In Conjuction With Cool Bobby B:
ENDURING POPULARITY AND INFLUENCE OF DOO-WOP
CAPTURED IN SOUND OF THE CITY
3-CD BOX SET
FEATURES
FIRST RECORDING EVER BY
DION
(PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED)
In Stores July, 24th ORDER NOW AT AMAZON NOW!
The distinctive sound of doo-wop has never faded away from American pop culture. More than 50 years after it was first heard on city street corners throughout the country, doo-wop continues to be as popular and influential as ever and is commemorated in Sound of the City, a new 3-CD box set (in stores July 24th). The a capella harmonies and songs of teenage love have now made it from the streetcorner to Broadway, where the Tony Award-winning musical “Jersey Boys” (based on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) is playing to sold out crowds. The doo-wop influence can also be heard in the boy bands that dominated the pop charts in the 90s, in the big screen blockbuster “The Lion King” and in surprisingly popular PBS specials.
Sound of the City is the untold story of what happened to doo-wop in the pre-British Invasion years. It began as an R&B art form, but by the mid-1950s, just as it was waning in popularity within the African American community, it was largely taken up by Italian American groups in the greater New York area. As Dion says in his liner notes for Sound of the City, “It was Black music filtered through an Italian neighborhood, so it just naturally came out with a different attitude.” There were the original Jersey boys…the Four Seasons; in the Bronx there were Dion & the Belmonts; in Brooklyn there were the Tokens; and in Staten Island there were the Elegants. And there were so many more.
Sound of the City takes listeners on a journey back to Brooklyn, circa 1959, where three, sometimes four guys are found huddled together in a lunch room, or on a street corner, or even in a stairwell. One starts singing, “Sixteen candles make a beautiful sight…” The others join in, harmonizing, “shoo-doo-doo-doo-wop.” That was the simplicity of doo-wop. Street corner music, made by guys trying to impress the local girls. Guys who felt like they had to act tough, but found a release in sweet, sentimental songs. Doo-wop didn’t need a forty-piece orchestra or written charts. It just needed feeling and the innate gift of harmony.
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