The Flamingos: A Complete History of the Doo-Wop Legends by Todd Baptista

The Flamingos are one of the greatest, and most enduring, doo wop groups of them all, so it's a pleasure to report that Todd Baptista's biography, the first full-length study of the group, doesn't disappoint: this is a meticulously researched and very well organised account of their fortunes and changing personnel. The Flamingos' many permutations may not quite be in the Drifters' league but I can't have been the only one who found them confusing before Mr Baptista laid them out in these pages with such admirable clarity.

I confess to having been a little apprehensive when first picking up the book. With all the original members now dead, might the story turn out to be weighted in favour of Terry Johnson, the musical force behind what one might call the Mark II group? Encouraged by George Goldner, he helped steer them in more of a pop direction during their time on Goldner's End Records, leading to the huge crossover success of I Only Have Eyes For You ... but that was six years after Golden Teardrops, regarded by many as the greatest doo wop record of all, had been recorded for Chance Records in Chicago some time before Johnson joined.

As it turned out, however, I needn't have worried. Although Johnson's comments feature throughout the text due prominence is accorded to the group's R&B years in Chicago when Johnny Carter, later to join the Dells, was their presiding musical guide, cowriting and soaring over Golden Teardrops.

Mr Baptista acknowledges in the introduction that being obliged to rely on archive interviews for some group members means "it is obviously quite impossible ... to enjoy the same give and take" as with the living, although he does a good job anyway, doubtless helped by his having had conversations and correspondence in the past with Zeke and Jake Carey and Sollie McElroy. It should also be pointed out that Tommy Hunt's recently published autobiography is also quoted liberally, helping to provide balance, as he and Johnson seem to have been at loggerheads over most things. And Mr Baptista is obviously a passionate devotee of the group in both its early incarnations, noting that when a much-reduced Sollie McElroy sings a few songs at a UGHA concert in the 90s the warmth of the applause is really about the audience's "expressing their appreciation of the man himself, and what his pioneering work had meant to them over the years."

Reading through the book I'm struck by how shortlived Terry Johnson's time with the group proper was in relation to the decades-long span of their career. Whatever his other qualities Zeke Carey seems to have had a gift for alienating people, which meant that not only Johnson but Tommy Hunt and Nate Nelson all left in short order in the early sixties.

Losing two such complementary singers as well as the man who had done so much to refashion the group's music and bring them success in the pop market could have been a fatal blow (though Paul Wilson, a fixture from earliest days, remained on board) but the Careys kept the Flamingos going for many years to come, having a few more hits along the way, including Northern Soul favourite Boogaloo Party, and remaining in demand as a live act after record sales had dried up. Photographs peppered throughout the book illustrate the many changes of lineup as well as serving to illustrate shifts in fashion over the years. Zeke Carey wasn't content for them simply to be an oldies act, though such recordings as they did make in later years included the odd reworking of earlier hits with what we're told are variable results.

The ousted Terry Johnson, meanwhile, joined forces with fellow departee Nate Nelson to release a song called Let's Be Lovers which, unsurprisingly, sounded exactly like the Flamingos, though billed as the Starglows; after the record was apparently "killed" by Goldner, Johnson formed the Modern Flamingos, which went through a series of lineups of its own, one of which featured Nelson on lead before he left to join the Platters in 1965. This was a move prompted by Johnson's preference for recording; Nelson wanted the financial rewards of live performance - a pity, because otherwise there might have been more Flamingos records in all but name for us to enjoy.

The book takes us through the subsequent careers of Johnson, Tommy Hunt and Sollie McElroy. It is sad to read that after the Moroccos, the young group McElroy joined after the Flamingos, split up, he effectively dropped out of the business. The reason?

"I wanted that paycheck every day," he confessed. "I went out on too many gigs when the man said, 'We didn't have enough crowd,' or 'The guy ran away with the money.'"

There are also touching moments recorded when surviving original members receive various awards and sing together for the first time in years, experiencing the magic again, a counterbalance to the various recriminations and battles over the right to use the name which seem all too common for doo wop groups. (Zeke Carey had trademarked the name in the seventies and Terry Johnson had to fight a court case to have it cancelled after Carey's son put together his own version of the group after his father's death; Johnson's is now the only trademarked Flamingos group.)

Todd Baptista's book can be strongly recommended to fans of the Flamingos and doo wop in general. After an initial reading you will probably want to keep it to hand as a reference work, a guide to recordings and personnel. It's not a display of verbal fireworks on the author's part - his style is self-effacing, tying in with his stated aim in the introduction to allow the group members to tell as much of the story as possible in their own words. But it's packed with incidental detail and along the way you will also find succinct but on-the-money summations of many of the group's recordings.

In short, Mr Baptista has marshalled a mass of information with considerable skill and whether you prize Golden Teardrops above I Only Have Eyes For You or vice versa the result is a fitting tribute to a great group; here's hoping it will encourage more people to seek out their records.



The Flamingos can be bought directly from the publishers, McFarland, here, or from amazon. For those in the UK the cheapest option currently seems to be abebooks, or American amazon.
 
My guide to the Flamingos' Chance and Parrot sides, generously described by Marv Goldberg as "a wonderful analysis", can be found here.