Do Wop anyone?

PhilL

PhilL

Joined
Oct 1, 1999
Messages
6,490
I'm a child of the 50's now in his 50's and I lived most of my life in Brooklyn. I was raised on Do Wop (music) and I was wondering if that type of music was just something that was popular in the North East, NY, NJ, Philly, Boston way back when? :cool:

I heard this song for the first time this morning and I have to be honest it really struck a chord.

http://www.planotones.com/gregg new/PBS.html
 
Thanks for the memories! I grew up in Brooklyn, too and my group (The Beltones) were always "Looking For An Echo"! Hard to believe I was cool once!:D Where in Brooklyn did you live? I grew up in Boro Park (54th St & 16th Ave) then moved to 68th & 16th when I was 16. Wife is from 78th & 11th.
 
Hey Ron, cool name for your group, sounds real professional. The best my friends and I could come up with was "Vinny the Guinea and the Whistling Rabbis". :o

I was born in Crown Heights and was raised in Flatbush, I went to Lafayette HS. My wife was born in the Slope and that's where we live now.

I'm glad you liked Kenny Vance and the Planetones. Kenny was one of the originals from Jay & the Americans, and sounds like he's still got it.
 
I loved that song when it came out, and THAT was a great rendition 30 years later. Damn. Thanks, Phil. No doowop from my surburbia. It was all Woodstock and dope smokin'..... ;)

Coop
 
It's retro time ! I was born and raised in Bay Ridge but on various types of music.Brooklyn and Detroit seem to have been the centers for Do Wop ..I happened to be looking at the Formica website yesterday, they are making Formica with patterns and colors just like the 50s !!! Lots of other repro from that time is also available !!...PhilL, did you know that Crown Heights was originally Crow Hill ? BTW the other type of WOP means Without Official Papers ,the illegal or undocumented aliens of the times.
 
SharpByCoop said:
I loved that song when it came out, and THAT was a great rendition 30 years later. Damn. Thanks, Phil. No doowop from my surburbia. It was all Woodstock and dope smokin'..... ;)
Click to expand...

First of all, I'm amazed I never heard this song before, and Coop you're right it came out in 1974.

Woodstock and pot signaled the end of the Do Wop era as well a lot of the "West Side Story" gang/rumble type activity.The pot seemed to mellow a lot of us out.

Crack, brought out a whole new type of gang-banger type mentality as well as Rap. :barf:
 
I was born and raised in the heart of dixie and doo wop certainly made it there. I have never stopped listening to the "street corner" sounds.
 
Born on Long Island but spent the '50's just outside of New London, CT. Used to take the girls down to the shore of the Sound to watch the 'submarine races' and listen to Murray the K on the radio. Surely you NY guys remember him.
 
No, I was born and raised in California and remember the stuff from the early beginnings. I still like Do Wop to this day.
Good Rock and Roll died the day the English showed up, IMO.:rolleyes:;)

After that, people had to take drugs to listen to that crap, and the bands had to take drugs to make themselves think they were really good.:barf:;)
 
I am far too young to have remembered it the first time, but I love Doo Wop. It's funny, For a long time I was pretty into the 50's, as a matter of fact I live in a house built in 52, and everybody associates me with rockabilly-not really my style.
 
I was into it until 1958, when I entered puberty and also discovered:
Ray Charles, "What'd I Say"
Bo Diddly, "You Can't Judge a Book by its Cover"
Chuck Berry, "Maybelline" etc

Jump Blues was the real Rock and Roll of the '50s.
 
Goldtanker said:
Used to take the girls down to the shore of the Sound to watch the 'submarine races' and listen to Murray the K on the radio. Surely you NY guys remember him.
Click to expand...

Not only was I a card carrying Submarine Race Watcher, but I actually met Murray Kaufmann. I was dating my wife and I took her skying at the Playboy Club in Vernon Valley Great Gorge. It was checkout day and we were having breakfast and watching a blizzzard outside. Murray and his wife were at the next table and he turns to ask me if I had snow tires or chains and how we were going to get the heck out of there. We did get home alive, but Murray and I didn't keep in touch.
 
Who put the bop in the bop she bop she bop?
:thumbup:

We tried to sing on the front stoop across the border in Queens too.
I'm a little younger than you PhilL, so I guess you could call me crossover...part greaser - part freak.
I like it all from the Coasters to the Platters to Zappa and the Allmans :D

Just don' play me no rap and no opera!
Well maybe a little Wagner ;)
 
Being a tax accountant I have had a lot of interesting clients. One was Barry Schwartz. He was a singer in the group the Quotations who had a big hit with the song Imagination. When ever we got together I would always pick his brain about the business and who else he knew. I was a little young back then but I still liked the music. He introduced me to a lot of people, one of them being Jay Black form Jay and the Americans.
 
Larry B. said:
...................................... He introduced me to a lot of people, one of them being Jay Black form Jay and the Americans.
Click to expand...


He really had/has a great, strong, singing voice.:thumbup:
 
Probably my the closest connection to a Doo Wop era performer was to Mr Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs and later the Coasters. When my wife and I lived on the upper west side of Manhattan, Speedo was the janitor at the public school across the street. He loved my wife, and she of course knew who he was and was a big fan of his. He is still preforming.

Based only on what's in my iTunes it seems like; The Capris, Crests, Dion & the Belmonts, Duprees, Four Seasons, Jay & the Americans, Little Anthony & the Imperials, The Skyliners, and the Temptations, have the most songs on my playlists.

If memory serves the two groups that tried to stem the British Invasion, were the 4 Seasons and the Beach Boys. Not to say they were traitors but Jay & the Americans opened for both the Beatles and the Stones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top