Friday, February 13, 2009

The Five Satins - In the Still of the Night - 1956


The Five Satins are an American doo wop group, best known for their 1956 song, "In the Still of the Night".

The group, formed in New Haven, Connecticut, consisted of leader Fred Parris, Lou Peebles, Stanley Dortch, Ed Martin and Jim Freeman in 1954. With little success, the group reorganized, with Dortch and Peebles leaving, and new member Al Denby entering. The group then recorded "In the Still of the Night", which was originally released as the b-side to the single, "The Jones Girl". The single was released the following year, and "In the Still of the Night" ended up charting at number three on the R&B chart and number 25 on the pop charts. Parris entered the Army soon after, and the group reorganized again, with Martin, Freeman, Tommy Killebrew, Jessie Murphy and new lead Bill Baker. This lineup hit with another highly successful song, Billy Dawn Smith's "To The Aisle".

Doo-wop is a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music, which developed in African-American communities in the 1940s and which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s the 1960s.[1] An African-American vocal style known as doo-wop emerged from the streets of north-eastern Rust Belt cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Baltimore. With its smooth, consonant vocal harmonies, doo-wop was one of the most mainstream, pop-oriented R&B styles of the 1950s.

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