Flirting with Fame:

Bill Haley lived in nearby Chester Pennsylvania where most of his early 1950s recordings were made. Early in 1954 he signed with Decca records. His first hit record with them was “Rock Around the Clock. “ It was a record that almost didn’t get made. The Chester ferry ran aground and the Comets showed up late for their recording date in New York City. “Rock Around the Clock” was recorded in only two takes.

History was made when “Rock Around the Clock” was used as the theme for the movie Blackboard Jungle in 1955. Rock n’ Roll had burst upon the American cultural scene like gangbusters. Haley provided some of his first explanations of this new kind of music to alarmed parents of teenagers on Cousin Lee’s Show on local radio station WDEL. He said rock n’ roll was a combination of rhythm & blues and country music.

Groups from the late 1950s produced on the A-B-S and Universal labels were not the first from Wilmington to make a record. In 1954 a local group called the Five Diamonds recorded four sides on the Treat label from New York City. Managed by Mitch Thomas, the Five Diamonds consisted of Leonard Griffin, James “Jimmy” Smith, William Loper, Coleman Griffin, and Chick Lloyd. Even though the group cut four sides – two 45rpms – only “The Ten Commandment of Love,” written by Leonard with lead singer William Loper, and b/w with “I Cried and Cried,” were released in 1954. The other two tunes, “The Night” b/w “My Love,” were not release on a Treat Records 45rpm until 1973.

Prior to 1961 only one recording artist from Delaware had a nationally charted hit in the 1950s, and that was Billy Graves with a tune called “The Shag (is Totally Cool).” It was a hit in early 1959 on the Monument label, getting a high as #53 on the national Billboard chart. Other than having once appeared on Jimmy Dean’s television show, Billy Graves’ whereabouts is unknown.

Wilmington teenage fans also contributed to rock n’ roll history. The new music’s first group dance, the Stroll, was invented in Wilmington by the kids who danced on local radio and television personality Mitch Thomas’ Saturday afternoon dance show on WVUE channel 12.

According to Lonnie T. Edwards, who was among the show’s original participants, the Stroll was actually invented during the Friday night dances called “the center” at Wilmington’s St. Matthew’s church at 7th & Walnut streets.

“A bus would come pick us up at the Walnut Street Y,” Lonnie commented about Mitch’s Saturday afternoon show, “and take us to the television studios.”

The Stroll was first danced to Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk.” Later Chuck Willis’ “C. C. Rider” provided the music. After the kids on American Bandstand started doing the Stroll on national television, the Diamonds had a big hit with the song, “The Stroll,” and Dick Clark did the right thing by publicly crediting the kids on Mitch Thomas’ dance show in Wilmington for coming up with the dance.

Another local connection to American Bandstand was Bob Clayton, then a student at P.S. duPont High School. Every day, right after classes, he’d hop in his car and high tail it to Philadelphia to dance with regular Justine Carrelli. The couple was a big hit with national fans, got write-ups in national teen magazines, and even had a national fan club. But when Bob & Justine recorded their own record in the late 50s, “Drive In Movie,” they got kicked off Bandstand. Except for some spins on local radio, the record failed and both eventually left to lead separate lives.

Universal Records was succeeded by the Richie label around 1959. It’s earliest recording was with a band called Frankie and the C-Notes with the tune “Forever and Ever.” Richie Records would have a number of close calls and near misses with national notoriety in the 1960s.

By the 1960s local rock n’ roll enthusiasts were building a little momentum, thanks largely to success from Vinnie Rago’s Richie label and its companion, Universal. Richie mainly accommodated the doo-wop side of the rock n’ roll sub-genre. Rago’s greatest success was with a doo-wop group called Teddy and the Continentals, who had a national hit –– on the national Bubbling Under chart –– with “Ev’rybody Pony,” hitting #101 in September 1961.

Ruth White was not the first female artist to make music in Wilmington. The first “girl group” to make a single record was The Continettes. Their record, “Boys Who Don’t Understand” b/w “Billy the Kidder” appeared on the Richie label in 1963 and was a local hit. “Boy Who Don’t Understand” was written by Valerie Robinson, who sang lead. The flip side was written by Vinnie Rago, and the group’s Ventie Jean Williams sang lead.

Another local rock n’ roll artist was Lue Cazz who did not make recordings locally. Known locally by his actual name, Lou Casapulla, Lue Cazz’s biggest hit was “The Walk” b/w “Dreaming” on the VeeJay label in 1962. “The Walk” was originally recorded by Jimmy McCracklin in 1958. Lue Cazz also recorded “Change Your Ways“ b/w “Daddy Long Legs” in 1962 on the Art-Tone label from Gardena, California, and “Stop Baby Stop” b/w “It’s All Up to You” on the Cabot label in 1963. Lue Cazz later recorded as Vince Carey on the Turntable label, notably the tune “Hullaballoo.”

Another local artist to find national success is Johnny Neel. Neel cut his first records in Wilmington on Vinnie Rago’s Richie label in 1966 with his band Internal Calm. Two of his earliest recordings, “The Truth” and “Where Will We Go From Here?” were co-written with Rago. After his initial local success, Neel became a bit of a journeyman artist, which took him to recording sessions with a number of top stars like John Mayall, Irma Thomas, Ann Peebles, Marie Osmond and the Oak Ridge Boys. From 1989 to 1990 he toured and cut an album with the Allman Brothers Band and co-wrote their 1990 hit “Good Clean Fun.” He also wrote the hit, “Rock Bottom” for Allman Brothers band member Dickie Betts.

