The Valentines (doo-wop band)
Encyclopedia
The Valentines were one of the most highly regarded American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Doo Wop groups from the mid 1950s. Their records are highly sought by collectors.

Although they never had a record on the national hit parades, they were extremely popular in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and the East Coast in general and had many regional big sellers. The stage performances of the group were sellouts and their harmonizing and choreography in sequence were amongst the most accomplished of their time. Influenced both musically and in their showmanship by The Cadillacs
The Cadillacs
The Cadillacs were an American rock and roll and doo-wop group from Harlem, New York; active from 1953 to 1962. The group was noted for their 1955 hit "Speedoo", which was instrumental in attracting White audiences to Black rock and roll performers.-History:...

, The Solitaires
The Solitaires
The Solitaires are an American doo wop group, best remembered for their 1957 hit single, "Walking Along".Formed in Harlem in 1953, the band consisted of Herman Curtis, Buzzy Willis and Pat Gaston , and Monte Owens, Bobby Baylor and Bobby Williams...

, and The Flamingos
The Flamingos
The Flamingos were a doo wop group from the United States, most popular in the mid to late 1950s and best known for their 1959 cover version of "I Only Have Eyes for You".-Early quintet:...

, The Valentines were able to contribute an innovative stage presentation, outstanding vocals, and some unique performances.

The Valentines served as a launching pad for important careers. Their brilliant choreography made them one of the most cherished groups on the East Coast.

Early days

The group first formed in 1952 in the Sugar Hill
Sugar Hill, Manhattan
Sugar Hill is a neighborhood in the northern part of Hamilton Heights, which itself is a sub-neighborhood of Harlem, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is defined by 155th Street to the north, 145th Street to the south, Edgecombe Avenue to the east, and...

 district of Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

 as a quartet, harmonizing on the corner of 151st Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The original group comprised Raymond "Pop" Briggs (first tenor), Carl Hogan (second tenor), Mickey Francis (baritone), and Ronnie Bright
Ronnie Bright
Ronnie Bright is an American R&B and doo wop singer of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:...

 (bass) calling themselves The Mistletoes; sometime afterwards they changed their names to The Dreamers.

The quintet

While performing at a house party in 1954 they met a young singer-songwriter named Richard Barrett from Philadelphia who had sung with a group called The Angels
The Angels (band)
The Angels are an American girl group, best known for their 1963 million selling #1 hit single, "My Boyfriend's Back".-History:The group originated in New Jersey as The Starlets which consisted of sisters, Barbara "Bibbs" and Phyllis "Jiggs" Allbut, Bernadette Carroll, and Linda Malzone. They had...

 (on Grand). An alternative version given by Phil Groia, in They All Sang on the Corner, states that the group actually met Barrett while he was serenading lovers in a park with his ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....

. Barrett was invited to join the group because they wanted his song Summer Love, and Richard’s distinctive lead vocals. The original tone of his voice gave the Valentines a sound that is still appreciated today. Now a quintet, The Dreamers adopted the name, The Valentines, taken from the title of Mickey Francis' favorite song My Funny Valentine
My Funny Valentine
"My Funny Valentine" is a show tune from the 1937 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms in which it was introduced by former child star Mitzi Green...

. At this point their friend Raoul Cita of The Harptones
The Harptones
The Harptones are an American doo-wop group, which formed in Manhattan in 1953.The group never had a top forty pop hit, or even a record on the national R&B charts, yet they are still considered one of the most influential doo-wop groups, both for their lead singer, Willie Winfield and their...

 brought them to Monte Bruce of Bruce Records where they did a Summer Love demo. Although DJ and unofficial mayor of Harlem Willie Bryant
Willie Bryant
Willie Bryant was an American jazz bandleader, vocalist, and disc jockey.Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Bryant grew up in Chicago and took trumpet lessons to little success. His first job in entertainment was dancing in the Whitman Sisters Show in 1926...

 played the tape on local radio station WOV
WOR (AM)
WOR is a class A , AM radio station located in New York, New York, U.S., operating on 710 kHz. The station has a talk format and has been owned by Buckley Broadcasting since 1987, after the station was sold by RKO. The station has conservative, or right-of-center hosts.Its call letters have no...

 for a month, Bruce never issued it or recorded the group again. At this time, before the arrival of Alan Freed
Alan Freed
Albert James "Alan" Freed , also known as Moondog, was an American disc-jockey. He became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll...

