What do the drifters sing

Each member put a name of his choice on a piece of paper and dropped it in a hat. Bill was from Dalzell, S. It hit the Billboard charts on October 31st and flew to number one, staying there for an amazing 11 weeks and spending over five months on the Best Seller list.

Without hitting the Pop list it became a million seller. But already changes were taking place. Willie became ill; Bill dropped down to bass when he departed. By January the new stars were touring and appearing with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald when they performed at the Howard Theater on January 15th. During one tour, the group was passing through Fredricksburg, Virginia, on their way to Atlanta when car trouble forced them to work for money.

After repairs and while cruising the town waiting for the wire transfer, they were picked up be the police, who thought they fit the description of a gang who had just robbed a loan company.

With guns in their faces and sweat on their brows the Drifters spent anxious hours in police custody until they were finally cleared. Both Bunny Paul and Johnny Ray covered the Lincoln Chase-penned hit, so that by February Clyde felt compelled to issue a press release stating that he would sue anyone who copied his musical arrangement or vocal styling on the song.

But by March 13, WXYZ in Detroit had banned all three versions as being too racy even though the Johnny Ray version was banned in the United Kingdom-the Drifters original never even got a shot there-it still made it to number one.

So much has been said about the vocal work of the Drifters over the years that few realized what a skilled performing and dance act they were. While Clyde stood off to the left, the group would gyrate through some of the hippest acrobatic and tap routines this side of Motown and about eight years ahead of Motown.

Adding the rapidly flashing lights of the Apollo Theatre you had a cross between an early light show and a silent movie. But all the fun and games were interrupted when on May 7, , a letter came for Clyde from Uncle Sam. He was to be stationed in Buffalo, New York, which meant, fortunately, that he could return for weekend gigs. Another million seller, it held on to the hit list for 23 weeks total. Louis; Kansas City; and Dayton, Ohio where 4, people, the largest audience for a non-racing event, saw the show at the Speedway.

The tour finished up at the Brooklyn Paramount for the five-day Labor Day weekend show. Nicholas Arena in New York that was sold out a week in advance. Although he'd been assured of a considerable amount of musical control, McPhatter found that Ertegun and Wexler were, as the producers, always trying to push the group into directions of their own choosing. McPhatter didn't begrudge them their efforts at finding new sounds that might sell records to white as well as Black audiences, but he didn't feel like participating.

His goal was to cross over to pop audiences as a balladeer, and saw himself as having the potential to become another Nat King Cole, or perhaps a Black answer to Frank Sinatra or Perry Como. By October of , he had parted company with the group in favor of a solo career that would make him a success for the rest of the s. Rather than see the group in which they'd invested 18 months of their time go out of existence, Ertegun and Wexler were still interested in recording the Drifters, but that group's internal circumstances were vastly different once McPhatter was gone.

McPhatter had organized the Drifters under the auspices of his own business entity, Drifters Incorporated, so that he would have a share of their earnings, something that he'd been denied in the Dominoes ; his own willingness to share those earnings with the other members has never been broached or questioned.

He was half-owner of the group with his manager, George Treadwell , a former jazz musician who had masterminded the solo career of his first wife, Sarah Vaughan ; when McPhatter left the group, rather than making a provision for the other members and his eventual successor to get his share, he sold out his interest in Drifters Incorporated to Treadwell. This basically doomed the group to a permanent revolving-door lineup.

It thus became impossible for the group to hold on to anyone with serious talent or aspirations for a long-term career in music. This made the Drifters, for those present after McPhatter 's exit, little more inviting than McPhatter 's own tenure with the Dominoes , and he later regretted making the decision, recognizing not only what he had cheated himself of out by not hanging on to his share of the ownership but also what he had done to his fellow musicians.

The immediate problem facing all concerned in , however, was finding a replacement for Clyde McPhatter , and some would argue that they never did. David Baughn , who had sung with a very early version of the Drifters, came in as a temporary replacement, singing at one recording session and serving as lead vocalist for six months' worth of live engagements which was how the group generated most of its income. Baughn 's singing was good enough, but the group sounded like an imitation of the McPhatter -era Drifters , and Atlantic declined to release any of these sides at the time, possibly due to their potential to interfere with McPhatter 's solo releases, which were selling well.

Additionally, Baughn soon demonstrated an erratic personality, sufficiently unnerving to force Treadwell to recruit a second lead vocalist in Bobby Hendricks , who had previously sung with the Five Crowns and the Swallows. Attempts were made to record this lineup, and even bass singer Bill Pinkney was cut doing a lead vocal, but none of it was considered acceptable.

The lineup itself began to shift as Baughn quit, but the group soldiered on, drawing good crowds at their shows based on the quality of their earlier recordings. In , however, they auditioned a young man who approached the group after a show in Cleveland. Johnny Moore had been a member of a group called the Hornets , who had done a little bit of recording without making any more than a local reputation for themselves.

He sounded enough like McPhatter , however, with his pleasing high tenor, and was offered a spot in the Drifters the next day. Moore would prove to be a mainstay of the group in two different decades. The Drifters resumed recording in September of , with Nesuhi Ertegun and songwriter Jerry Leiber producing and with Moore singing lead. This proved to be one of the very few major chart records they would enjoy during this era, however -- the Drifters were still absent from the top of the pop charts, where the real money and huge sales figures lay.

Dion would enjoy a much bigger hit with the latter song in the early '60s, but it was an important recording for the Drifters, marking their introduction to the talents of songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller , who would later take over the job of producing the group.

