The Spaniels
In Milwaukee’s rollicking, original Black rhythm and blues days of the 1950s, our hottest spot was the Colonial movie house, 1514 W. Vliet Street. Every top R&B vocal group and solo stars—from Spaniels and El Dorados to Little Richard and Bo Diddley—graced its big stage for raucous, sell-out Black audiences.
Discovering ‘50s Black R&B as a very young teenager, I’d ride one of the city’s streetcars to The Colonial. There, I’d hob-nob with famous performers, many of whom routinely mixed-in with the fans during intermissions. Great times.
The place was always jammed with Black people of all ages on hand to hear the real thing. That was when most white people were unfamiliar with our soulful, foot-tapping sound. Copycat whites later made lame, cover-records.
Years later, among many New York City venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn, my faves were the legendary Apollo Theater on 125th Street, and storied Radio City Music Hall on Fifth Avenue. Both were the best, to say the least.
I heartily recall June 8, 1991—a hot and humid Saturday night – and the “25th Royal New York Doo-Wop Show.” By 7 p.m., hundreds of people in line outside Radio City were rocking back and forth trying to stay cool.
But there was something atypical about this otherwise typical New York gaggle of music lovers waiting to listen, tap their feet and sing along to Black music. Most were in their 40s and 50s, and most were white. Indeed, times had changed.
Quiet Anticipation
Inside the storied home of the Rockettes—where countless show business legends had strutted their stuff—the near capacity crowd sat in quiet anticipation. Indeed, they were awaiting the appearance of another show business legend, albeit a sadly unheralded one in white, mainstream America.
It was the Spaniels—a pioneering Black vocal group from Gary, Indiana, whose 1954 breakthrough “Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight” was most responsible for bringing Black rhythm and blues to the attention of whites.
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After an hour of feel-good doo-wop by a vocal group from the Bronx and several vaguely familiar aggregations, the moment had arrived. Local radio disc jockey Bobby Jay—the host and a former bass singer with several Black R&B groups—took the microphone to lovingly introduce the born-again Spaniels. They were who everyone—including me and my wife, Janice—had come to see and hear.
As Bobby mentioned Gerald Gregory—the group’s boom-boom bass who had been his inspiration—and James “Pookie” Hudson, phenomenal lead voice and songwriter extraordinaire, it was clear the show had reached its climax.
Splendix Mix
My heart soared hearing their “You Gave Me Peace of Mind,” “Everyone’s Laughing,” “Bounce,” “You’re Gonna’ Cry, and “Danny Boy”—the latter in a cappella.
Four of the original Spaniels were there—as was the case at the Colonial in Milwaukee years earlier. Willie C. Jackson and Opal Courtney Jr. were present—with only Ernest Warren missing. But their astounding sound was the same.
In their 60s—no longer the talented teenagers who burst upon the scene in 1953 with the haunting “Baby, It’s You”—they still displayed a splendid mix of rollicking work that put them at the top of Black R&B in the 1950s. And I loved it.
At that moment, I recalled those glorious Milwaukee days the Colonial, where I saw and heard the Clovers, Five Keys, Orioles, Drifters, Moonglows, Counts, Morroccos and Danderliers, along with the Spaniels and El Dorados.
Some of the deep, bass voices on stage parroted the booming bass lines of Gerald Gregory, Prentiss Barnes and Bill Pinkney. The latter, of course, astounded Black America in 1954 with his signature bass lead with the Drifters on Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” still a holiday staple.
Barbershops and Beauty Shops
Black Milwaukeeans flocked to see these fine performers when they came to town. Their presence was heralded on colorful posters plastered on telephone poles, light poles and in windows of Black barbershops, beauty shops, restaurants and taverns on Walnut Street, North Avenue and Center Street.
In addition to the hallowed Colonial, Black R&B shows held forth at other movie houses such as the Garfield, on Third and Chambers and, on occasion, downtown at the Riverside and Palace theaters, on Wisconsin Avenue.
In those days, summer nights in Black Milwaukee saw R&B booming from cruising car radios via clear-channel WLAC Radio in Tennessee via Randy’s Record Shop in Nashville. Yet, Randy Wood, a record retailer, was white, as was his main host, Black-sounding DJ Hoss Allen.
All that was then, and this is now. And some of the storied, original Black R&B artists have deservedly been enshrined in the Cleveland-based Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But sadly, not the pioneering Spaniels, whose classic, memorable, “Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight,” woke-up white America to our music in 1954. This is an ongoing sacrilege.
But happily, much of the good, original Black R&B stuff had much of its heyday right here in my teenage Milwaukee of the 1950s. That’s when all the leading artists appeared. And for this, I’ll always be thankful I was here to enjoy it.
