BIRMINGHAM RECORD COLLECTORS
DEDICATED TO THE COLLECTING OF MUSIC, ITS PRESERVATION AND LASTING FRIENDSHIP
THIS MONTH’S MEETING
SUNDAY, JULY 10TH 2:00 PM
HOMEWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY 1721 OXMOOR RD BIRMINGHAM, AL 35209
NEXT MEETING, AUGUST 14TH 2:00 PM
BIRMINGHAM RECORD COLLECTORS 37TH ANNUAL RECORD SHOW
We are just over 5 weeks from our record show, August 19-21 at the Gardendale Civic Center located at 857 Main Street, Gardendale, AL 35071. Make plans to be there and spread the word to everyone on your facebook page, email list, twitter or just call your friends. We once again look forward to a full house of dealers, over 100 tables full of vinyl to browse through.
Hours are: Friday 11:00-3:00 (early bird with paid BRC membership only) and 3:00-8:00 open to public. $5. Saturday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM & Sunday 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM. $5. Kids 12 and under free. Plenty of free parking. More info can be found on the website at birminghamrecord.com or our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/birminghamrecordcollectors. There will also be a food truck on location each day.
We will need volunteers to work the front table. If you can spare an hour or two please contact me at cbailey@bsc.edu and let me know.
THIS MONTH’S MEETING
The July meeting will be dedicated to preparing for the upcoming record show. We have over 2,000 postcards to mail out so we will putting address labels and stamps on all of them. We will also cover some business items that pertain to the show. Drop by and help get these postcards ready. Thanks.
SUMMER NIGHTS ARE HERE
Summer is officially here and with it comes memories of those nights running around with friends and having dates. Everywhere you would go you could probably here a radio or an 8-track tape player blaring out some fun summer time tunes. “Summertime Blues’, ‘Summer In The City’, ‘Hot Fun In The Summer Time’, ‘Those Crazy, Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer’, Here Comes Summer’ and ‘Summertime, Summertime’ just to name a few. Just writing those song titles down makes me remember those wonderful summer days and nights and listening to the latest hits on the radio.
I was checking out a book lately entitled The Billboard Book Of One Hit Wonders and came across a summer song most of you will recall called ‘One Summer Night’ by the Danleers, or as by the Dandleers according to which 45 you may have or look at. Since summer has kept me busy and time has come for a newsletter article I thought I would use the article from the Billboard book in this month’s newsletter. So please be sure to understand it comes straight from the book, word for word and not from me. And one more thing, if you don’t know ‘One Summer Night’ or haven’t listened to it lately you need to click on the link below and get acquainted again with the song as well as hear some other songs by the Danleers . Great classic summer, doo-wop, group sound or whatever you want to call it. I bet someone reading this has some memories of that song playing on the radio. Enjoy the article.
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Fresh out of the confines of a Brooklyn high school, good buddies Jimmy Weston (lead singer) and Johnny Lee (first tenor) were full to the brim with teen dreams of singing and success. In order to put together a hotshot vocal group, they enlisted three of their mutual friends: Willie Ephriam (second tenor), Roosevelt Mays (bass) and Nat McCune (baritone). They practiced up a mite and approached Danny Webb; someone had fingered him as being the one in the know about making records (not much, though, on making money). Danny groomed them, gave them a name (a variant on his own) and secured the Danleers their first recording contract with Bill Lasley’s Amp-3 label.
For their first waxing, Webb supplied them with a jumper, ‘Wheelin’ and A-Dealin’, plus what was to become one of summer radio’s perennial classics, ‘One Summer Night’. “ We only had 45 minutes to record it,” Weston told Krazy Greg, publisher of Cat Tales. The session actually belonged to someone else. “We were booked in at the last minute. They were giving all the time to some young lady. I guess they thought it was her that was gonna be a big star.”
‘Summer’ was such a scorcher that Mercury Records picked up the Danleers’ recording contract from AMP-3. Mercury was the big time, and in 1958, ‘One Summer Night’ was one of the most thermal make-out tunes to be heard on rock and roll radio.
Unfortunately for Jim, John and the rest, none of the other fine sounds they pressed in vinyl ever sold as well. ‘I Really Love You’ was loosed, followed by ‘A Picture of You’ and ‘I Can’t Sleep – but nothing sold well enough to even make Billboard’s ‘Bubbling Under the Hot 100’ chart.
“It was all wrong – we were all young kids”, said Jimmy. “We wanted to ROCK. But Danny was into that Platters thing and that wasn’t making it for us. He was tellin’ us that we would last longer singing that type of music…”
After four stiffs, Mercury Records passed on issuing any more records by the group. Discouraged, the Danleers dispersed, but Jimmy Weston proclaimed that he was not ready to let the Danleers name die. Webb brought in members of another group he was managing, the Webtones (a group so named as a variant on Webb’s moniker) to fill in for the departed Danleers, and Epic Records gave the ‘new’ Danleers a two-single spin. Record Sales were as cool as a Klondike bar, and Epic politely showed the group the door.
Well into the mid-60’s, the Everest, Smash and LeMans record labels gave the fluctuating mix of original members, Webtones and fill-ins a shot at recording what culminated into a pile of fine doo-wop numbers. Good records all, they just didn’t sell. Asked if he and the group got their fair share of the loot, Weston replied, “NOOOOO! NOOOOO! I tell ya man, the name Danny Webb is on ‘One Summer Night’ as writer. I Wrote it, not him. But I was a young boy and Danny was such a sweet talker. I went along with it. At the time, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I just wanted to sing; you understand?”
On July 23, 1988 the original Danleers sang together for the first time in nearly 20 years at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island. Jimmy Weston continued to front the Danleers, with varying line-ups into the 90’s/ Jim died on June 10, 1993.
Now back to me. Another song that may or not be classified a summer song is the Elegants, ‘Little Star’. Do you know what the Elegants, The Silhouettes (‘Get A Job’), The Hollywood Argyles (‘Alley Oop’) and The Singing Nun ‘(Dominique’) have in common? All four of them reached the top of the charts and then never had anything else make Billboard’s Hot 100 again. Well, at least they did have a #1 song. Well, you’ll have to excuse me, I am heading to my turntable to listen to some summer time music and the Danleers will be one of them. Click on the titles below and listen to some wonderful recordings by the Danleers.
BRC RADIO
Check out our latest shows at birminghamrecord.com. Click on ‘RADIO’ and listen to some long-lost music and even some new sounds. There is a wide variety of music now that we have 4 hosts doing shows which provides a wide-range of musical genres. Check out all our shows.
Have A Happy 4th of July. See ya,
Charlie
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