- THE CONTOURS with Joe Billingslea perform at the 2006 Superbowl tailgate party
Certified "Original" by the Motown Alumni Association.
Joe Billingslea is a FOUNDING MEMBER and ORIGINAL MEMBER of THE CONTOURS.
In 1958, a group of four extremely talented young
singers - Joe Billingslea, Billy Hoggs, Billy Gordon and Leroy Fair started
singing as the Blenders. In 1960, they changed their name to THE CONTOURS
and signed with Motown Records®. THE CONTOURS charted eleven hits:
1962 - Do You Love Me (1 R&B, 2 Hot 100, 3 Pop)
1963 - Shake Sherry (21 R&B, 43 Pop)
1963 - Don't Let Her Be Your Baby (64 Pop)
1964 - Can You Do It (16 R&B, 41 Pop)
1964 - Can You Jerk Like Me?? (15 R&B, 47 Pop)
1965 - The Day When She Needed Me (37 R&B)
1965 - First I Look At the Purse (12 R&B, 57 Pop)
1966 - Just a Little Misunderstanding (18 R&B, 85 Pop)
1967 - It's So Hard Being a Loser (35 R&B, 79 Pop)
1972 - Baby Hit and Run (Top 40 UK)
1988 - Do You Love Me [reissue] (11Pop)
THE CONTOURS have also been nominated for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and have received the Smokey Robinson Heroes And Legends Award. They were
inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Walk of Fame outside Royal Oak's Metropolitan
Musicafe.
Today, THE CONTOURS with Joe Billingslea include original member Joe Billingslea,
24-year group member Charles Davis, 15-year veterans Gary Grier and Al
Chisholm and Odell Jones. In recent years the group has been featured
in PBS specials. "Doo Wop Gold," a video from some of these specials has
been available for years and the DVD for their latest PBS performance,
"Motown: The Early Years," was released in January 2007. Watch for "Motown:
The Early Years" on your local PBS station. In this, the 47th anniversary
of THE CONTOURS' signing with Motown Records®, the group is as popular
as ever. They have a new CD, "The Contours - Live II" and they play about
100 dates per year. The show is as high energy as it was in the 1960s,
though the flips and splits of yesteryear have been replaced by a brilliant
choreography more suited to gentlemen in their second half-century of
life!
Certified "Original" by the Motown Alumni Association.
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