Herman “Junior” Denby, a lead
singer and bass player with the classic Baltimore vocal group, the
Swallows, died in West Chester, Ohio on July 14 at age 82. He had
been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The Swallows only made the
R&B charts twice with “Will You Be Mine” in 1951 and “Beside
You” in 1952, but their haunting ballads are perennial favorites among vocal
group fans.
Herman Denby was born in Baltimore on
June 26, 1931. In the late '40s, the success of a local group, the Orioles, inspired
teenagers to form vocal groups. One of them, the Oakaleers,
consisted of Eddie Rich, first tenor, Earl Hurley, second tenor;
Herman “Junior” Denby, second tenor-baritone, Frederick “Money”
Johnson, baritone; and Norris “Bunky” Mack, bass. Since bird
groups were all the rage, the Oakaleers name was ditched in favor of
the bird in their theme song, “When the Swallows Come Back to
Capistrano,” which oddly enough they never recorded.
The Swallows' local reputation won them
an audition with King Records' A&R man Henry Glover. Their first
session took place in April 1951, and “Will You Be Mine”/”Dearest”
was released the following month. Eddie Rich sang the lead on their
first several ballads, but Glover eventually came to prefer Denby's
baritone, which resembled the sound of popular crooner Charles Brown.
Denby also wrote several of their songs. The Swallows also recorded
up-tempo numbers, including the off-color classics “It Ain't the
Meat” and “Bicycle Tillie,” with bass Bunky Mack doing the
leads. Here are two examples of Denby's vocal style.
In 1952, Herman Denby was drafted into
the Marines. The group continued to perform through 1955, with
eleven releases on King and one on the After Hours label. When Denby
returned from the service, he attempted a solo career on King. His two releases were unsuccessful and he left the music business.
Eddie Rich formed a second Swallows group in 1957 and they had four
records on Federal in 1958. Denby was not involved.
The Swallows group that appeared
at oldies shows over the last couple of decades was led by Eddie
Rich. Herman Denby only sang with them twice, once at their
induction into the United Group Harmony Association Hall of Fame in
1994. He also sang with Harold Winley's Ink Spots, but gave it up saying that he
could not meet the standard set by Bill Kenny.
Lewis Lymon (1944?-2013)
Lewis Lymon, younger brother of Frankie
Lymon and a major participant in the kiddie lead fad of the mid-'50s,
died July 9 of prostate cancer at his home in Las Vegas at the age of
69.
I'm unable to come up with Lewis
Lymon's exact date of birth, but he was the third eldest of four
brothers from the Harlem musical family. Their father, Howard, was a
member of the Harlemaires, a gospel group. In 1955, Frankie Lymon,
then 13, and the Teenagers recorded the #1 R&B hit “Why Do
Fools Fall in Love?,” which was followed by several other hits by
vocal groups with young teenagers singing lead.
Capitalizing on the family name and the
similarity of his voice to Frankie's, Lewis formed a group called the Teen Chords in 1956. The other members were Lyndon Harold, David
Little, Rossilio Rocca and Ralph Vaughan. They initially signed with
Harlem entrepreneur Bobby Robinson's Fury label. The Teen Chords
released six records in all, three on Fury, two on End and one on the
Juanita label. None of them made the R&B charts, but their first
release, “I'm So Happy,” was a local hit in New York.
Fortunately, we have a video of the
Teen Chords lip syncing their 1957 release, “Your Last Chance,”
on the eccentric New York disc jockey Douglas “Jocko” Henderson's televison
program.
You probably know Frankie Lymon's
tragic story. Although he and the Teenagers had several other hits,
after his voice changed, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to become a
pop singer. He died of a heroin overdose in 1968 at the age of 25.
When the Teenagers began to appear on
the oldies circuit, Lewis Lymon was the obvious choice to sing
Frankie's songs, as well as some of his own. He sometimes shared the
lead singing with family friend Jimmy Castor, who died recently and was also a part of
the New York kiddie lead scene. Here he is singing “I'm So Happy” at a
1995 Pittsburgh oldies show.
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