Song:Daddy's Home
Album:The Best Of The Heartbeats including Shep & The Limelites
Daddy's Home was a top five hit for Shep & The Limelites in 1961. Some of you are no doubt familiar with Jermaine Jackson's 1973 cover but this is the original. So you might wonder why the featured CD is by The Heartbeats. They had a hit in 1956 with A Thousand Miles Away. James "Shep" Sheppard was the lead singer and songwriter for both groups. The songs are so similar that Sheppard was successfully sued by the publisher of A Thousand Miles Away. The Heartbeats split up in 1959 after Sheppard passed out during a show in Philadelphia. So he opened a restaurant and sang on the side. He met a couple of his old doo wop buddies and they formed Shane Sheppard & The Limelites and then Shep & The Limelites. Those two buddies were Clarence Bassett of The Five Sharps and Charles Baskerville of The Videos. Bassett had also been in The Videos. Sheppard returned to The Heartbeats label Hull Records and owner Bea Caslin signed them up. Daddy's Home reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. Some of their other songs charted but the group faded and split up in 1966. Then the publishing company of A Thousand Miles Away successfully sued Hull Records as they thought Daddy's Home was too similar to A Thousand Miles Away and Hull closed. You can get hits by The Heartbeats and Shep & The Limelites on this Rhino comp. Sheppard planned to reform Shep & The Limelites when he was found shot to death in his car on the Long Island Expressway on Jan. 24, 1970. Baskerville died in 1995. Bassett toured the oldies circuit with a reformed Limelites until his 2005 death. Here's The Limelites performing Daddy's Home on a PBS doo wop special.
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