Good rockin' tonight
Yesterday over at Ye Aulde Muthashippe I had a minor epiphany regarding a great old tune I had all but forgotten about, “Daddy Cool” by a NYC doo-wop quartet yclept the Rays. After posting the song, the part that I really HAD forgotten about came back to me all of a sudden-like: “Daddy Cool” had actually been the B-side of a much bigger hit for the Rays that year, another wonderful song called “Sillhouettes.” To wit:
“Silhouettes” blasted right on through certified-Platinum status—back then, one million copies, with Gold being 500k units moved—to wind up being one of the biggest selling discs of ’57. Not just in 1957, though, and not just for the Rays, either:
“Silhouettes” is a song made famous by the American doo-wop group the Rays in 1957, peaking at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100. A competing version by the Diamonds was also successful. In 1965 it was a number 5 hit in the US for Herman’s Hermits, and in 1990 it was a number 10 hit in the UK for Cliff Richard.
In May 1957, songwriter Bob Crewe saw a couple embracing through a windowshade as he passed on a train. He quickly set about turning the image into a song. Frank Slay, who owned the small Philadelphia record label XYZ with Crewe, added lyrics, and they soon had a complete song ready to record.
The story has frequently been reported that Slay heard the Rays audition for Cameo-Parkway Records, for which he worked, and immediately decided that they were the perfect group for “Silhouettes”. However, Slay and Crewe were actually already familiar with the group, as “Silhouettes” was their third single with them. Neil Arena of the original Mello-Kings maintains that Slay and Crewe had first written the song for their group, but since they were away on tour and unable to record it when Crewe offered it to Herald Records boss Al Silver, the writers opted for the Rays instead.
The song received a break when popular Philadelphia disc jockey Hy Lit fell asleep with a stack of newly released records on his record player. “Silhouettes” happened to be the last to play, and so it repeated until he woke up. He began to play the song on his show. It became popular enough that Cameo-Parkway picked it up for national distribution, and it eventually reached number 3 on both the R&B Best Sellers chart and Billboard Top 100, while also hitting the top five on both the sales and airplay charts. It was the group’s only top 40 hit.
The Canadian pop group the Diamonds, who had experienced success with cover versions of other doo-wop records, quickly put out their own version of the song. They even used the same song, “Daddy Cool”, on the B-side of their record as the Rays had. Their version received widespread radio play in a heavily segregated radio market, also reaching the top ten of the Billboard airplay chart. However, it did not reach Billboard’s sales chart, and only hit number 60 on the Top 100.
The Diamonds, of course, might be best known for another classic, their immortal “The Stroll.”
The Diamonds’ label, Coral Records, are also credited with another old favorite of mine, in its pluperfect version by the Cheers:
And there ya go. If at least one of the above doesn’t suffice to get your weekend off to a rockin’ good start, then sorry, but I just can’t help ya...and I strongly suspect that nobody else can, either.