On this date in 1899, American Jazz Clarinetist, Harry Shields was born
On this date in 1970, American Singer, Actress and Civil Rights Activist, Lena Horne was born
On this date in 1931, American Jazz Pianist and Composer, Andrew Hill was born
On this date in 1936, American Folk Musician, Singer and Songwriter, Dave Van Ronk was born
On this date in 1940, American Folk and Blues Guitarist, Singer and Songwriter, Mark Spoelstra was born
On this date in 1943, American Singer, Florence Ballard of The Supremes was born
On this date in 1944, British-born Australian Singer and Songwriter, Glenn Shorrock of The Little River Band was born
On this date in 1949, British Guitarist, Singer and Songwriter, Andy Scott of Sweet was born
On this date in 1951, American Jazz Bassist, Musician, Singer, Composer, and Producer, Stanley Clarke of Return to Forever was born
On this date in 1953, American-born British Guitarist, Musician, Singer, Songwriter, and Composer, Hal Lindes of Dire Straits was born
On this date in 1959, British Musician, Singer and Songwriter, Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance was born
On this date in 1995, American Soul Singer and Actress, Phyllis Hyman died
On this date in 2001, American Guitarist, Songwriter, Producer and Record Executive, Chet Atkins died
On this date in 2001, American Jazz Saxophonist, Joe Henderson died
On this date in 2005, Jamaican Ska and Reggae Singer, Songwriter, Arranger, Promoter, Record Producer and Talent Scout, Clancy Eccles of The Dynamites died
The Crystals (L to R): Barbara Alston, Mary Thomas, Patricia “Patsy” Wright, Dolores “Dee Dee” Kenniebrew, and Dolores “LaLa” Brooks
The Crystals are an American vocal group based in New York, considered one of the defining acts of the girl group era of the first half of the 1960s. Their 1961–1964 chart hits, including “Uptown”, “He’s a Rebel”, “Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home)” and “Then He Kissed Me”, featured three successive female lead singers, and were all produced by Phil Spector. The latter 3 songs are ranked #263, #114, and #493, respectively, on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
In 1961, Barbara Alston, Mary Thomas, Dolores “Dee Dee” Kenniebrew, Myrna Girard and Patricia “Patsy” Wright formed The Crystals through the help of Benny Wells, Barbara’s uncle. Soon, the quintet signed with Phil Spector’s label Philles Records.
Their first hit was November 1961′s “There’s No Other (Like My Baby)”. Originally the B-side to “Oh Yeah, Maybe Baby” (featuring Wright on lead), the pop ballad (co-written by Spector and Leroy Bates, with Barbara Alston on vocals) reached number 20 in the Billboard chart, registering as an auspicious debut for Spector’s Phillies label.
Brill Building songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil’s “Uptown” gave the girls their second radio hit. Ethnically flavored with flamenco guitar and castanets, the more uptempo “Uptown” featured Alston once again emoting convincingly over a boy, though this time with class issues woven into the story. After the success of “Uptown”, a pregnant Girard was replaced by Dolores “LaLa” Brooks.
The subject matter of the next single, 1962′s “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” (written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin and sung by Alston), resulted in limited airplay with the track not reaching the Billboard Hot 100.
He's a Rebel
Soon after “He Hit Me” flopped, Phil Spector began recording singer Darlene Love and her backing group The Blossoms under the name “The Crystals”. Legend has it that the real Crystals were not able to travel from New York to Los Angeles fast enough to suit the LA-based Spector, who wanted to quickly record writer Gene Pitney’s “He’s a Rebel” before anyone else could release a version. The Crystals were unavailable, but Love and the Blossoms were also based in L.A., so Spector recorded and released their version under The Crystals’ banner. (Other sources claim that Spector’s haste in recording the track was simply because he was enthusiastic about the song, and that he was unaware of any competing versions—despite the fact that Vikki Carr was recording “He’s a Rebel” nearly simultaneously with Spector.)
The song (“He’s a Rebel”) had originally been offered to The Shirelles, who turned it down because of the anti-establishment lyrics. It marked a shift in girl group thematic material, where the singer loves a “bad boy”, a theme that would be amplified by later groups (especially The Shangri-Las’ “Leader of the Pack”).
The Crystals (L to R): Barbara Alston, Dee Dee Kinnibrew, Fran Collins, and La La Brooks
“He’s a Rebel” is perhaps the Crystals’ best-remembered song, and one of the most enduring of the girl group genre. It was also their only US #1 hit. Their follow-up single, “He’s Sure the Boy I Love”, in actuality also featured Love and The Blossoms. It reached #11 on the Billboard chart, and features a spoken intro by Darlene Love.