The Drifters ' lineup was also stabilized for the first time in over a year. The original Drifters now entered their "silver age" behind Moore 's cool high tenor, ably supported by the bass singing and occasional lead spot from Bill Pinkney and Bobby Hendricks ' tenor. As it turned out, the Black record-buying public wasn't prepared to fully accept a new Drifters , without McPhatter -- Black audiences practically worshipped the singer, who commanded a passionate loyalty that anticipated the future success of Sam Cooke.

Additionally, the music was changing -- white teenagers were now a much bigger part of the market than they had been in , and Atlantic set its sights on that potentially much richer vein of listeners.

Late was also the point when the consequences of the Drifters' business organization caught up with the group. Their recent hits had led to more bookings than at any time since , which was good for Treadwell and his partners, but difficult for the members, who were still working on straight salary and, by Bill Pinkney 's estimation, very low salaries.

He approached Treadwell for a new arrangement, or at least more money for the group members, and he was fired. His dismissal drove fellow founding member Andrew Thrasher out of the lineup as well, and out of music altogether. Pinkney and ex- Drifter Bobby Hendricks became the core of a new Atlantic group called the Flyers, who released one single that failed to attract much attention.

The new Drifters lineup was filled by bass singer Jimmy Ricks and then, more permanently, by Tom Evans , late of the Dominoes , and baritone Charlie Hughes.

The group's fortunes now took a new turn as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller began producing their sessions in late -- unfortunately, their arrival on the scene coincided with Johnny Moore 's receiving his draft notice in early The group was no joke intended adrift once again, in terms of its sound and lineup. Bobby Hendricks was brought back in, and Jimmy Millender took over the baritone chores, but there wasn't a lot of good material that came from those sessions. For a time, in the absence of an ability to create a successful Drifters sound, it seemed as though Atlantic was trying to turn them into another version of the Coasters , doing light-hearted versions of pop standards.

In a way, this was understandable -- Black listeners held this era's Drifters at arm's length, while white teenagers were dominating the pop charts and they seemed, at least potentially, open to new records by anyone, so Atlantic decided to cater to them, hoping for a breakthrough. By late , Hendricks had announced his exit, and even guitarist Jimmy Oliver , who had managed to get several of his songs recorded during his four-year tenure with the group and was an unheralded mainstay of their sound, finally quit.

The remaining members, such as they were, were working as hard as ever and wanted more money and, when Treadwell refused their request, they all walked out or were fired en masse.

Treadwell was about to find himself without a group and faced with upcoming engagements to fulfill at The Apollo Theater in New York. He spotted his way out of this impasse at The Apollo, way down on a bill on May 30, on which the about-to-be-fired Drifters were headlining. The Five Crowns, or the Crowns , as they were then known, had been a fixture in Harlem for most of the '50s, pre-dating the Drifters without ever making a mark as a recording act, and enjoying precious little reputation as performers.

Treadwell approached their manager, Lover Patterson , explaining that he was dumping the existing Drifters and needed a new group to fulfill their performing obligations. Patterson agreed and the group followed suit, and all of the individual members' contracts, except for that of one of the group's two baritones, were sold to Treadwell. In later years, this kind of arrangement would become a little more familiar in the business -- the Grass Roots essentially evolved this way, as did the performing version of the group Steam -- but it was unusual in those days, and difficult to pull off, and mostly served to keep Treadwell from ending up in court.

They did as they were required under the agreement and, for ten months, worked in the shadow of the old group, playing live gigs characterized by the awkwardness of performing the old songs as though they were their own, to mostly Black audiences who knew that these weren't the Drifters.

Ironically, in all of their year history with Atlantic Records, the Drifters, in any incarnation, never recorded an actual "album" session; every one of their LPs was compiled from existing single tracks and B-sides and, except for the first album, all have a mix-and-match element to the memberships and, especially, the singers represented. The group still had a recording contract with Atlantic Records and, despite the fact that the old Drifters ' recent releases had done little business, the label decided to try once more with the new lineup and get a record out.

Charlie Thomas was supposed to sing lead but he developed mic-fright in the studio, and so Nelson was deputized for "There Goes My Baby," which he had co-written, along with "Hey Senorita," and "Oh My Love. It not only didn't sound anything like the old Drifters , but it didn't sound like anything else that had ever been heard on a commercial recording before.

And it was a complete mess in the eyes of some observers, including Jerry Wexler , who said the song sounded like a radio picking up two different stations at once. The group seemed headed for a huge future when the problem of their business set-up came into play again.

They'd cut other songs at that same session, including "Baltimore," which sounded like an update of the Cadillacs ' "Speedo," but the strings-percussion-echo timbres of "There Goes My Baby," hung around long melodic lines, became the Drifters' trademark sound for the ten years that followed. This seemed to be a new lease on life to the group, and then more troubles arose from within, owing to the way the Drifters were organized as a business.

He was so poor working for the group that he felt compelled to sell off his share of the songwriting on "There Goes My Baby. After approaching Treadwell for more money and being turned down, Nelson saw that there was no future as a member of the Drifters and announced his exit almost as soon as it came time to cut a follow-up. At the same moment, Lover Patterson played his trump card, a separate contract that he'd signed with the singer, as a solo artist, dated before Treadwell 's offer.

It all could have ended up in court but luckily for the singer and fans of the Drifters, cooler heads prevailed. He remained with Atlantic Records on their Atco subsidiary as a solo artist, and agreed to record with the group until a suitable replacement could be found, singing on "Dance with Me," "This Magic Moment," "I Count the Tears," and "Save the Last Dance for Me," the latter their only number one hit, among other songs, through the spring of By the time his exit had been arranged, Nelson had changed his name to the more memorable Ben E.

King , which was how he emerged in his own right.