Back row. l to r. Bob Hamilton, Eugene Hamilton, Billy Copeland. Front. Freddy Pride.
The Nitecaps (1) (Detroit, MI)
Personnel :
Al Hamilton (Al Kent) (Lead)
Eugene Ronald Hamilton (Ronnie Savoy)
Robert Hamilton (Rob Reeco)
Freddie Pride
Discography :
Singles :
1955 - A Kiss And A Vow / Be My Girl (Groove 0134)
1955 - Sweet Thing / Tough Mama (Groove 0147)
1956 - You May Not Know / Bamboo Rock And Roll (Groove 0158)
1956 - In Each Corner Of My Heart / Let Me Know Tonight (Groove 0176)
Unreleased :
1956 - Snap Crackle And Pop (Groove)
1956 - You're Gonna Be Sorry (Groove)
1956 - Oh, You Sweet Girl (Groove)
Biography :
Ronnie Savoy had been living in New York since `57', singing lead
with a group called the Nitecaps, Freddy Pride, Billy Kopeland, Thomas
Davis, and Ronnie Savoy. The group had pretty much dissolved by 1960.
After the group broke up due to personality differences. The Nitecaps
was one of the three groups that metamorphosed from the original group
the Comets, that started on the unabashed streets of Detroit's North End
side at 2128 Meade Street, not far from the 6 Mile Projects, north, and
Hamtramck to the south slightly infringing borders of Highland Park,
where Bobby Reeco Hamilton, Eugene G.G. Capers, Johnny Braxton, Billy
Kopeland, and Ronnie Savoy started a group called the Comets with Bobby
as their Maestro.
The Versatiles : Tom Davis, Bobby Hamilton, Freddy Pride & Ronnie Savoy (Lead)
The
Comets had three lead tenors with very different and original styles. A
group primed for cross-over music where any and all rhythm and blues
forms had to go in order to reach the Pop Charts. The Promise land.
Ronnie Savoy's mint tone clear tenor voice was his strong point, but the
postscript to his singing style was illuminated in his enunciation,
every word noteworthy of the emphasis he bestowed on each particular
syllable and phrase. For example, the execution of “Just a Kiss And A
Vow” by the Nitecaps, every line so distinctly understood, his influence
clearly a throw-back to the days of Nat King Cole and Bill Kenny of the
Ink Spot's. But the ambiguities of the music business took its toll,
and soon Eugene G.G. Capers along with Johnny Braxton departed for jobs
in the automotive factories, replacing them with Freddy Pride [baretone]
and Thomas Davis [bass], then to form the Versatiles.
The Nitecaps at The Fox Theater : Freddie Pride , Billy Kope, Ronnie Savoy & Tom Davis
Bobby
Hamilton had dropped the named the Versatiles along with guitarist
Arnold Christian, added Billy Kopeland and called the new group, the
Nitecaps. The Nitecaps group were in the limelights for years. There
parvenu excursions took them throughout the country performing nightly
where they were a stable diet of entertainment at the fabulous Cotton
Club in New York appearing with the one and only master Cab Callaway and
sharing the top billing at the Baby Grand Night Club in Harlem with the
combustible Nipsy Russell. The Nitecaps music proceeded doo-wop, ran
concurrent with blues ballads for awhile and found a comfortable and
esteemed place on the popular music scene , churning out record after
record until they rubbed shoulders of high accolades with the Mills
Brothers, and the Ink Spots, the Trinaire Brothers and the likes. But it
was bass singer Thomas `Bull Yellar' Davis that evolved the group with
special renditions from r&b to different popular music styles
comprised under the umbrella of old standards.
Ronnie Savoy, Tom Davis, Freddie Pride & Billy Kope
Two months after signing on the dotted line with Al Green as their
personal manager the Nitecaps recorded their very first song “A Kiss
And A Vow ” with Groove Records, a subsidiary of RCA Records introduced
in 1954. The Nitecaps were the first rhythm and blues group in the
country to appear on national syndicated television for the Robert
Montgomery variety show in New York City`55'. They tried to sound more
pop-orientated and 'modern' especially with the jump tunes from their
first November 1955 session for Groove. “A Kiss And A Vow“ resembles The
Orioles' ballad style, most likely because of Ronnie’s tenor voice that
had the same high soulful feeling as Clyde MacPhatter’s.
"With Snap, Crackle And Pop“ and “Your’re Gonna Be Sorry“ from their
second session, they gave us two distinctive jump tunes of the same
musical quality. The vocal background on “Snap, Crackle And Pop“ can
hear the group singing the sort of nonsense syllables 'doo-Wop', which
later gave this music it's name. “Bamboo Rock And Roll“ from their
third single fits exactly into the Ling Ting Tong theme popular two years
before, “while You May Not Know“ is a ballad par excellence.
Ralph "Crow Peterson", Ronnie Savoy, Freddie Pride , Tom Davis & Billy Kope
The sound of the third and last session did not change much towards
songs popular at the fall of 1956, “In Each Corner Of My Heart“
delights much the same way as some Dominoes’ releases, with a heavy bass
break and a high tenor. On the fourth song from this session they
backed Varetta Dillard. From all the four fantastic releases on Groove,
only two “A Kiss And A Vow“ and “Bamboo Rock And Roll“ entered a fen
local charts. Nevertheless, the Nitecaps must have been popular for some
time, because Otis Williams (of Detroit’s Temptations) remembered
having seen them live.
Of the Hamilton brothers, Al is well known to soul music fans as Al
kent, a name under that he entered both the R&B and pop charts with
You Gotta Pay The Price on Ric Tic in 1967. When The Nitecaps broke up,
he went to New York with his brother Ronnie to study music. He returned
to Detroit in 1961, and then started working for Golden World Records.
Later he dealt with a lot of artists on the Ric Tic and Westbound labels
and also wrote for Edwin Starr and Jackie Wilson. Ronnie, who sometimes
appeared under the pseudonym of Ronnie Savoy, had later success with
MGM Records, before he produced Ben E. King.
