On Friday-Sunday, February 28-March 2, the Edgewater E Center will be the site of a nostalgic evening in two ways. There will be a show each night featuring the early R&B sounds of groups with direct lineage to three of the major recording groups in the genre in the ’50s-early ’60s. Adding to the “turn-back-the-clock” element of each show will be a sit down dinner before the show starts included in the admission price. This harkens back to the dinner show format that helped define Nevada casinos and is all but lost in today’s scene.

The evenings are billed as a “Doo Wop Dinner Show” featuring the music of The Original Cornell Gunter’s Coasters; The Legendary Monroe Powell & The Platters Revue; and Bobby Hendrick’s Drifters.

The dinner menu includes herb roasted airline chicken breast with tomatoes, artichokes and white wine lemon sauce over Yukon Gold mashed potatoes with glazed carrots. It comes with Romaine wedge salad and banana graham cracker fudge cake.

The music….

If you’ve noticed, each of the groups in this show have long, extended names. They aren’t The Drifters, Coasters and Platters but rather those names with addendums. This is because none of the original members of these groups are out there singing the songs anymore. It is up to groups that can claim some lineage to the original group to carry on the R&B music (and not simply doo wop) that made the originals inductees into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Various spin-off groups are jostling for position to lay claim to the famous names, and at times, it isn’t a pretty scene. Too many lawyers and not enough music. The groups in the Edgewater show have all fought the battles to retain their names and credibility and have direct ties to the origianl groups.

With that, here is more on each group…

 

THE LEGENDARY MONROE POWELL & THE PLATTERS REVUE

Monroe Powell replaced Sonny Turner as lead singer of The Platters in 1970, becoming the third lead in the group’s history. He was hand-picked by Platters’ founder and manager Buck Ram. He carries on the Platter tradition with Don Gloude, Kenny J. and Inez Zak.

The Platters string of hits included “Only You,” “The Great Pretender,” “My Prayer,” Twilight Time” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

The following is from an interview with Monroe Powell via phone last week….

Personal history…

Powell: Buck Ram, who wrote all of the Platters’ songs, hired me in 1970. I joined the group The Dominos in 1958. We came all the way from New York to Reno and from there to Las Vegas at the old Dunes Hotel. It was Billy Ward and The Dominos. Then I was with the Ink Spots at the old Hacienda in 1970 when Herb Reed saw me. Sonny Turner resigned as lead singer of the Platters in 1969 and I took his place. I’ve been here ever since.

The audience..

Powell: Our demographic has a lot to do with it (our continued bookings). People our age still love the old stuff…and I don’t blame them. I think they like that the music has simple melodic lines. They know that when that goes away, music goes away.

The name game…

Powell: It’s an ongoing thing. We’re still fighting that, but you know, I think we’re going to come out OK on the end. Guys who are trying to take the name were not even born when the music came out. They say they deserve to be The Platters—no way. These are people behind the scenes and shouldn’t have anything to do with a group when they weren’t even alive when the music was out.

I’ve been in the group 40-something years and they want to horn in. I was lucky to have been around back then and to have been a part of the group. All the original Platters have died. Herb Reed was the last one and he died two years ago.

Today’s music…the bad

Powell: I think good music will always outlast the bad stuff. I was watching a basketball game on TV and I watched the half-time show. It was horrible. It was beyond belief.

Today’s music…the good

Powell: As bad as some musicians are today, they make sure they get their money. It’s not like the old days when black singers were ripped off so many times. It was the managers who made all the money. I hope the young guys who make sure they get their money have sense enough to keep it.

Doo wop show format…

Powell: Everybody sings together on the finale but each group does their own segment. We still do the choreography—the little stuff with my old legs. It’s a classy show.

 

THE ORIGINAL CORNELL GUNTER’S COASTERS

The Coasters were the masters of the “novelty song.” With hits like “Charlie Brown,” “Poison Ivy,” “Yakety Yak,” “Little Egypt,” and many more, they became the first vocal group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Cornell Gunter was a member of the The Coasters from 1958 to 1961, after which he spun off his own Coasters group. He tapped Charlie Duncan as a member in 1962. Today, Duncan, Lionel “Z” Pope and Ramon Scruggs continue the Coaster tradition.

The following is from an interview with Charlie Duncan via phone last week….

The music…

Duncan: All these songs relate to everybody. We did a show last Friday and we had a group contest with people singing “Charlie Brown.” There was a little girl there, 11 or 12, who new every word to “Yakety Yak” so we had her on stage and people went nuts. She pronounced it “lakety lak.” It’s amazing how many generations know the songs—unlike a lot of music today, where after a year, no one can remember the words.

