It's
always you know reinventing itself

and that's what we're seeing
always, you know.

That... those groups
will never go away.

They just reinvent themselves.

Billy Joel had a great line,
"Everything old is new again."

Nothing that's good really dies.

Remember Sha Na Na. Watching
Sha Na Na on Saturday night,

♪ Do-do-do-do-do
Do-do-do-do-do ♪

♪ Tonight sweetheart... ♪
It was like...

If... if I could do that.

When Sha Na Na
started doing this

in the very late 60s, early 70s,

it's very hard to describe if
you weren't there, but it seemed

like it was a thousand years ago

that this music had happened.
It was a reclamation

of what seemed
like our youthful innocence.

Let's give a big Sha Na Na welcome to The Coasters.

Miss Ronnie Spector
and The Ronettes.

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Hey!

Prepare to meet Little Anthony.

Hey, it is Ben E. King.

Because we really had grown up
awfully fast.

Goodnight
and "Grease for Peace."

Then "Grease" opens,
the musical.

American Graffiti came along.

Grab that special one
and jump into your candy colored custom,

or your screaming machine, cruise
down town and catch American Graffiti.

Finally, ultimately
in the mid-70s

this nostalgia craze peaked with
"Happy Days" and "Laverne and Shirley."

We really did raise a
whole generation of little kids

on doo-wop
and early rock and and roll.

My dad being from New York
and being in, you know,

that was able to be
in that scene as a teenager...

To be able to... and he comes home and finds
me listening to these records, he's like,

"Why are you listening to those records?"
I was like, "Because they're awesome."

He's like, "But you're seven."
I was like, "I don't care."

They're so awesome. They're
still awesome to this day.

Vocal harmony groups have been
around for a very long time now

and they're not gonna go away. You see genres
and music come and go, and come and go,

but that vocal harmony group, it's... it's
always been around with guys and girls.

The core of NSYNC is the
harmonies. It's the singing.

It always has been
and it always will be.

We were always aware of...
Of what came before us,

you know, from the 30s
to, you know, now.

We always respected
those vocal harmony groups

because we really loved mixing
that R&B with that doo-wop.

There's not that big a
difference between the Ink Spots

and The Platters
and Earth, Wind, and Fire

and the Doobie Brothers,
or any of these groups.

It's all the same stuff.

Hip hop ain't
no different. It's still urban,

it's still music in the streets,

still kids
writings songs for kids.

You know, many young girls grew
up, uhm, and were so influenced

that they, uhm, became
recording artists like us.

We had a dream
and that music gave us faith

to know that we could grow up
and do the same thing.

And then to in turn,
to pass that hope on to...

- The next generation.
- Right.

That is the root.
When you get a bunch of guys

standing
around together, harmonizing.

So, I think that it's going
to continue to live.

This music
will be with us forever.

We still carry on the flavor,

trust me.
You'll still find out tonight.

And I bring to you
Mr. Diz Russell.

♪ Baby please don't go
Baby please don't go ♪

♪ Baby please don't go
Baby please don't go ♪

♪ Now, baby please
Don't go back to New Orleans ♪

♪ Because I love you so
Don't go, don't go ♪

♪ You got me way down here
You got me way down here ♪

Music is something
that if you love it...

I haven't been here over
fifty or sixty years.

Once you get attached to it,
you don't give it up.

You just don't give it up.

People don't forget good music.
So, we're keeping it alive.

We love this music.
It will never die.

It's just a great thing that The Orioles
continue to keep the doo-wop alive.

Yeah! Thank you!

Still singing
after all these years.

- You got it, man.
- You reckon?

Oh, yeah.

So, this music was never
supposed to mean anything

all these years later,
but it has.

I had a saying, even at this
time when we were young kids

singing on... on the Avenue,

I saw ourselves being stars
without a stage,

- right at that time.
- Mmm-hm.

- Wherever you sang.
- That's right.

- That was the stage.
- All right.

We had touched on something
that had never been done before

and all of a sudden, we were
on the ground floor of this.

That was a...
That was a tremendous feeling.

I can't... they can't take it away
from us no matter what happens.

But the legacy, I'm there.

If you Google, you see Barbra
Jean English did a lot of stuff.

I stand
on the shoulder of giants

who came before me.

And it's heck of a life.

I owe a debt of gratitude to...

Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers

and every time
I see Jimmy Merchant,

I put my arms around him
and kiss him on the cheek

because they saved my life.
Excuse me for getting choked up.

I just hope that whatever
contribution we've made, uh,

leaves a lasting impression.

And I'm just suddenly
very cognizant of...

Time.

I paid the dues and I paid
the cause to be a Drifter.

And I'm so proud
that we left a legacy behind.

I would like people
to remember me as being

a member of one
of the greatest girl groups

and that we influenced
other girl singers.

What I'm really proud of is

I came a long ways
and I met that lady over there.

I'm proud.

I never thought of quitting.

I never thought of quitting. I figured
I was gonna be here till a hundred,

so I might as well to keep
on moving.

And that's what I've been doing
ever since.

I've been so blessed to be able
to sing this wonderful music.

It's hard to believe that I got to really
spend my whole life making up songs

and going into studio and having
that great fun producing records

and working with great talent.
I really got away with it.

Oh, we was in love with what we was doing
and we had a lot of love for each other.

I see in that short period
of time accomplishment.

If I had to do it
all over again, I would.

I wouldn't change a thing.
I just would like to go back

and... and do what we did.

If you're lucky enough to last
this long... can you believe it?

To last this long and live this
long and still be able to sing

and have a band that can play
the music which it's...

It's all pretty extraordinary
when I think about it.

It was an opportunity of a lifetime
that a lot of people will never know.

