Doo-wop (also spelled doowop and doo wop) is a subgenre of rhythm and blues music that originated in African-American communities during the late 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Harmonic singing of nonsense syllables (such as "doo-wop") is a common characteristic of these songs. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop was commercially viable until the early 1960s and continued to influence performers in other genres.
Origins
Doo-wop has complex musical, social, and commercial origins.
Musical precedents Doo-wop's style is a mixture of precedents in composition, orchestration, and vocals that figured in American popular music created by songwriters and vocal groups, both black and white, from the 1930s to the 1940s.
Composers such as Rodgers and Hart (in their 1934 song "Blue Moon"), and Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser (in their 1938 "Heart and Soul") used a I–vi–ii–V-loop chord progression in those hit songs; composers of doo-wop songs varied this slightly but significantly to the chord progression I–vi–IV–V, so influential that it is sometimes referred to as the ''50s progression. This characteristic harmonic layout was combined with the AABA chorus form typical for Tin Pan Alley songs.Ralf von Appen, Markus Frei-Hauenschild (2015). "AABA, Refrain, Chorus, Bridge, Prechorus — Song Forms and their Historical Development". In: Samples. Online Publikationen der Gesellschaft für Popularmusikforschung/German Society for Popular Music Studies e.V., Ed. by Ralf von Appen, André Doehring and Thomas Phleps. Vol. 13, p. 6.
Hit songs by black groups such as the Ink Spots ("If I Didn't Care", one of the best selling singles worldwide of all time, and "Address Unknown") and the Mills Brothers ("Paper Doll", "You Always Hurt the One You Love" and "Glow Worm")Whitburn, Joel, Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Records: 1940-1955, Record Research, Menomanee, Wisconsin, 1973 p.37 were generally slow songs in swing time with simple instrumentation. Doo-wop street singers generally performed without instrumentation, but made their musical style distinctive, whether using fast or slow tempos, by keeping time with a swing-like off-beat, while using the "doo-wop" syllables as a substitute for drums and a bass vocalist as a substitute for a bass instrument.
Doo-wop's characteristic vocal style was influenced by groups such as the Mills Brothers, whose close four-part harmony derived from the vocal harmonies of the earlier barbershop quartet.
The Four Knights' "Take Me Right Back to the Track" (1945), the Cats and the Fiddle's song "I Miss You So" (1939), and the Triangle Quartette's even earlier record "Doodlin' Back" (1929) prefigured doo-wop's rhythm and blues sound long before doo-wop became popular.
Elements of doo-wop vocal style In The Complete Book of Doo-Wop, co-authors Gribin and Schiff (who also wrote Doo-Wop, the Forgotten Third of Rock 'n' Roll), identify five features of doo-wop music: It is vocal music made by groups. It features a wide range of vocal parts, "usually from bass to falsetto". It includes nonsense syllables. It has a simple beat and low-key instrumentals. It has simple words and music.Gribin, Anthony j., and Matthew M. Schiff, The Complete Book of Doo-Wop, Collectables, Narberth, PA US, 2009 p. 17 While these features provide a helpful guide, they need not all be present in a given song for aficionados to consider it doo-wop, and the list does not include the aforementioned typical doo-wop chord progressions. Bill Kenny, lead singer of the Ink Spots, is often credited with introducing the "top and bottom" vocal arrangement featuring a high tenor singing the introduction and a bass spoken chorus. The Mills Brothers, who were famous in part because in their vocals they sometimes mimicked instruments, were an additional influence on street vocal harmony groups, who in singing a cappella arrangements, used wordless onomatopoeia to mimic musical instruments. For instance, "Count Every Star" by the Ravens (1950) includes vocalizations imitating the "doomph, doomph" plucking of a double bass. The Orioles helped develop the doo-wop sound with their hits "It's Too Soon to Know" (1948) and "Crying in the Chapel" (1953).
Origin of the name Although the musical style originated in the late 1940s and was very popular in the 1950s, the term "doo-wop" itself did not appear in print until 1961, when it was used in reference to the Marcels' song, "Blue Moon", in The Chicago Defender, just as the style's vogue was nearing its end. Though the name was attributed to radio disc jockey Gus Gossert, he did not accept credit, stating that "doo-wop" was already in use in California to categorize the music.
"Doo-wop" is itself a nonsense expression. In the Delta Rhythm Boys' 1945 recording, "Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin", it is heard in the backing vocal. It is heard later in the Clovers' 1953 release "Good Lovin (Atlantic Records 1000), and in the chorus of Carlyle Dundee & the Dundees' 1954 song "Never" (Space Records 201). The first hit record with "doo-wop" being harmonized in the refrain was The Turbans' 1955 hit, "When You Dance" (Herald Records H-458). The Rainbows embellished the phrase as "do wop de wadda" in their 1955 "Mary Lee" (on Red Robin Records; also a Washington, D.C., regional hit on Pilgrim 703); and in their 1956 national hit, "In the Still of the Night", the Five Satins sang across the bridge with a plaintive "doo-wop, doo-wah".
