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| Not pictured: Mark Jackson. Still. |
There was no other Volume 1 to this series. Shhhhh...shhhh...shhhh....
The Hit
The Crows’ “Gee” took a while to find its legs. Their label and the radio pushed the A-side of the 45, “I Love You So,” for several months while “Gee” bumped a long in its modest shadow. The group recorded both in the same June 1953 session and that single counts as The Crows’ first bid at the nation’s airwaves. They arrived at the beginning of doo wop’s second wave and both could have easily got lost in the noise of all the bird-themed quartets and quintets, but fate stepped in.
"It looks like ‘Huggy Boy’ was the cause. Dick Hugg was one of the DJs who broadcast from the front window of John Dolphin's record store in Los Angeles. He had played 'Gee,' months before, and decided he didn't like it much. The disc ended up with his girlfriend, who really loved it. One night they got into a fight and, to make up, Huggy Boy played the song over and over on the air for her. For some reason, that episode triggered an explosion of sales in LA. Kids who were lukewarm to the song when they heard it once in a while, went nuts for it when it was played non-stop.”
“Gee” may sound like an unremarkable pop/doo wop single, but even with the six-month delay in its breakout, it came early in doo wop’s second wave. More significantly, some (or at least Wikipedia) recognize it as the first rock ‘n’ roll hit by a rock and roll group. It also crossed over into the pop charts (it climbed to No. 14) at a time when distributor pipelines did not. One source (Marv Goldberg’s R&B Notebook) floated the plausible theory that white kids heard “Gee” on the radio and pestered their neighborhood record store owners until they ordered it.
On the musical side, the accompaniment is there, no question – you hear the double bass, the simple rhythm of the piano line, and the gentle shuffle beat of the drum, a reedy, jazzy guitar solo that sounds like the times – but the vocals and harmonizing do the bulk of the lifting, all the way down to the “doop-do-de-doop-do-de-doop-do-de-do-do-de-doop” (or something like that).
The Rest of the Story, Briefly
“Our story begins around 1951, in Harlem (on 142nd Street, to be exact), at a time when R&B vocal groups seemed to be springing up on every street corner, alleyway, and subway station in the city.”
The Hit
The Crows’ “Gee” took a while to find its legs. Their label and the radio pushed the A-side of the 45, “I Love You So,” for several months while “Gee” bumped a long in its modest shadow. The group recorded both in the same June 1953 session and that single counts as The Crows’ first bid at the nation’s airwaves. They arrived at the beginning of doo wop’s second wave and both could have easily got lost in the noise of all the bird-themed quartets and quintets, but fate stepped in.
"It looks like ‘Huggy Boy’ was the cause. Dick Hugg was one of the DJs who broadcast from the front window of John Dolphin's record store in Los Angeles. He had played 'Gee,' months before, and decided he didn't like it much. The disc ended up with his girlfriend, who really loved it. One night they got into a fight and, to make up, Huggy Boy played the song over and over on the air for her. For some reason, that episode triggered an explosion of sales in LA. Kids who were lukewarm to the song when they heard it once in a while, went nuts for it when it was played non-stop.”
“Gee” may sound like an unremarkable pop/doo wop single, but even with the six-month delay in its breakout, it came early in doo wop’s second wave. More significantly, some (or at least Wikipedia) recognize it as the first rock ‘n’ roll hit by a rock and roll group. It also crossed over into the pop charts (it climbed to No. 14) at a time when distributor pipelines did not. One source (Marv Goldberg’s R&B Notebook) floated the plausible theory that white kids heard “Gee” on the radio and pestered their neighborhood record store owners until they ordered it.
On the musical side, the accompaniment is there, no question – you hear the double bass, the simple rhythm of the piano line, and the gentle shuffle beat of the drum, a reedy, jazzy guitar solo that sounds like the times – but the vocals and harmonizing do the bulk of the lifting, all the way down to the “doop-do-de-doop-do-de-doop-do-de-do-do-de-doop” (or something like that).
The Rest of the Story, Briefly
“Our story begins around 1951, in Harlem (on 142nd Street, to be exact), at a time when R&B vocal groups seemed to be springing up on every street corner, alleyway, and subway station in the city.”
