Artist:The Detergents
Song:Leader of the Laudromat
Album:The Golden Age of American Rock 'n' Roll: Special Novelty Edition
The 1965 single Leader of the Laudromat was a top 20 hit. One of their other songs charted so The Detergents are not technically a one hit wonder. Leader of the Laundromat was a parody of The Shangri-Las hit Leader of the Pack. Occasionally parody songs can be hits. I guess today Weird Al Yankovic is king of the parodies. Back then Allen Sherman was the king of parodies. Not surprisingly, The Detergents were a studio band led by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss. They wrote and produced records together like the 1957 Perry Como single Catch a Falling Star and Brian Hyland's 1960 single Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini. But they weren't in The Detergents. In 1964, teenagers Ron Dante, Danny Jordan and Tommy Wynn were staff songwriters and session singers for Don Kirshner's song publishing company Aldon Music located in New York's Brill Building. All the song publishers were in that building. Jordan is Vance's nephew. So when Dante, Jordan and Wynn formed Cabin Kids and released the single Little Lollypop on the Screen Gems label, Vance heard about it and brought the song Leader of the Laundromat to them. He wanted them to record it as The Detergents. Jordan sang lead and the record was released on Roulette Records. It reached #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 which is pretty good for a novelty record. The Detergents became a real band and appeared on TV shows like Shindig! and Hullabaloo and toured with Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars. The album The Many Faces of The Detergents is available from Collectibles. But you can get Leader of the Laundromat on this Ace Records various artists comp. Dante is the best known of The Detergents as he was lead singer of The Archies and produced Barry Manilow's 70s albums. Jordan and Wynn briefly recorded as a duo. Jordan was one of the guys behind the 1972 instrumental hit Popcorn by Hot Butter. It looks like Wynn quit the music business. Here's a video for Leader of the Laundromat by The Detergents.
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