I felt really blessed to
have been a part of that.

- You were there.
- I was there, man.

You talk about camaraderie,
we... we had the time of our lives.

We were brothers
and sisters of the same large.

When I say I had the time of my
life, I truly had the time of my life.

When we were growing up
in Brooklyn, you sang on the stoops.

That's where we started
from singing on the stoops.

The first song I recorded with The
Crystals was "Uptown." I was a kid.

- Is that a working mic there?
- It does work.

I started working with Charlie when I was
like thirteen or fourteen years old on tours.

We did the amateur show.
That's how I first came in touch,

really... really up
with the stage at Apollo.

Me, Ben E. King, Al Berof, Doc
Green, and lover palace

and we tore the audience up.

That's why I started from
singing on the street corner.

Yeah, we started singing on the
stoop and we battle each other, right?

You give me a pint of wine
I will sing anything with you.

- You know I love you, right?
- Yeah, we're good.

Thank you, baby. This guy has
known me since I was fourteen.

I used to take his money. I used to hold
his... I used to hold his money for him.

He used to gamble on the bus.
He used to always win,

but sometimes
after a while he started losing.

Losing a lot of money.

So, he said to me, "What I want
you to do is take this money"

and whatever I ask you for it,
do not give it to me.

In a few hours of gambling,

he came back, "Could you give me
some money?" I said, "No."

I didn't give it to him
for about a day or so.

He was mad at me.
He was pissed with me.

My money.

You know, when you get backstage and there
were six or seven groups out there working,

you get time to spend
amongst each other

and there's nothing better
than that. This is a family.

- Oh, my God, it's VD.
- Ow, VD!

- Oh, my God!
- We gotta say goodbye

He nicknamed me VD, you know.
And when Hurricane Sandy hit,

first phone call I got was
from Charlie.

He said, "VD, you all right? I see Staten
Island, they got hit hard, you know."

I don't know how many friends I've
got. Hundreds, thousands. I don't know,

but that was the first call
I got. I'll never forget it.

- Hello everybody.
- Hello.

- Hi.
- How are you doing?

- We're Straight No Chaser, man.
- All right, beautiful.

- How you doing guys?
- Pleasure.

They're beautiful,
they're beautiful, man.

We're were just a bunch of guys
that went to Indiana University together.

Well that's sort of the beauty
of our story.

We didn't anticipate that this was
going to go any further than college.

- Nice to meet you.
- Same here.

So many guys. You guys
could all be models. My God!

Of course, I listened to doo-wop
growing up, but I never thought

that I would come
into college, join a group

that I would be still doing
twenty years later.

These guys here got the real
deal and which is good they're young.

They got good harmony,
you... you know.

- Very good harmony. Very good.
- They got beautiful harmony and they've been there

into the rhythm
and blues feel too

just like we are. And they love
just a song. So, I'm happy about that.

One, two, three, and...

Doing Ben E. King's song today
and his music,

it's like, I wish that I would have
said more things to him, you know.

- I feel Ben E. King in every word.
- Oh, my god!

In every word that was my friend. I
feel Ben E. King in every... every word.

- Wishing he was here.
- Mmm-hm.

Just wishing he was here.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to be able to sing with some of the Greats.

This is your moment.
This is your moment.

And to hear their stories and to
be able to sing along with them.

This is so fun. I'm just like a kid...
a kid in the candy store right now.

I'm in FAO Schwarz.

And I hope they'll, you know,
enjoy singing with us as well.

So it's gonna be fun.
We're excited, fingers crossed.

- I love you Laila.
- I love you too.

♪ So, darling, darling
Stand by me ♪

It's perfect. Let's record it.

"Stand by me", Ben E. King.

♪ When the night has come ♪

♪ And the land is dark ♪

♪ And the moon
Is the only light we'll see ♪

♪ No, I won't be afraid ♪

♪ No, I won't be afraid ♪

♪ Just as long as you stand
Stand by me ♪

♪ So, darling, darling
Stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, stand by me ♪

♪ If the sky
That we look upon ♪

♪ Oh, should tumble and fall ♪

♪ Or the mountain
Should crumble to the sea ♪

♪ Lord, have mercy ♪

♪ I won't cry, I won't cry ♪

♪ No, I won't shed a tear ♪

♪ Just as long as you stand
You stand by me ♪

♪ And darling, darling
Stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, stand by me ♪

♪ Stand by me
Stand by me, baby ♪

♪ Stand by me ♪

♪ So, darling, darling
Stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, I want you to stand
Come on and stand ♪

♪ Stand by me ♪

♪ Whenever you're in trouble
Won't you stand by me ♪

♪ I want you to stand
Stant by me ♪

♪ Come on and stand
Stand by me, baby ♪

♪ Stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, oh, stand by me ♪

♪ Oh, I want you to stand
Stand by me ♪

♪ Come on, come on
Come on and stand ♪

♪ Stand by me baby ♪

♪ Stand by me ♪

♪ One more time
Let's sing it ♪

♪ Stand by me
Come on, come on ♪

♪ Come on and stand ♪

♪ Come on and stand ♪

♪ Stand by... ♪

♪ Ah, girl ♪

♪ Won't you stand by me ♪

♪ Me♪

- Yeah. Yes, that's the take right there.
- Beautiful.

- You guys sound so good.
- Thanks gentlemen. Thanks so much.

- I hear that.
- Thank you. God bless you

and I hope it turn out
to be something.

So, there you have it,
ladies and gentlemen,

Streetlight Harmonies,

the story of the music,

the love, the devotion,
and the memories

from all of these wonderful
artists

who made our lives
a little more enjoyable.

As all good things must come
to an end so must this show,

but remember as the Geator says
"You got to keep on rocking

cause you really only do,
rock once."