Monday, January 14, 2008

Yahoo LAUNCHCAST Song Of The Day-The Drifters


Artist:The Drifters

Song:There Goes My Baby

Album:Anthology





You'll notice this is from a Ben E. King 2CD comp Anthology. The history of The Drifters is a little confusing. When Clyde McPhatter left The Drifters, manager George Treadwell tried several combinations. None of them seemed to work to his satisfaction. So in May 1958, he fired the entire group. Treadwell owned the rights to the name The Drifters and he had a year's worth of bookings at the Apollo. There was a group called The Five Crowns led by singer Ben Nelson. Treadwell approached their manager Lover Patterson with the idea of renaming the group The Drifters. He agreed. The group had no connection to the earlier Drifters. Meanwhile former Drifters Bill Pinkney & David Baughn began touring as The Original Drifters. But the new version of The Drifters went into the studio with legendary producers Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller and came out with the Ben Nelson song There Goes My Baby. It was a huge hit and apparently was the first rock recording to use strings. They had a few more hits and then Patterson & Treadwell had a disagreement and Patterson pulled Nelson from the group. He would go on to have much success as Ben E. King and that's why There Goes My Baby is on a Ben E. King comp. Rudy Lewis took over as lead singer of The Drifters and sang lead on Up On The Roof. Former Drifter Bobby Hendricks still tours the oldies circuit with a version of The Drifters. Here's a five minute preview of a Biography of legendary producers Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller. You can watch the full version by downloading the Veoh TV player and I recommend you do that.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

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