The next single credited to The Crystals is one of the rarest—and also possibly the strangest—in rock music history. Reports vary as to the actual motivation behind the recording, but most agree that Phil Spector was looking for a way to annoy former business partner Lester Sill. What he came up with was a nearly six-minute song called “Let’s Dance The Screw – Part I”, which would have been unplayable on 1963 radio. The record featured simple instrumentation (very much unlike Spector’s famous Wall of Sound production style), repetitive lyrics, and Spector himself intoning the lyric “Dance The Screw” numerous times in a deadpan monotone. (The B-side, Part II, was more of the same but played much more slowly.) The Crystals sang the song’s repetitive verses, though it is unclear if these singers were the ‘real’ Crystals or The Blossoms. Incidentally, some accounts mention that Spector’s lawyer is actually the man intoning “Dance The Screw.”
The recording was never released commercially as a single, and only a few copies are known to exist (all marked ‘DJ copy – not for sale’). The record was apparently only created to be a bizarre sort of joke at Sill’s expense, who was soon to leave the Philles label, as a single copy was specially delivered to him in early 1963. Both parts of the song have since been released on CD. Further information about this strange recording can be found at snopes.com.
Though it is unclear as to the level of their participation in “Let’s Dance The Screw”, the ‘real’ Crystals definitely began recording again under their own name in 1963. However, Thomas had departed to get married, only to join another mildly successful group, The Butterflys, along with another original Crystal, Myrna Girard. This reduced the group to a quartet with Barbara Alston on lead. Alston, known for her shyness and stage fright, was never comfortable with being out front, stepped down from the lead spot giving it to Brooks. According to Brooks, she had been doing Alston’s leads in their live shows for a while.
Da Doo Ron Ron
After “Let’s Dance The Screw”, the group’s next release was the classic “Da Doo Ron Ron”. Cher also featured on backing vocals with The Blossoms (Fanita James and Kean King) and lead vocals recorded originally by Darlene Love, but Spector stripped out this lead and replaced it with one by LaLa Brooks after some contractual disputes with Darlene, so this record on its release featured the actual Crystals’ lead singer, unlike “He’s A Rebel”, which featured Darlene as lead vocalist with the Blossoms on backup, yet pressings of the single still credited ‘The Crystals’. The song was a top 10 hit in both the US and the UK, as was the follow-up single “Then He Kissed Me”, with lead vocals also sung by Dolores “LaLa” Brooks. The line-up of the Crystals was ever-changing during their career, unlike stablemates the Ronettes, who kept two sisters and a cousin throughout their short career.
Despite the steady flow of hit singles, tensions between Spector and the Crystals mounted. Already unhappy with having been replaced by Love and the Blossoms on two singles, The Crystals were even more upset when in 1964, Spector began focusing much of his time on his other girl group The Ronettes. As well, there were disputes about royalties, with The Crystals feeling that Spector was withholding royalty money that was owed to them.
Two failed Crystals singles followed before the band left Spector’s Philles Records for United Artists Records later in 1964. “Little Boy”, which reached #92, was a Wall Of Sound production that was layered multiple times, which meant that the vocals were hard to distinguish from the music. “All Grown Up,”, their final Philles single, (of which two versions exist) only reached #98.
The Crystals
1964 also saw the departure of Wright, who was replaced by Frances Collins, a dancer whom they had met while touring; toward the end of that year Alston departed leaving the group a trio. As a trio, they recorded two singles for United Artists, “My Place” and “You Can’t Tie a Good Girl Down”. One more single was released by Barbara, Dee Dee and Mary on the tiny Michelle Records in 1967 (“Ring-a-Ting-a-Ling”) and they disbanded in 1967. They reunited in 1971 and still perform today. Kenniebrew is the only original Crystal who remained active throughout their touring from the seventies to the present. Dee Dee carries on The Crystals legacy by performing with Patricia Pritchett-Lewis (Member since 2005) and Melissa Antoinette Grant a.k.a. MelSoulTree (Member since 2002).
“Then He Kissed Me” was the opening song to which Elisabeth Shue danced around her bedroom in Adventures in Babysitting (1987); it was the song in which Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco enter the Copacabana on their first real date in the movie Goodfellas (1990); and it was used during the “Kiss Cam” during ‘Homer and Marge Turn a Double Play’ on The Simpsons (2006). It was also covered by Asobi Seksu and used on their live album. “Da Doo Ron Ron” was used by Russel/Harold Ramis to train ESL students in the 1981 comedy Stripes.
Crystal was the name of one of the girl group-inspired street urchin characters in the musical Little Shop of Horrors, along with Chiffon and Ronnette. Amy Winehouse cited “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” as an influence when writing her album Back to Black.
