Who was/is The Basin Street Boys ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
The Basin Street Boys
The Basin Street Boys with Eddie Beal's Fourtet
I Sold My Heart To The Junk Man
With all the film and recording opportunities therein, Los Angeles had room for plenty of polished black harmony groups during the war years, and The Basin Street Boys were one of its best. Lead singer Ormonde (alternate spellings: Ormond and Ormand) Wilson had named his quartet after Steve Gibson's by-then-defunct group of the same handle (Wilson had come to know them while attending Belmont High School). The Boys weren't Wilson's first professional aggregation; he'd sung with Ben Cartens' Plantation Boys and then The Dreamers.
Wilson joined forces with Gene Price, Reuben Saunders, and Arthur Rainwater (aka Artie Waters) to found the reconstituted Basin Street Boys. Before the year was through, they signed with Leon Rene's fledgling Exclusive label. Rene was a true industry pioneer, a black Creole songwriter who had penned the standard When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano prior to launching Exclusive. The Boys' Exclusive bow came backing Judy Carol, but they got their own turn not long after that on Jumpin' At The Jubilee.
Their next Exclusive 78, I Sold My Heart To The Junk Man, was provided by Leon Rene and his brother Otis, who ran the Excelsior label. Waxed with pianist Eddie Beal's 'Fourtet' behind them, the misty-eyed ballad proved The Basin Street Boys' breakthrough during the summer of 1946 (its flip side Voot Nay On The Vot Nay was a nifty jive number penned by Wilson and Price), leading to a national tour that included a stopover at the Apollo Theatre. Junk Man became something of a vocal group staple. The Silhouettes waxed a nice '58 remake for Kae Williams' Philly-based Junior logo that found its way to Ace Records in Jackson, Mississippi, and a female rendition out of Philly credited to The Blue-Belles was a 1962 national hit.
Five Exclusive follow-ups failed to reach the same commercial heights for The Basin Street Boys. Neither did a pair of 1948 78s on Mercury front-billing Wilson. The group was history by 1951.
Bill Dahl
Various - Street Corner Symphonies Vol.01
1939-1949 The Complete Story Of Doo Wop
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