, New York Rhythm and Blues radio was dominated by Tommy ("Dr Jive") Smalls on WWRL
WWRL
WWRL is a radio station in New York City, broadcasting at 1600 kHz AM owned by Access.1 Communications. Since September 1, 2006, its format has been progressive talk radio...

.

The group did not have a contract with Bruce and when they came to the attention of Hy Weiss
Hy Weiss
-Biography:Born Hyman Y. Weiss in Romania, he was an immigrant to the United States when young and was brought up in the Bronx, New York. He started in the music industry in 1949, setting up Parody Records with his brother Sam....

 of Old Town Records he was able to sign them. Donald Razor from The Velvets
The Velvets
The Velvets were an American doo wop group from Odessa in Ector County in west Texas. The African American quintet was formed in 1959 by Virgil Johnson, a high school English teacher, with four of his students. Roy Orbison heard the group and signed them to Monument Records in 1960. Their first...

 (on Red Robin) came in to replace Hogan who was proving unreliable. In December 1954, Weiss issued the superb Barrett-penned love song, Tonight Kathleen, backed with a re-cut of Summer Love. Although popular locally, this ballad did not chart due to Old Town's poor distribution at this early time in their trading, and it has become a very rare record. Following this disappointment the group concentrated on their stage-work and built on their popularity.

In mid-1955, Eddie Edgehill replaced Donald Razor as second tenor and the group moved to George Goldner
George Goldner
George Goldner was an American record label owner and promoter. He worked, amongst others, with The Crows, The Flamingos, The Cleftones, The Shangri-Las, The Teenagers, The Chantels, Little Richard and Lou Christie. He had a son named Cary and a wife named Grace...

's Rama label where they issued the chime harmonied rocker Lily Maebelle in September. In all probability Barrett and Briggs wrote the song about Pop Brigg's sister Lil. This recording was punctuated by Jimmy Wright's energetic sax break, which was a common feature of many recordings on Goldner's labels, Rama and Gee. The recording became an East Coast favorite and the group made many appearances on Alan Freed shows at the Academy of Music and Brooklyn Paramount. They also performed at the Apollo, Howard, and Royal Theatres, and with shows hosted by other famous DJs of the time, Hal Jackson
Hal Jackson
Harold Baron Jackson is an American disk jockey and radio personality who broke a number of color barriers in American radio broadcasting.-Early years:Jackson was born in Charleston, South Carolina and grew up in Washington, D.C...

 and "Jocko" (Douglas Henderson). At this point the group began appearing on stage with what was to become their trademark - white jackets with red cloth hearts ("valentines") on the pockets, red shirts and pink bowties. Borrowing heavily from The Cadillacs and Solitaires, Richard Barrett and The Valentines developed a dynamic stage routine.

Their next releases were I Love You Darling followed by the holiday ballad Christmas Prayer. In April 1956 came their biggest hit, The Woo Woo Train. This raw and spontaneous up-tempo number became a favourite of Alan Freed’s and he opened his shows with The Valentines coming onstage in a chugging conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...

 line, like the carriages on a steam train. The vibrant stage performances of The Valentines have been captured on recording and photographically, but unfortunately no moving film survives.

Marv Goldberg maintains that George Goldner had the Valentines sing backup on The Wrens
The Wrens
The Wrens are an indie rock band that formed in the late 1980s in New Jersey. The group consists of Charles Bissell, Greg Whelan, Kevin Whelan, and Jerry MacDonald. Their debut album Silver was released in 1994...

