King Records had the whole field of rock & roll, R&B, and hillbilly covered in the '50s, including doo wop groups. Here are a couple of dozen doo woppers from 1952-1961 King singles, none of them hits, and few of them by artists who had any success of note, other than the Five Keys and Otis Williams & the Charms. (Note that the group called the Temptations on this disc, represented by both sides of their sole 1958 single, are not the same as the Temptations who recorded for Motown, or indeed, as a third group called the Temptations who had a Top Thirty hit with "Barbara" in 1960. Nor is the male vocal group here called the Crystals any relation to the girl group who had several Phil Spector-produced hits.) There's a good variety of styles within the doo wop genre here -- gushy slow ballads, up-tempo numbers with nonsense syllables galore, and gymnastic vocal harmony arrangements. In the up-tempo approach, the Guytones' "Ooh Bop Sha Boo (Give All Your Love to Me)" is one of the best cuts; the Tenderfoots' "Those Golden Bells" has that mellow, melodramatic sound common in mid-'50s doo wop, just before it got toughened up by the rock & roll explosion; Otis Williams & the Charms' 1961 single "So Can I" has a nice, slightly modernized tinge; and the same group's earlier "Let Some Love in Your Heart" has some really fine harmonizing, leaning more toward an adult pop style than doo wop usually did. But most of this is pretty ordinary doo wop, sometimes stereotypically so, of interest almost exclusively to avid collectors of the genre. And the Federals' cover of "Come Go With Me," released in competition with the huge Del Vikings' hit version of the same song, is depressingly inferior to the one that became a smash. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
Ooh Bop Sha Boo: King Vocal Groups, Vol. 1
01/13/2004 | Ace Records Uk
All Music Guide Review
Track Listing
Credits
- Bobby Massey
- Group Member
- Matthew Nelson
- Group Member
- William Powell
- Group Member
- Nick Robbins
- Mastering
- Carl White
- Group Member
- Walter Williams
- Group Member
- Eddie Rich
- Group Member
- Tony Lopez Rivera
- Tenor (Vocal), Group Member
- Carl Stewart
- Group Member
- Rudy West
- Group Member
- Herman "Junior" Denby
- Group Member
- Elliott Green
- Group Member
- Bud Johnson
- Group Member
- Fred Paige
- Group Member
- Larry Pendergrass
- Group Member
- Maryland Pierce
- Group Member
- Dickie Smith
- Group Member
- Bernie West
- Group Member
- Peter Gibbon
- Coordination
- Ray Peña
- Baritone (Vocal), Group Member
- Ken Fox
- Group Member
- Norris Mack
- Group Member
- Vernon Britton
- Group Member
- Rudy "Unc-Funk" Anderson
- Group Member
- Henry Austin
- Group Member
- Willie Rockwell
- Group Member
- Frederick P. Williams
- Group Member
- William Clarke
- Group Member
- Efraín Rivera
- Leader, Group Member
- Joe Murphy
- Leader, Group Member
- Alfred Frazier
- Group Member
- John Harris
- Group Member
- Tom Williams
- Group Member
- Gordon Skadberg
- Liner Notes
- Earl Hurley
- Group Member
- Becky Stewart
- Package Design
- Matt Williams
- Group Member
- James H. Brown
- Group Member
- John Brizant
- Arranger
- John Cales
- Bass (Vocal), Group Member
- Lionel Cobbs
- Group Member
- Lorenzo Cook
- Group Member
- Joe Dandy
- Group Member
- John Dorsey
- Group Member
- Wilfred Gerald
- Group Member
- Woodrow Jackson
- Group Member
- Frederick "Money" Johnson
- Group Member
- Tommy Malon
- Leader, Group Member
- Vincent Pascale
- Bass (Vocal), Baritone (Vocal), Group Member
- James Pendor
- Group Member
- Kenneth Perdue
- Group Member
- Pringle Sims
- Group Member
- Philip Spina
- Tenor (Vocal), Group Member
- Thomas "Dickie" Threatt
- Group Member
- Stanley Wagner
- Tenor (Vocal), Group Member
- Ronnie Willis
- Group Member
- Lonnie Carter
- Group Member
- Bill Davis
- Group Member
- Otis Williams
- Group Member
- Michael Cruz
- Tenor (Vocal), Group Member
- John Grant
- Group Member
- Bill Isles
- Group Member
- Charles Lee
- Group Member
- Eddie LeVert
- Leader, Group Member
- Ramon Lopez
- Group Member
- Bob Thompson
- Group Member










