1961 - Vacation Time / If Love Were Like Rivers (Heritage 101)
1962 - Memory Lane* / Teenage Kids (Parkway 863)
The Hippies
1963 - Memory Lane* / A Lonely Piano** (Parkway 863)
*Alternate Version
** Reggie Harrisson
Biography :
This
group came from The Roxborough high Schoolin Philadelhia in 1957. They
were Carole "Devine" Varletta, Howard Boggess, Nancy Orts and Jack
Felker. Together they dreamt up the name Impalas; it wasn't long before
they entered the requisite talent show at Roxborough High. Amazingly
they won. Howard Boggess changed the name to The Stereos and Disk Jockey
Bud Bress decided to manage the group.
The Impalas - Howard "Bogey" Boggess, Nancy Orts, Jack Felker & Carole "Devine" Varletta
In 1959, The Stereos came in the Allegro Studio for Mink Records with
"Memory Lane" and "Teenage Kids". Mink launched the two-sider in
mid-1959. But there was in fact a Stereos group from Ohio, so the label
repressed the same versions under the aegis of the Tams. Not long
thereafter, Bogey and Brees arranged an audition with Bernie Bennick's
Swan complex… Both cuts, "Sorry" , a weeper composed by Bogey, was
coupled with Bress' "Valley of Love", were assembled.
Carole "Devine" Varletta
In 1961, Bogey and the group, perhaps augmented by another singer,
issue a nifty platter for Heritage Records "Vacation Time" b/w "If Love
Were Like Rivers" was fobbed off to a juke warm public. Bernie Lowe
owner of Cameo, released "Memory Lane" b/w "Teenage Kids" on his
Parkway subsidiary, bust must have been alerted during the first month
or so that Joe South's Tams out of Virginia objected the name "Tams".
The Tams/Hippies, with new Members
ABC's Tams had already issued a clutch of recordings on Arlen and
General American soon to score a major triumph in "What Kind Of Fool"
during the Fall of 1963. Lowe changed the name to Hippies, and switched
out the flip to "A Lonely Piano".