Development
The vocal harmony group tradition that developed in the United States after World War II was the most popular form of rhythm and blues music among black teenagers, especially those living in the large urban centers of the East Coast, in Chicago, and in Detroit. Among the first groups to perform in the vocal harmony tradition were the Orioles, the Five Keys, and the Spaniels. They specialized in romantic ballads that captured the emotional intensity of teenaged life in the late 1940s and early 1950s, focusing on themes of love, longing, and heartbreak. The nonsense string of syllables, "doo doo doo doo-wop", from which the name of the genre was later derived, is used repeatedly in the song "Just A-Sittin' and A-Rockin, recorded by the Delta Rhythm Boys in December 1945. By the mid-1950s, vocal harmony groups had transformed the smooth delivery of ballads into a performance style incorporating the nonsense phrase as vocalized by the bass singers, who provided rhythmic movement for a cappella songs. Soon, other doo-wop groups entered the pop charts, particularly in 1955, which saw such crossover doo-wop hits as "Sincerely" by the Moonglows, "Earth Angel" by the Penguins, the Cadillacs' "Gloria", the Heartbeats' "A Thousand Miles Away", Shep & the Limelites' "Daddy's Home", the Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes for You", and the Jive Five "My True Story".
Teenagers who could not afford musical instruments formed groups that sang songs a cappella at high school dances and other social occasions. They rehearsed on street corners and apartment stoops, as well as under bridges, in high school washrooms, and in hallways and other places with echoes: these were the only spaces with suitable acoustics available to them. Thus they developed a form of group harmony based in the harmonies and emotive phrasing of black spirituals and gospel music. Doo-wop music allowed these youths not only a means of entertaining themselves and others, but also a way of expressing their values and worldviews in a repressive white-dominated society, often through the use of innuendo and hidden messages in the lyrics.
Particularly productive doo-wop groups were formed by young Italian-American men, who, like their black counterparts, lived in rough neighborhoods (e.g., the Bronx and Brooklyn), learned their basic musical craft singing in church, and would gain experience in the new style by singing on street corners. New York City was the capital of Italian doo-wop, and all its boroughs were home to groups that made successful records.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, many Italian-American groups had national hits: Dion and the Belmonts scored with "I Wonder Why", "Teenager in Love", and "Where or When"; the Capris made their name in 1960 with "There's a Moon Out Tonight"; Randy & the Rainbows, who charted with their top-10 1963 single "Denise". Other Italian-American doo-wop groups were the Earls, the Chimes, the Elegants, the Mystics, the Duprees, Johnny Maestro & the Crests, and the Regents.
Some doo-wop groups were racially mixed. Puerto Rican Herman Santiago, originally slated to be the lead singer of the Teenagers, wrote the lyrics and the music for a song to be called "Why Do Birds Sing So Gay?", but whether because he was ill or because producer George Goldner thought that newcomer Frankie Lymon's voice would be better in the lead, Santiago's original version was not recorded. To suit his tenor voice, Lymon made a few alterations to the melody, and consequently, the Teenagers recorded the song known as "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?". Racially integrated groups with both black and white performers included the Del-Vikings, who had major hits in 1957 with "Come Go with Me" and "Whispering Bells", the Crests, whose "16 Candles" appeared in 1958, and the Impalas, whose "Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home)" was a hit in 1959. Chico Torres was a member of the Crests, whose lead singer, Johhny Mastrangelo, would later gain fame under the name Johnny Maestro.
Female doo-wop singers were much less common than males in the early days of doo-wop. Lillian Leach, lead singer of the Mellows from 1953 to 1958, helped pave the way for other women in doo-wop, soul, and rhythm and blues. Margo Sylvia was the lead singer for the Tune Weavers.
Baltimore
Like other urban centers in the US during the late 1940s and early 1950s, Baltimore developed its own vocal group tradition. The city produced rhythm and blues innovators such as the Cardinals, the Orioles, and the Swallows. The Royal Theatre in Baltimore and the Howard in Washington, D.C. were among the most prestigious venues for black performers on the so-called "Chitlin Circuit", which served as a school of the performing arts for blacks who had migrated from the deep South, and even more so for their offspring. In the late 1940s, the Orioles rose from the streets and made a profound impression on young chitlin' circuit audiences in Baltimore. The group, formed in 1947, sang simple ballads in rhythm and blues harmony, with the standard arrangement of a high tenor singing over the chords of the blended midrange voices and a strong bass voice. Their lead singer, Sonny Til, had a soft, high-pitched tenor, and like the rest of the group, was still a teenager at the time. His style reflected the optimism of young black Americans in the postmigration era. The sound they helped develop, later called "doo-wop", eventually became a "sonic bridge" to reach a white teen audience.
In 1948, Jubilee Records signed the Orioles to a contract, following which they appeared on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scout radio show. The song they performed, "It's Too Soon to Know", often cited as the first doo-wop song, went to number 1 on Billboards "Race Records" chart, and number 13 on the pop charts, a crossover first for a black group. This was followed in 1953 by "Crying in the Chapel", their biggest hit, which went to number 1 on the R&B chart and number 11 on the pop chart. The Orioles were perhaps the first of the many doo-wop groups who named themselves after birds.