Bob Marley

Perhaps the final major local band to record on the Richie label was The Enfields. The band, originally consisting of Ted Munda, who played guitar and sang vocals, along with band mates Charlie and Gordon Berl, John Bernard, Bill Gallery and John Rhodes, had a string of local hits, beginning with their initial hit “In the Eyes of the World,” throughout 1966 and 1967. However, their final hit on Richie precipitated a rift with Vinnie Rago and Richie Records. Reportedly, that final hit “Time Card” had been recorded at Virtue Studios in Philadelphia, but because of some sort of dispute Rago had with Frank Virtue, Virtue retained possession of the audiotapes. Not to be outdone, Rago took the band to another studio to record the same song. The song turned out to be The Enfields’ final local hit in spite of lower production values than the earlier recording.

Afterward, The Enfields, after some personnel changes, became the Friends of the Family. The band, while making a number of quality recordings, never had a commercial release and the recordings came tantalizingly close to being picked up by the Kama Sutra label. The group’s lead singer, Ted Munda, did go on to form a band call Hotspur and recorded a single album, “Sweet Fortune’s Darling” on Columbia in 1974.

Afterward, the local music scene gravitated to Wilmington’s suburbs and was influenced by the emerging counter culture. Rock artists from Delaware were boosted by the reinvigorating musical strides made within the counter culture genre in the late 1960s. This was largely reflected in the founding of the local band, Snakegrinder and the Shredded Field Mice. Formed in an almost ad hoc fashion in 1969 from a couple of smaller bands –– notably Primordial Slime and the Joint Chiefs –– the band didn’t get around to recording its first and only album until 1977. According to Steve Roberts, one of Snakegrinder’s founding members, even bootlegged copies of the album can fetch more than $200 from almost any corner of the world. A recent reviewer on Lysergia.com said the band’s sound “ . . . is rich and n-dimensional with an impressive group-mind synchronization going, creating a vintage Bay area vibe pretty much any time they zoom off into jams.” The band was the first to perform at Newark’s famous Stone Balloon. Their implicit message to local musicians that followed was that local artists were quite capable of producing music that could rival the best around.

A number of local recording artists, who made a national name for themselves in the 1970s and beyond, actually learned their chops in the 1960s. One whose beginnings actually go back to the late 1950s was Sylvester “Papa Dee” Allen. Papa Dee was originally a member of local jazz great Lem Winchester’s Modernists. After Winchester died prematurely in 1961, the Modernists tried to continue, but without their stellar front man they soon fell apart. Papa Dee continued for a while performing at Wilmington’s early 60s folk music clubs playing bongos and other assorted percussion instruments, but when that proved fruitless he gravitated to the west coast and joined the rock fusion band WAR. He remained with them and was the percussionist on all their recordings including the ones with ex-Animals singer Eric Burdon.

A major local contribution to national rock history in the mid to late 1970s came from a number of youngsters who attended local high schools in the late 60s. One was Richard Meyers, who went to Sanford Academy, another was Tom Miller who attended McKean High School, and a third was Billy Ficca who went to A.I. duPont. As Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, they and Billy Ficca took off to New York City and became pioneers in the New York punk rock music scene. Performing at CBGBs in lower Manhattan with bands like the Ramones, Blondie and artists like Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, their band Television helped forged a new genre of American rock n’ roll music. Other punk bands with which the three would perform were the Neon Boys and the Voidoids. Richard Hell also appeared in motion pictures, most notably Desperately Seeking Susan, which starred Madonna.

George Thorogood

Another Snakegrinder spin-off was Dick Uranus, which went off into a more arty and punkish direction. Made up of Snakegrinder bassist Steve Roberts, keyboard player Dave Bennett, the band included newcomers Dana Smith, George Christie, Joe Pinzarone and drummer Jim Ficca, whose brother Billy played drums for Television.

Dick Uranus’ most successful tune was “Vice Squad Dick,” which in 1994 was covered by J. G. Thirlwell. Thirlwell is a post punk music producer, whose hardcore 1984 album Hole is a post punk masterpiece. Recording under the name “Foetus,” Thirlwell did not only record “Vice Squad Dick” for his 1994 album of the same name, but the tune, “Little Johnny Jewel,” penned by Tom Verlaine and previously recorded by Television.

Yet another spin-off from the Snakegrinder crew was the The Voltags. Formed in the late 1970s by one of the founders of Snakegrinder, keyboardist Dave Bennett, the band included guitarist Hangnail Phillips, bassist Rick Reid and drummer James Keesey, and recorded the tunes “Hot Flash” and “Talk of the Town,” among others.

From the 1980s into the 1990s as recording technologies became more accessible, and with the advent of the compact disc making the manufacture of quality and durable copies more cost effective, the number of local bands proliferated. Notable examples were Schroeder in the late 1980s and The Verge in the early 1990s. Sin City, with it roots in the 1970s, is still performing today.