' "C'est La Vie", at the Woo Woo session, because only Bobby Mansfield and George Magnezid of the Wrens had showed up to record "C'est La Vie" that day. The Valentines were not credited. Music historians Charlie and Pam Horner repeat this claim. If true, that would put seven voices on that song. Mitch Rosalsky disputes this claim. Marv Goldberg's article is based on an interview with Ronnie Bright in 1977. Rosalsky, however, bases his evidence on the memory of The Wrens' Bobby Mansfield in 2000.

The outstanding ballads "Twenty Minutes (Before the Hour)" and "Natures Creation" followed, but were not widely appreciated at the time. At the group's final session, Carl Hogan returned to replace Eddie Edgehill, and David Clowney from The Pearls (U.S. band) (on Onyx) took Raymond Briggs' place. Another fine ballad, "Don't Say Goodnight", was cut but had little sales success.

Disbanding

The group decided to disband in 1958 after one final appearance at the Apollo theater
Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...

, due to a combination of disillusionment with poor promotion on the part of the Rama label and the desire of Richard Barrett to turn to management and production. Richard Barrett became manager of Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers and discovered The Chantels
The Chantels
The Chantels were the second African-American girl group to have nationwide success in the United States, preceded by The Bobbettes. The group was established in the early 1950s and attended St. Anthony of Padua school in The Bronx...

. He became A&R Director for Goldner's End and Gone labels and recorded acts like The Teenagers and The Chantels and other acts such as Little Anthony and The Imperials, and later The Third Degrees.

Carl Hogan went on to sing with The Miracles
The Miracles
The Miracles are an American rhythm and blues group from Detroit, Michigan, notable as the first successful group act for Berry Gordy's Motown Record Corporation . Their single "Shop Around" was Motown's first million-selling hit record, and the group went on to become one of Motown's signature...

on Fury (not the "Smokey Robinson" group on End and Tamla) and co-wrote many hits with Richard Barrett. David Clowny became Dave "Baby" Cortez and had the number one popular hit "Happy Organ" in 1959 as well as performing with many Doo Wop groups such as The Jesters and The Paragons. Bass Ronnie Bright sang with The Cadillacs for a while, and then became a studio vocalist. He was Johnny Cymbal’s "Mr. Bass Man" on the 1963 smash of the same name. He then sang for The Deep River Boys and Carl Gardner's Coasters.

Discography

  • 1954 TONIGHT KATHLEEN/SUMMER LOVE (Old Town 1009)
  • 1955 LILY MAEBELLE/FALLING FOR YOU (Rama 171)
  • 1955 I LOVE YOU DARLING/HAND ME DOWN LOVE (Rama 181)
  • 1955 A CHRISTMAS PRAYER/KISS ME (Rama 186)
  • 1956 C’EST LA VIE/ C’EST LA VIE With the Wrens (nor credited) (Rama 194)
  • 1956 THE WOO WOO TRAIN/WHY (Rama 196)
  • 1956 20 MINUTES BEFORE THE HOUR/I’LL NEVER LET YOU GO (Rama 201)
  • 1956 NATURE’S CREATION/MY STORY OF LOVE (Rama 208)
  • 1957 DON’T SAY GOODNIGHT/I CRIED OH OH (Rama 228)


The Jimmy Wright Orchestra played on the Rama sessions.

Most of The Valentines material can be found on the Murray Hill or Collectables LPs. The Collectables CD is the same as the LP and contains all the issued material except “Tonight Kathleen”, “Summer Love”, “A Christmas Prayer” and “I Cried Oh Oh”. The excellent Old Town Doo Wop CD Vol.1 has “Tonight Kathleen” and the Rhino Doo Wop Boxed sets contain “Lily Maebelle” (Box 1), “The Woo Woo Train” (Box 2) and “Don’t Say Goodnight” (Box 3).
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