The best known photo of The Marcels, but not the original lineup.
Back row, left to right: Ronaldo "Bingo" Mundy,
Cornelius "Nini" Harp, Walt Maddox.
Front row: Allen Johnson (left) and Fred Johnson.
April 3, 1961: "Blue Moon" by The Marcels hits Number 1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100. This marks the final triumph of rock and roll over the music it replaced.
How can I say that? Because rock and roll had taken one of the top songs in what had already become unofficially known as "The Great American Songbook," by one of its greatest songwriting teams, and turned it into a rock and roll song, and made it better. Much better.
In 1933, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz "Larry" Hart were hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to write the songs for its film Hollywood Party. Rodgers recalled:
So it became:
Oh Lord
if You're not busy up there
I ask for help with a prayer.
So please don't give me the air.
But the song was not recorded, and Harlow didn't even appear in the finished movie. Hart wrote new lyrics for the tune, as the title song for the 1934 film Manhattan Melodrama:
Act One:
You gulp your coffee and run.
Into the subway you crowd.
Don't breathe, it isn't allowed.
But, again, the song was cut from the film. The studio then asked for a nightclub number for the film. Rodgers still liked the melody, so Hart wrote a third lyric, titling it "The Bad in Every Man":
Oh Lord
I could be good to a lover
But then I always discover
the bad in ev'ry man.
Finally, the song was included, and sung by Shirley Ross. Jack Robbins, the head of MGM's publishing company, decided that the tune was suited to commercial release, but needed more romantic lyrics and "a punchier title." Hart was initially reluctant to write yet another lyric, but he was persuaded, with these results:
Blue moon, you saw me standing aloneWithout a dream in my heartWithout a love of my own.
Blue moon, you knew just what I was there forYou heard me saying a prayer forSomeone I really could care for.
And then there suddenly appeared before meThe only one my arms will holdI heard somebody whisper, "Please adore me"And when I looked, the moon had turned to gold.
Blue moonNow I'm no longer aloneWithout a dream in my heartWithout a love of my own.
Robbins licensed the final version of the song to Hollywood Hotel, a nationally-syndicated (non-network) radio program, which used it as the theme. The cover of Robbins' 1934 sheet music edition credits the song to Ted Fio Rito, with a vocal by Muzzy Marcellino, recorded on Brunswick 7315, on October 19, 1934. Billboard magazine wasn't yet publishing popular music charts (they started in 1940), but Variety, the "trade paper" for the American film industry, did, and Fio Rito's version of "Blue Moon" hit Number 1 in their January 26, 1935 edition.
The song became a "standard," part of what has come to be called "The Great American Songbook." Billy Eckstine and Mel Tormé each had a hit with it in 1949. In 1954, in one of his earliest recordings, Elvis Presley recorded it, having already recorded Bill Monroe's bluegrass song "Blue Moon of Kentucky," which bears no relation beyond title to "Blue Moon."
On February 15, 1961, The Marcels, a doo-wop group from Pittsburgh, recorded the song for Colpix Records, for an album of the same title. It also included "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz.
Unusually for a doo-wop group, but like fellow Pittsburghers The Dell-Vikings, The Marcels were racially integrated: Gene Bricker and Richard Knauss were white, while lead singer Cornelius "Nini" Harp, bass singer Fred Johnson, and Ronald "Bingo" Mundy were black. The group was named after Harp's hairstyle, "The Marcel Wave."
They sang "Blue Moon" in doo-wop style, and it hit Number 1 in the April 3 edition of Billboard. It was followed by another rocked-up version of a standard, the 1931 Al Kenner and John Hoffman song "Heartaches," but that would be their last Top 10 hit.
It didn't help that Southern venues wouldn't book an integrated group. So the white members, Bricker and Knauss, left in 1962. The replacements were Walt Maddox and Johnson's brother Allen Johnson.
In 1979, the film An American Werewolf in London was released. Bobby Vinton's soft version of "Blue Moon" plays over the opening credits. Sam Cooke's slow version plays when the main character undergoes his first transformation. And The Marcels' version plays over the closing credits.
In a 1981 episode of Laverne & Shirley, set in 1965, characters argue over music, agree that they both like "Blue Moon," but disagree as to the versions: Frank DeFazio (Laverne's father, played by Phil Foster) loves the 1934 original, while Carmine Ragusa (Shirley's ex-boyfriend and still the group's friend, played by Eddie Mekka) prefers the 1961 doo-wopper. In a fantasy sequence, Leslie Easterbrook, who played group friend Rhonda Lee, sings both versions.
Lorenz Hart died in 1943, Sam Cooke was killed in 1964, Ted Fio Rito died in 1971, Elvis Presley in 1977, Richard Rodgers in 1979, Billy Eckstine in 1993, Maurice "Muzzy" Marcelino in 1997, and Mel Tormé in 1999. As of April 3, 2022, Bobby Vinton is still alive.
Of The Marcels: Gene Bricker died in 1983, Allen Johnson in 1995, lead singer Cornelius "Nini" Harp in 2013, Ronald "Bingo" Mundy in 2017, and Fred Johnson, the bass singer who gave the song it's "Bomp-ba-ba-bomp-a-dang-a-dang-dang," in 2022. Walt Maddox was definitely still alive at that point, and I can find no date of death for Richard Knauss, so he may still be alive, which would make him the last surviving original member.
*
April 3, 1961 was a Monday. Comedian and actor Eddie Murphy was born. So was ill-fated baseball pitcher Tim Crews, who died in a boating accident during Spring Training in 1993.
On this day, as well, baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. No NBA games were scheduled. And while the Stanley Cup Playoffs were in progress, no games were played. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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