No No No - Music

The Chanters Belonged To The "kid-Sound" School Of Rock ‘n’ Roll Which Was At The Time They Formed Riding High Because Of Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers. The Chanters Formed In Late 1957 Out Of A Group Of Friends In Queens New York. This Locale Was Far Removed From The R&B Centers In Harlem And Bedford-Stuyvesant And Allowed For More Original Sounds From Groups Like The Rivileers The Cleftones And The Videos. The Two Oldest Members Of The Chanters Fred Paige First And Second Tenor And Bud Johnson Jr. Second And First Tenor Were In High School The Others — Larry Pendergrass Lead Elliot Green Baritone And Bobby Thompson Bass — Were In Junior High. Paige Thompson And Johnson First Started Singing Together Informally Until Bud's Father Baritone Saxman And Bandleader Albert "Bud" Or "Budd" Johnson Senior Talked Them Into Forming A Full Group. Finally Bud Sr. Took Them To See Andy Gibson An A&r Man At King Records’ Deluxe Subsidiary. Gibson Signed The Group And Also Produced Their Session. While Bud Johnson’s Parents Encouraged Them To Be Singers The Relative Obscurity Of The Chanters Is Due To The Fact That Their Parents Felt They Were Too Young To Be Performers. They Appeared Only In The New York Area And Even Then Not At Any Theaters Or Clubs. In The Early 60s The Chanters Enjoyed A Resurgence Of Airplay. This Prompted DeLuxe To Re-Release Some Of The Group’s Sides In 1961. In Spite Of This The Group Disbanded Possibly Never Cashing In At All At The Birth Of The Oldies Craze. --Paraphrased From Article By Marv Goldberg read less