Silhouettes (song)
Encyclopedia
"Silhouettes" is a song made famous by the doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...

 group The Rays
The Rays
The Rays was an American group formed in New York in 1955, and active in the 1950s. They first recorded for Chess Records. Their biggest hit single was "Silhouettes," a moderately-slow doo-wop piece of pop music that reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957, released on XYZ Records...

 in 1957. A competing version by The Diamonds
The Diamonds
The Diamonds are a Canadian vocal quartet who rose to prominence in the 1950s and early 1960s with sixteen Billboard hit records. The original members were Dave Somerville , Ted Kowalski , Phil Levitt , and Bill Reed .-1950s:...

 was also successful, and the song was a number 5 hit in 1965 for Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits are an English beat band, formed in Manchester in 1963 as Herman & The Hermits. The group's record producer, Mickie Most , emphasized a simple, non-threatening, clean-cut image, although the band originally played R&B numbers...

.

Writing and Rays version

In May 1957, songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 Bob Crewe
Bob Crewe
Bob Crewe is an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He is known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for The Four Seasons...

 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
The Rays
The Rays was an American group formed in New York in 1955, and active in the 1950s. They first recorded for Chess Records. Their biggest hit single was "Silhouettes," a moderately-slow doo-wop piece of pop music that reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957, released on XYZ Records...

 audition for Cameo-Parkway Records
Cameo-Parkway Records
Cameo-Parkway Records was the parent company of Cameo Records and Parkway Records, which were major American Philadelphia-based record labels from 1956 and 1958 to 1967...

, 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.

The song received a break when popular local disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

 Hy Lit
Hy Lit
Hyman Aaron "Hy" Lit was an American DJ based in the Philadelphia area from the 1950s until 2005. In his 50 year career, Hy Lit broadcast from WIBG-AM, WDAS/WDAS-FM, WKBS-TV, WIFI, WSNI/WPGR, KPOL, WKXW, among many others. His last station was WOGL, where he broadcast from 1989 until his...

 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 Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 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 Diamonds

The Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 pop group The Diamonds
The Diamonds
The Diamonds are a Canadian vocal quartet who rose to prominence in the 1950s and early 1960s with sixteen Billboard hit records. The original members were Dave Somerville , Ted Kowalski , Phil Levitt , and Bill Reed .-1950s:...

, who had experienced success with cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s 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, 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.

Herman's Hermits

The "British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...

" group Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits
Herman's Hermits are an English beat band, formed in Manchester in 1963 as Herman & The Hermits. The group's record producer, Mickie Most , emphasized a simple, non-threatening, clean-cut image, although the band originally played R&B numbers...

 recorded the song in 1965 after hearing the song on American Armed Forces Radio
American Forces Network
The American Forces Network is the brand name used by the United States Armed Forces American Forces Radio and Television Service for its entertainment and command internal information networks worldwide...

. It reached number 1 in Canada (In both RPM and CHUM charts). It became their third hit in the US, reaching number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 and also reached the top 5 in the UK. Information from Peter Noone and others indicates that guitarist Vic Flick
Vic Flick
Victor Harold Flick is an English guitarist, most famous for playing the guitar riff in the "James Bond Theme".-Biography:...

 played on the track, and not Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...

 as previously thought.

Legacy

Other artists who've recorded "Silhouettes" include:
  • Steve Gibson and the Red Caps
  • Frankie Lymon
    Frankie Lymon
    Franklin Joseph "Frankie" Lymon was an American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, best known as the boy soprano lead singer of a New York City-based early rock and roll group, The Teenagers. The group was composed of five boys, all in their early to mid teens...

  • The Alley Cats
  • The Nylons
    The Nylons
    The Nylons are an a cappella group founded in 1978 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Best known for their covers of The Turtles' "Happy Together", Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye", and The Tokens' version of the traditional "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"....

  • The Crests
    The Crests
    The Crests were a New York R&B doo-wop group of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Their most popular song was "16 Candles", which rose to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1959. It sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc. The interracial group had three black members , one Puerto...

     - The Crests Sing All Biggies (1960)
  • Cliff Richard
    Cliff Richard
    Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....

  • Dennis Brown
    Dennis Brown
    Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...

     - Money in My Pocket: Definitive Collection
  • Claude François sang it in French under the same title Silhouettes, sometimes labeled silhouettes enlacées because of the lyrics.


A rock and roll revival
Rock and roll revival
Rock and Roll Revival was a back-to-basics musical trend of the late 1960s and early 1970s, in a sort-of backlash against the heavier and psychedelic rock sounds then in vogue....

 act, Sha Na Na
Sha Na Na
Sha Na Na is an American rock and roll group. The name is taken from a part of the long series of nonsense syllables in the doo-wop hit song "Get a Job", originally recorded in 1957 by the Silhouettes....

, performed the song at the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...

 in mid-1969.

The Ronettes
The Ronettes
The Ronettes were a 1960s girl group from New York City, best known for their work with producer Phil Spector. The group consisted of lead singer Veronica Bennett ; her older sister, Estelle Bennett; and their cousin Nedra Talley...

 released a version of the song on their 1965 Colpix Records release, "The Ronettes featuring Veronica."

Doo-wop group The Silhouettes
The Silhouettes
The Silhouettes were an American doo wop/R&B group whose single "Get A Job" was a #1 hit on the Billboard R&B singles chart and pop singles chart in 1958. The doo-wop revival group Sha Na Na derived their name from the song's lyrics. "Get A Job"' is included in the soundtracks of the movies,...

 (known for their hit "Get A Job
Get a Job
-Music:* "Get a Job" , 1957 single by The Silhouettes* "Why Don't You Get a Job?", 1998 single by The Offspring-Film:* Get a Job , starring Jeremy London, Brenda Strong, Joseph Whipp, and others...

") were named after the song.

According to John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' song "No Reply
No Reply (song)
"No Reply" is a song by The Beatles from the British album Beatles for Sale and the American album Beatles '65. It was written mainly by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney.-Lyrics:...

" (1964) was inspired by "Silhouettes".

The song also appears in the Broadway musical Jersey Boys
Jersey Boys
Jersey Boys is a jukebox musical with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. It is a documentary-style musical, based on one of the most successful 1960s rock 'n roll groups, the Four Seasons...

.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK