WESTSIDE / VALLEY : Doo-Wop Lives On : The 1950s singing style enjoys a resurgence with radio shows, live acts and its own 300-member fan club

By JEFF PRUGH

Aug. 22, 1993 12 AM PT

<i> Jeff Prugh is a Times staff writer. </i>

S hoh-dohten shoh-bee-doh,

Shoh-dohten shoh-bee-doh . . .

In the still of the night,

I held you--held you tight. . .

Their voices still purr on the radio like a ’57 Chevy with dual pipes, the harmony flawlessly stitched together like a custom tuck-and-roll Naugahyde back seat.

The Five Satins’ 1956 hit “In the Still of the Night” plays on and on, thanks to replays on oldies stations and to the enormously popular Boyz II Men, who turned a born-again version of the song into a Top 40 hit.

It’s all part of a revival of shoo-wops, sha-na-nas, whee-ooohs, shamma-ling-longs and all those other lyrics from pop songs that long ago made sense only if you were 15 and listened to Hunter Hancock, Art Laboe and Dick (Huggy Boy) Hugg. These white deejays helped launch mostly young black groups named the Chords (“Sh-Boom”), the Moonglows (“Sincerely”), the Penguins (“Earth Angel”), the Cadillacs (“Speedo”) and the Marcels (“Blue Moon”), among many others, toward fleeting fame and usually lesser fortune.

So, roll over, Van Halen, and tell Ice-T and Hammer the news:

Doo-wop lives. In the past-- and present.

Just as a cappella singing enjoys a renaissance, so does doo-wop --a name coined in the late ‘60s for vintage ‘50s and early ‘60s R & B vocals: a tenor or falsetto often singing lead, overlaid by a tapestry of deep, lush harmony that includes a throbbing bass and needs little or no instrumentation.

“Barbershop harmony with a beat,” rock historian Norm N. Nite called this music rooted in gospel and left for dead by all but its true-grit followers, who insist that doo-wop never really died but “just took a leave of absence.”

“We appreciate how good all these guys really are because everything else that’s going on now is so crappy,” says Dr. John Stalberg, 48, a Santa Monica psychiatrist and president/co-founder of the nonprofit Doo-Wop Society of Southern California, headquartered in Seal Beach. The group boasts more than 300 members and hosts a doo-wop radio hour at 10 p.m. Sundays on KWIZ (96.7 FM), as well as live shows each quarter at The Hop, a Lakewood nightclub.

“People in their 40s and early 50s don’t like most of that other stuff that’s going on,” he adds. “That’s why country music is so popular today. It’s a reaction to rap. And so is doo-wop.”

Some fans scoff at the notion that doo-wop was reborn as long ago as the 1970s with the TV show “Sha Na Na,” starring the musical group of the same name, whose 10 male vocalists were long on both talent and parody, wearing shades, leather jackets and thickly greased, ducktailed hair.

“Aw, those guys made fun of doo-wop,” says Marvin Kaminsky, 53, of Northridge, a co-founder with Stalberg of the Doo Wop Society’s Southern California chapter. “The guys I grew up listening to back East--Dion and the Belmonts and Jimmy Keyes of the Chords--sang doo-wop because they loved it.”

Exactly when doo-wop began is unclear. “Gee” by the Crows (1954) is said to be the first million-seller doo-wop recording, co-authors Jim Dawson and Steve Propes write in a new book, “What Was the First Rock ‘n’ Roll Record?” Some contend that the Clovers’ “One Mint Julep” (1952) was, as the song itself says, “the start of it all.”

What is clear is that 1950s doo-wop has inspired countless rock ballads, says Art Laboe, still going strong as an impresario of oldies, including doo-wop, on KRLA (1110 AM). “Music,” he adds, “is something that tends to return to its roots.”

As doo-wop came of age during the segregated 1950s, it also made a powerful statement about ethnic harmony, bringing together black and white teen-agers to share their affection for the music, tapping toes, snapping fingers, swaying to the beat.

“Listen! Doo-wop music in L.A. helped the white kids and us understand each other,” says Don McLendon, 55, who is black and resides in the Antelope Valley community of Littlerock, having grown up in South-Central Los Angeles as a backup singer for some doo-wop performers.

On the East Coast--particularly New York, where Stalberg grew up--doo-wop has captured its largest following nationally, with predominantly white audiences flocking to shows where the performers are mostly black.

“Blacks don’t like to live in the past--they prefer to do what’s hip,” says Stalberg, who is white and, as a youngster, immersed himself so deeply into doo-wop’s woof and web that his friends nicknamed him Dr. Trivia.

He nodded toward the stage at The Hop, where black doo-wop singers performed at a benefit. “You won’t find these guys turning up on the Arsenio Hall show,” he said.