Snooks Eaglin, born Fird Eaglin, Jr. (January 21, 1936 – February 18, 2009), was a New Orleans-based guitarist and singer. He was also referred to as Blind Snooks Eaglin in his early years.
His vocal style is reminiscent of Ray Charles; indeed, in the 1950s, when he was in his late teens, he would sometimes bill himself as “Little Ray Charles”. Generally regarded as a New Orleans R&B artist, he played a wide range of music: blues, rock and roll, jazz, country, and Latin. In his early years, he also played some straight-ahead acoustic blues.
His ability to play a wide range of songs and make them his own earned him the nickname “the human jukebox.” Eaglin claimed in interviews that his musical repertoire included some 2,500 songs.
At live shows, he did not usually prepare set lists, and was unpredictable, even to his bandmates. He played songs that came to his head, and he also took requests from the audience.
Eaglin lost his sight not long after his first birthday after being stricken with glaucoma, and spent several years in the hospital with other ailments. Around the age of five Eaglin received a guitar from his father; he taught himself to play by listening to and playing along with the radio. A mischievous youngster, he was given the nickname “Snooks” after a radio character named Baby Snooks.
In 1947, at the age of 11, Eaglin won a talent contest organized by the radio station WNOE by playing “Twelfth Street Rag”. Three years later, he dropped out of the school for the blind to become a professional musician. In 1952, Eaglin joined the Flamingoes, a local 7-piece band started by Allen Toussaint. The Flamingoes didn’t have a bass player, and according to Eaglin, he played both the guitar and the bass parts at the same time on his guitar. He stayed with The Flamingoes for several years, until their dissolution in the mid-1950s.
Snooks Eaglin
As a solo artist, his recording and touring were inconsistent, and for a man with a career of about 50 years, his discography is rather slim. His first recording was in 1953, playing guitar at a recording session for James “Sugar Boy” Crawford.
The first recordings under his own name came when Harry Oster, a folklorist from Louisiana State University, found him playing in the streets of New Orleans. Oster made recordings of Eaglin between 1958 and 1960 during seven sessions which later became records on various labels including Folkways, Folklyric, and Prestige/Bluesville. These recordings were in folk blues style, Eaglin with an acoustic guitar without a band.
Snooks Eaglin
From 1960 to 1963, Eaglin recorded for Imperial. He played electric guitar on Imperial sessions with backup from a band including James Booker on piano and Smokey Johnson on drums. He recorded a total of 26 tracks which can be heard on The Complete Imperial Recordings CD. Much of the material on Imperial was written by Dave Bartholomew. Unlike the Harry Oster recordings, these works on Imperial are New Orleans R&B in the style for which he is widely known today. After Imperial, in 1964, he recorded alone at his home with a guitar for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, released as I Blueskvarter 1964: Vol.3. For the remainder of the 1960s, he apparently made no recordings.
His next work came on the Swedish label Sonet in 1971. Another album Down Yonder was released in 1978 featuring Ellis Marsalis on piano. Apart from his own work, he joined recording sessions with Professor Longhair in 1971 and 72 (Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge). He also played some funky guitar on The Wild Magnolias’ first album recorded in 1973.
Snooks Eaglin
He joined Nauman and Hammond Scott of Black Top Records in the 1980s which led to a recording contract with the label. Eaglin’s Black Top years were the most consistent years of his recording career. Between 1987 and 1999, he recorded four studio albums and a live album, and appeared as a guest on a number of recordings by other Black Top artists, including Henry Butler, Earl King, and Tommy Ridgley.
After Black Top Records closed its doors, Eaglin released The Way It Is on Money Pit Records, produced by the same Scott brothers of Black Top. In 1997, Eaglin’s version of “St. James Infirmary”, was featured in a UK television advertisement for Budweiser lager.
Eaglin died of a heart attack at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans on February 18, 2009. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008 and had been hospitalized for treatment. He was scheduled to make a comeback appearance at the New Orleans Jazz Fest in Spring of 2009.
For many years, Eaglin lived in St. Rose in the suburbs of New Orleans with his wife Dorothea. Though he did not play many live shows, he regularly performed at Rock n’ Bowl in New Orleans, and also at the New Orleans Jazz Fest.
Robert has been performing
in bands and writing songs
since 1969. He is a former
writer and performer for the
Bob & Tom Show. He lives
in Fort Wayne, IN with his
wife, Sheri and their three
children, Dustin, Harrison
and McCartney.
I've had several requests to do a Pink Floyd post. I'll get around to it soon. For now, enjoy this live video of the band from Knebworth in 1990 with SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND
Every Sunday, Peter Tibbles contributes a column called "Elder Music" at the web site,TIME GOES BY. Check it out. For archives of previous "Elder Music" columns click HERE.
