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Chapter 49: Not Fade Away

Vocal pop & doo-wop

There’s no need to be unimaginative when it comes to nonsense background vocal syllables; why sing “ba ba ba” or “shoo be do bop” when you could go with “yip yip way bop de boom ditty boom ditty”? Johnnie Ray’s “Yes Tonight Josephine” goes there. The best doo-wop groups find similarly creative ways to use the voices at their disposal, from the staccato bursts of “I Only Have Eyes For You” to the soothing dum-dums of “The Old Lamplighter.”
1. Dion & The Belmonts

A Teenager In Love

2. Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Not Fade Away

3. Fats Domino

Blueberry Hill

4. The Jive Five

My True Story

5. The Larks

Coffee Cigarettes and Tears

6. The Flamingos

I Only Have Eyes For You

7. Johnnie Ray

Yes Tonight Josephine

8. Little Eva

The Loco-Motion

9. Dion

Runaround Sue

10. The Browns

The Old Lamplighter