1958 - Give Your Love To Me / (Do-oo, Do-oo) I Dreamed (Savoy 1537)
Biography :
The 3 girls from Newark, New Jersey (sisters Lucille and Alma Beatty
and Gwen Brooks) only ever had 3 singles released in the late 1950s for
Savoy Records, a label launched in Newark in 1942 by Herman Lubinsky,
and had just one of them make any of the national charts. Their first
release was the summer 1957 Giddy-Up-A-Ding-Dong (not the same song as
one released with that title in 1956 by Freddie Bell & The Bell Boys
for Mercury's Wing subsidiary) b/w It Must Be Love on Savoy 1523 billed
as The Playmates (Alma, Gwen, Lucille). It failed to chart, although
Savoy arranger Ernie Wilkins certainly provided them with quality
backing, using tenor saxophonists Jerome Richardson and George Barrow,
baritone saxophonist Budd Johnson, guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Sam
Price, bassist Joe Benjamin and drummer Bobb Donaldson. They appeared on
Savoy at the same time Roulette's guys put out their first single.
For their follow-up Sugah Wooga the label assembled tenor saxophonist
Buddy Lucas, organist Bobby Banks, bassist Leonard Gaskin and an
unidentified orchestra and this time, to avoid record store/juke box
label confusion with the all-male quartet The Playmates, they were
billed as The Three Playmates (Lucille, Alma, Gwen) and in March 1958 it
peaked at # 89 Billboard Pop Top 100 on Savoy 1528 b/w Lovey Dovey
Pair. For some reason, however, it made no impact whatsoever on the
R&B charts despite the facts Savoy was designed mainly to appeal to
that market and the arrangement was so close to that of the 1957
R&B/Pop smash Little Bitty Pretty One by Thurston Harris. Their only
other single, also billed as The Three Playmates (Alma, Lucille, Gwen),
was (Do-Oo, Do-Oo) I Dreamed b/w Give Your Love To Me on Savoy 1537
later in 1958 and, with the same backing musicians as their first effort
(it was actually recorded in July 1957), it failed to chart.