Doo-wop’s rise now also is starting to bridge generations and reach overseas, notably England. Before she moved to London, a fan named Desiree Cabrera, now in her early 20s, wrote in a letter in Echo!, the Doo-Wop Society’s newsletter, that she was starting a doo-wop club in Spain:

“I was born in 1969 with a doo-wop heart, and that music gives me life every day! . . . I want to say to everybody who lives in Los Angeles, Florida, New Jersey and New York: You’re lucky! Can you imagine living in a country where doo-wop never arrived? Yes, no doo-wop in the ‘50s because we had a dictatorship.”

“Good luck, Desiree!” the newsletter’s editor replied. “When the rest of us are slobbering away in rest homes, we hope you guys will form committees to bring doo-wop to the aged!”

Doo-wop’s early performers--including Tony (“Night Owl”) Allen and Richard (“Louie Louie”) Berry, then youngsters from 1950s inner-city Los Angeles--are hailed by their rag-tag but hard-core faithful as the real roots of rock ‘n’ roll.

Time has knocked them down but not counted them out. Their hair thinner and waistlines thicker, they still reprise those rich, mellow voices they long ago meshed as teen-agers on ghetto street corners and front stoops, humming chords that many had learned in church or from gospel tunes.

And those nonsensical syllables? Well, there was absolutely no nonsense about them to artists such as Rip Spencer, who sang as “Marvin” on Marvin and Johnny’s original version of “Cherry Pie.” “Many of us couldn’t afford a band to back us up,” Spencer says, “so we sang those syllables to take the place of musical instruments.”

Many who gave birth to doo-wop cut demo recordings in musty garages, singing into a lone microphone dangling from a rafter, their voices amplified by makeshift cardboard megaphones.

“We, the children of the ‘50s, changed American music,” says McLendon, who attended Fremont High School in South-Central Los Angeles. “Before us, America had no real music or idols--music that really came from the people. In our neighborhood, we oohed and we ahhed by ear--until the chords matched. We were too shy to talk to the girls, so we sang to them.”

Later, McLendon says, he sang with the Larks (“The Jerk”) and as a backup artist for the late balladeer Jesse Belvin (“Goodnight, My Love”), an alumnus of Los Angeles’ Jefferson High School.

Back then, he adds, students from Jefferson and Fremont high schools exchanged talent at assemblies, with Jeff’s Etta James soon to become a hit singer with “Dance With Me, Henry.”

“Music kept us all out of trouble,” McLendon says. “We sang for old ladies’ teas and the YWCA. They gave us something to eat, and we were happy.”

Today, doo-wop’s resurgence nurtures a small but growing subculture on radio--”Friday Night Revue” (8 to 10 p.m. Fridays), “Rhythm and Blues Time Capsule” (10 p.m. Fridays to 2 a.m. Saturdays) and “Rhapsody in Black” (2 to 4 a.m. Saturdays), all on KPCC (89.3 FM)--and in books such as “Doo-Wop: The Forgotten Third of Rock and Roll” by Anthony J. Gribin and Matthew M. Schiff.

And doo-wop trivia buffs can tell you that the Robins (“Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” 1955) became the Coasters (“Yakety Yak,” 1958). Doo-wop trivia also is knowing not just the flip sides or recording studios of hit records, but the label colors as well.

At the heart of the doo-wop revival locally is a contemporary a cappella quartet, the Mighty Echoes, white males who excel at singing hits by white groups (“I Wonder Why” by Dion and the Belmonts) or blacks (“The Closer You Are” by the Channels) and have appeared on TV and in concerts.

“It’s a challenge--four middle-aged white guys singing this music,” says baritone Harvey Shield, who grew up in London, listening to Dion, the Five Satins and other U.S. artists on the radio. “It never really made any difference to me whether these groups were black, white or green.”

At the same time, a Studio City record producer, Bruce Patch of Classic Artists Recordings, distributes doo-wop songs--some old, some new--on CDs and cassettes. Some radio stations have played his revised version of the Tune Weavers’ 1957 hit “Happy, Happy Birthday Baby,” which he calls “Merry, Merry Christmas Baby.”

To doo-wop’s staunchest worshipers, the music transcends its brief life span (1954 to 1963) as an art form drowned out by the British onslaught, the tidal waves of surf music and the tripping out on acid rock. They argue that doo-wop’s charm cannot really be measured by big bucks, bright lights or streets paved in gold or platinum.

Rather, they say, doo-wop endures because it rekindles simpler times, of those ’57 Chevys, dual pipes and tuck-and-roll Naugahyde seats.

“My wife enjoyed the last doo-wop show so much that when we had to drive home afterward, she cried,” McLendon says.

“One of my friends told me that whenever our shows end, he has to force himself to walk outside--back to what the world of today has changed to,” says Kaminsky of the Doo-Wop Society. “Inside, during our shows, everybody’s happy again. There’s no trouble--not even a fight in four years!”

And besides, says singer Grady Chapman of the Coasters, “It’s still good music.”

The Mighty Echoes will perform Sept. 11 at the Largo, 432 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 852-1073, and Sept. 19 at Philly West, 1870 Westwood Blvd., Westwood, (310) 474-9787.