doowopAmnon's video: Calvanes - My Love Song 1958 Deck-580 wmv

Calvanes (PR photo) LEFT-RIGHT: Herman Pruitt, Stewart Crunk, Bobby Adams (middle), Joe Hampton, Jack Harris One doo-wop quartet that never fails to wow DWS audiences is The Calvanes, who have been together now, off and on, since 1954. Whether they're reprising their own songs or singing such classics as "Sh-Boom," these guys really capture the feel and sound of a 1950s vocal group. The original members first got together at Manual Arts High School in South-Central Los Angeles. They were lead singer Carlyle Dundee, 2nd tenor Lorenzo "Bobby" Adams, 1st tenor Sterling Meade, baritone Stewart Crunk and bass Jack Harris. As Bobby Adams recalls, "Carlyle heard us rehearsing and stated that he had contacts in the music industry and two songs that he wanted to record, with him as lead singer. After a few rehearsals and an introduction to producer Lee Silver, we did his songs as The Dundees." After they recorded the 1954 single under the name Carlyle Dundee & The Dundees, Dundee himself left the group. The remaining four background singers stayed with Silver long enough to record two more songs, with Bobby Adams on lead, under the name The Wonders. Shortly afterward, the quartet broke up. In 1955, Crunk and Adams decided to get back together. After recruiting their former bass singer, Jack Harris, they found second tenor Joe Hampton and first tenor Herman Pruitt, who had a smooth, soulful way with ballads. They called themselves The Calvanes, an odd name that Crunk came up with because, as he said at the time, "It just sounded good." To prepare themselves for the big time, the quintet paid Cornelius Gunter of the then-popular Flairs (and later of The Coasters) to whip them into musical shape. "We could go out and sing R&B or straight pop music," said Pruitt. "We could sound completely white if we wanted to." But in August 1955, when they visited Walter "Dootsie" Williams, whose Dootone label, located at his home at 95th and Central Avenue, was hot thanks to the success of The Penguins' "Earth Angel," Williams wanted to hear only R&B, and more specifically their own material. Stewart Crunk, the group's bespectacled tunesmith, happened to have a song or two. They recorded at least seven original songs for Dootone. The first single was Crunk's ballad, "Don't Take Your Love (From Me)," backed by an uptempo number, "Crazy Over You," written by a local girl named Nellie Brown. Pruitt sang lead on both sides. The record did great business around California and landed them on a couple of TV shows, including Hunter Hancock's "Rhythm & Bluesville." Unfortunately, their second single, "Florabelle," pleased neither the group nor record buyers, nor even Dootsie Williams, who later admitted that he'd recorded the song as a form of payola to the disc jockey who'd written it. ("Florabelle" has never been reissued on EP, LP or CD.) As Bobby Adams recalls, "'They Call Me Fool' and 'One More Kiss' was supposed to be our follow-up single. However, Dootsie had a disc jockey friend named Zeke Manners who wrote a song about his girlfriend named Florabelle. Zeke persuaded Dootsie to record it, against the wishes of the group. That song took us down the tubes. We broke up in '57 after a dispute with Dootsie." The Calvanes regrouped as a quartet in 1958 when Bobby Adams, Herman Pruitt and Stewart Crunk recruited a new bass singer, Freddie Willis, and recorded two singles for Hite Morgan's Deck label. When Willis was drafted into the Army, Adams, Pruitt and Crunk picked up Sidney Dunbar and recorded for RCA as The Nuggets. But by 1962 they were all fed up with the music business and departed to find regular jobs. Bobby Adams eventually became a decorated Los Angeles cop and professional bodyguard for Mayor Tom Bradley--and later head of security for singers Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson. Jack Harris went into private business and Joe Hampton worked for Los Angeles County. In the late 1990, Bobby, Herman and Freddie resurrected The Calvanes by adding baritone singer Jimmy Corbitt (replacing Stewart Crunk, who had died in 1967), and this lineup has been performing successfully ever since. They recorded a single for Bruce Patch's Classic Arts Records, performed at the Greek Theater and Universal Amphitheater in Hollywood, traveled east several times to sing in Pittsburgh and New Jersey, and recorded with vocalist Big Sandy on his acclaimed 1998 Hightone CD, Dedicated to You, a tribute to Los Angeles R&B of the 1950s. Calvanes ,,