Life By
The Chevrons
Music and Lyrics By
Raul A
Conde
The Chevrons were a
United States pop group who recorded the hit record "
Lullabye" in 1960.
The band featured lead singer
Terry Cashman, best known for his baseball songs, notably "
Talkin' Baseball", then known as
Dennis Minoque. The group disbanded when
John "Marty" Trautman, co-founder of the group, was drafted by the
U.S. Army on
December 11, 1962.
The Chevrons formed in the Inwood
Section of upper
Manhattan in
1958. The group consisted of tenor lead singer Dennis Minogue (Cashman), lead baritone/baritone John "Marty" Trautman, second tenor
Gary Giordan, first tenor
Frank Williams, and bass, Al Conde. Conde was formerly a member of The
Spirals from
Washington Heights, New York, who recorded "
Little Girl" and "
School Bells" c. 1958 for
George Goldner's
Gone record label.
The Chevrons' first recording on
Bob Shad's
Brent label was "That Comes
With Love" b/w "
Don't Be
Heartless", followed by "Lullabye" b/w "Day
After Forever". The success of "Lullabye" landed them an appearance on
Dick Clark's
American Bandstand on June 24, 1960. "Lullabye" was followed by an
album on
Time Records called Sing-Along
Rock N' Roll, which consisted of covers of twenty-six hit songs arranged in sing-a-long format. Several songs - including
Little Star,
Come Go With Me, and
Little Darlin' - were released off the album as
singles.
When The Chevrons disbanded, Conde went on to form another group called
The Holidays (c.
1961), recording two songs he had written for the group,"
New Orleans" and "Life" on the
Sabina label, owned and produced by
The Belmonts.
In 1967, Dennis Minogue aka Terry Cashman teamed up with
Gene Pistilli and
Tommy West on
Paramount Records to form the pop-folk group Cashman, Pistilli and
West. Their successful debut album,
Bound to Happen (1967) included the Cashman and Pistilli composition "Sunday Will
Never Be the Same", a summer 1967 hit for
Spanky and Our Gang.
Cashman and West later recorded the album
Tale of Two Cities (
American City Suite) on
Dunhill records, and produced several hits for
Jim Croce.
The Chevrons reunited in July
1988, to appear as guests on the "Doo-Wop
Shop" hosted by Don K. Reed
Show on
WCBS-FM. In
1999, The Wop
Ding A Ling collection of
New York doo-wop from the late
1950s and
1960s included "Lullabye" and "Don't Be Heartless".
On
December 25,
2011, co-founder John "Marty" Trautman (
Johnny '56) died at his home in
Coppell, Texas, a suburb of
Dallas. His final professional singing gig was earlier that month.
Raul (Al) Conde contributed a short story written about his real life experiences growing up as a kid in
Washington Heights NYC during the
1940s, 1950s, and 1960s to Heightsmemories.com.
Boris Riabov, a documentary filmmaker, happened to read the essay, and asked Al Conde if he could make a short documentary based on his true life story. The documentary was made and it is called (Through The
Eyes Of A Kid) Part 1, Part 2 Which can be watched on YouTube.com. An edited version was taken from the documentary, also was made called Recalling The
RKO Coliseum In Washington Heights NYC seen on YouTube.com
- published: 13 Feb 2016
- views: 38