Fred Johnson of the Marcels

Several times in previous years at around this time I have been to the Long Island Doowop weekend to enjoy fifties sounds from surviving doowop groups. It was a rare occasion that we were among the younger people in the audience, despite being well into our late sixties or early seventies at the time. It was a great weekend and I'm glad to say it is continuing next weekend, although this time I won't be there. There are fewer and fewer original members of doowop groups still alive so the line up this year is augmented by several pop singers of a slightly later era including Brian Hyland, Chris Montez, Ronnie Dove, Little Peggy March, Dickie Lee and Joey Dee. There are still some genuine doowop acts on show including Herb Reed's Platters (despite Herb and all original Platters no longer being around), Cleveland Still and the Dubs, Jimmy Gallagher of the Passions, Norman Fox and the Rob Roys, Jay Seigel's Tokens, the Capris and the Eternals. One doowop group that sadly I did not get to see was the Marcels, who have the distinction of recording what must have been the biggest doowop hit ever in the UK, 'Blue Moon' in 1961. All original members of the Marcels have now passed away, the last being the bass singer Fred Johnson who died two weeks ago at the age of 80. Fred's booming voice was a key part of all the group's hits including follow up successes such as 'Summertime', 'You Are My Sunshine', 'Heartaches' and 'My Melancholy Baby'. I loved all of these and have the UK issues on Pye Internional. But their sole LP, 'Blue Moon', eluded me until I came across it at 'Island Sound', a record shop on Long Island during one of our trips. Our visit there was pretty memorable as we stumbled on a Saturday morning meet up of veteran New York doowop fans who treated us to a stream of reminiscences about the old days and even a bit of doowop harmony. As for the Marcels, the original group was multi racial, with two white members, Richard Knauss and Gene Bricker alongside black members Fred Johnson, lead singer Cornelius Harp and Ronald Mundy. Unfortunately the two white members left the goup after racial problems in the south to be replaced by Allen Johnson and Walt Maddox. The group became a quartet following the departure of Mundy although the original group reformed briefly in 1975 and Fred Johnson formed his own version of the group in the nineties leading to a lawsuit brought by Maddox. I hope next weekend's show goes well and I wish I was there. But at least I have now booked flights for a US trip in September taking in music in Austin and Nashville which will be my first to the US since 2019.