Frankie Lymon is one of the most requested artists here at Oldies Television.
His youthful, magnetic charm and powerful singing voice has transcended steady popularity
for over two decades!
DISCUSS YOUR FAVORITE JUKE BOX OLDIES
Sad, but true In the 50's, the music business was less than kind to streetcorner groups
who made hit records for their labels. Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, like The Ad Libs,
The Jesters and so many others never saw a dime of royalty money from their top ten charted
records. It took people like Berry Gordy jr., founder of Motown Records, to turn things
around for black artists.
Frankie Lymon (1942-1968) & the Teenagers were a New York doo wop group consisting of Joe Negroni, Herman Santiago, Jimmy Merchant, and Sherman Garnes but centered around the extraordinary talents of their lead singer, 13-year-old Frankie Lymon. Lymon was credited with their first big hit, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (In the early '90s, a federal judge ruled after a lengthy trial that Lymon hadn't written "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" -- another member of the Teenagers had). His wise-beyond-his-years vocal and performing abilities not only made the Teenagers a group several notches above the competition but made Lymon the first Black teenage pop star. Though only together for a brief 18-month period, Lymon & the Teenagers exerted an enormous influence, spawning several "kid" vocal groups and providing initial inspiration to Berry Gordy to model his entire Motown production approach around Lymon's original vocal style. Inexplicably, the group split into two factions at the height of their success, and neither had a hit again. Lymon died from a drug overdose at age 26. Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Len Barry, and his principal prot�g�, Michael Jackson (whose early recordings with the Jackson 5 are virtual re-creations of the early Lymon sound, merely updated) all show the influence of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers's groundbreaking work. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide
>i>Goody Goody was Frankie Lymon's solo hit which entered the top twenty on the
national charts in the fall of 1958.
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