The name game….

Duncan: John Bowser (of Sha Na Na fame) and I are working together to stop bogus groups. They can’t perform as “originals” without one member in the group, otherwise, they have to say tribute. I just stopped a group in Texas. They seem to think a night here and a night there doesn’t hurt anyone, but it does. It deceives the public.

It makes it bad on me because we ask for one price and these other groups cut their price in half. So then venues sometimes think we’ll do it for half…..and that’s not going to happen. I’ve been doing this too long. We’re a top notch group.

The book…

Duncan: I have a book that comes out at the end of the month called The Legend and the Life of Cornell Gunter of The Coasters as told by Charlie Duncan. I’m hoping to have some copies to bring to Laughlin. It’s about the trials and tribulations of the time long, long ago, back in the day.

The CD…

Duncan: We have a CD coming out called Super Singles with six original songs on it. I just did a theme song to a new reality show called, “Living it up.” Some of the other songs are “Hollyweird,” “Worlds of Love,” “What Happens in Vegas Gets Emailed Home,” and “ID Theft.” I also just recorded a country song by George Strait, called “The Chair.”

Is there an R&B scene these days? Does it have a future?

Duncan: No and no. There isn’t anyone out there doing it. There’s hip hop and rap. Maybe there’s Bruno Mars, but that’s it. And to me all the songs sound the same.

Rough road….

Duncan: One time when I went to get the check, the club owner told me he gave it to the manager and that he was already gone. It used to happen to black groups a lot.

We were in a place outside of Pittsburgh for a two night stand and an agent came up to me and said they cancelled one of the shows and an agent said we weren’t getting paid for the cancelled show. I went to the owner and he said the agent lied and that he paid him for that show already. I had to go crazy just to get my money. I had 15 people I had to pay. Situations like that only make me stronger.

The show…

Duncan: These guys I’m with always give me a good show. These guys are my brothers so nothing can go wrong. And we always work well with the other groups we perform with….Monroe Powell—you can’t find anyone any better and the same with Bobby Hendricks.

 

BOBBY HENDRICKS’ DRIFTERS

The Drifters enjoyed some of the biggest hits of all these groups with songs still resonating today—songs like “On Broadway,” “Under the Boardwalk,” and “Up on the Roof.”

In 1957, Bobby Hendricks’ group, The Five Crowns, were the opening act for the Drifters. The Drifters were so impressed with his tenor voice and Clyde McPhatter style that they offered him the position of lead vocalist replacing Johnny Moore. He left the Drifters in 1959, and a year later, he joined Bill Pinkney and The Original Drifters where he toured for 17 years.

The following is from an interview with Bobby Hendricks via phone last week….

Keeping on keeping on…

Hendricks: I’ve been doing this for years, and every moment I enjoy it. I pray I can do it the next day and the next day. I want to get on that stage and make people happy.

I also like to do shows at children’s hospitals. Seeing those kids always brings tears to my eyes. I do it because God has been so good to me that if I share what I love doing, that lets them know I care.

A wish…

Hendricks: I’d like to do new music that’s about caring for one another—not just about girlfriends and boyfriends—but all of us. If I can come up with the words about all God’s children, that’s what I’d like to do.

Dick Clark…

Hendricks: Dick Clark was a good friend and he helped me get my music out. In a song I wrote, called “Itchy Twitchy Feeling,” there was a line in there about being on Dick Clark’s show. Dick was one of the nicest men I ever met. He accepted everyone, respecting them because of their musical talents. He was a wonderful, beautiful man.

The audience…

Hendricks: The older people come out to hear the music they lived on, listened to, and danced to—and we enjoy that. We get the younger generation to laugh when they see how much their parents loved the music. You see them hugging their mamas. They see why their parents are the way they are and how the music was part of their lives…and it was the music, in many cases, that created them, made them children.

Talk about being inducted into the Doo Wop Hall of Fame…

Hendricks: Thank you for asking. I never expected those things, but as I’ve gotten older, I realized how much value there is in them.

Is there an R&B scene these days? Does it have a future?

Hendricks: There’s Bruno Mars. That young man is out of this world. He was raised by his four sisters who would tell him that his singing was just making noise. But then he became so successful that he’s got his sisters together singing.

If you have talent, you have to get it out and let the world know. Make people happy, that’s the whole idea.

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 DOO WOP DINNER SHOW

The Edgewater E Center