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With her little stature, her wide and brilliant smile, her apple cheeks and her boy's soprano voice, Frankie Lymon, 13, embodies the innocence of adolescents. At the same time, he seemed in January 1956 when Gee Records, a label belonging to George Goldner, a New York entrepreneur who had already marked R&B and Latin Hits, published “why the fools Falls in Love”, with Lymon on main voices. Rock'n'roll was preparing itself as an international feeling. The vocal sets of the east coast of the east coast of vocal sets of the east coast such as the Penguins, Flamingos and Adolescents. These groups were largely made up of black, Puerto Rican and Italian adolescents from Harlem and the Bronx who started singing at the corners of the street.
The teenagers – three blacks, two Puerto Ricans – from Washington Heights, a district north of Harlem, were much more streetwids than the adoring public who bought their files could have imagined. “I have never been a child,” said Lymon in an interview from 1967. “I was a man at the age of 11, doing everything most men do. In the neighborhood I lived, there was no time to be a child. While children my age played stick and balls, I worked at the grocery store to help pay the rent. ”
When he does not deliver a grocery store, Lymon harmonized at the corners of the street with young locals, joining a quintet called the first. Richard Barrett, a organic singer employed by Goldner as a right man and talented scout, heard the Prime Ministers and organized a hearing. Goldner has chosen a number called “why do the birds sing so gay”. Herman Santiago, the tenor of the group, had developed the song from lines in a love letter which was transmitted to him by a neighbor in the projects when he complained of lacking inspiration.
Goldner, which produced a remarkable series of success through 1953-1965, felt that Lymon's soprano was something special, so the youngest and smallest member of the group (now called adolescents, insistence of Goldner) as main singer. He also renamed the song “Why the fools fall in love”. Goldner and Lymon made adjustments to the studio track: when he was released, Santiago-Lymon-Goldner shared the writing credit, while the label said “The teenagers featuring Frankie Lymon”.
The pure exuberance of “why the fools fall in love”, and the soil voice of Lymon, made a huge success and established the teenagers as the first teenage stars of the rock'n'roll era. Lymon kissed the fame and his external signs with a fury – sex, drink, drugs (he was addicted to the 15 -year -old heroine). After several shots, the group (now called Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers) separated while he was performing in London in early 1957.
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“Why do fools fall in love,” had become a norm. Canadian white vocal quintet The diamonds rushed to a blanket – they were known to mark successes with bland versions of black Doo -Woppers songs but, this time, the public remained with the original. In Great Britain, Alma Cogan published an unconvincing version in the middle of 1956. In the 1964 recording of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson sings the role of Lymon with a beautifully serious desire (they continue to play the song today). Successful film by George Lucas in 1973 American graffiti Presented the song on its soundtrack, revival of its popularity.
In 1980, Joni Mitchell published a live recording of “Fools”, supported by Vocal Quintet The Persuasions. It is engaging to hear Mitchell having fun singing a song that she obviously loved since childhood. A year later, Diana Ross's without inspiration interpretation of Diana Ross gave the singer one of her greatest solo successes, selling more than 250,000 copies in the United Kingdom.
Frankie Lymon did not live to see the song take advantage of a life after lucrative death. His post-adolescent career collapsed quickly and he died of a heroin overdose in 1968, at the age of 25, never received a penny of royalties. Goldner, an inveterate player, sold his label and his publishing rights to Morris Levy, a thug affiliated with the crowd that ruthlessly stole his artists.
After Ross marked his success with “Fools”, the three women of Lymon – he never divorced any of them – all went to court by claiming that they were entitled to his royalties (the writers of the song are now credited like Levy -Lymon). After an prolonged legal process, a New York judge ruled that Elizabeth Waters was the real widow of Lymon and was entitled to royalties of “fools”. Herman Santiago then tried to recover his name on the publication of the song he originally composed; He succeeded, but an American court of appeal determined that he had left him for too long.
“Why the fools fall in love” is a reminder of the way the dreams of adolescents and the practice of the music industry often collided – these adolescents probably never wanted to sing beyond the corners of the street of Washington Heights.
Let us know your memories of “ why the fools fall in love '' in the section of the comments below
The pocket edition of “ The life of a song: the stories behind 100 of the most appreciated songs in the world ''Published by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Chambers
Musical credits: Isis; Parlophone; Capitol; Rhinoceros
