The Escorts (6) (Brooklyn, New-York)
Personnel :
Rodney Garrison (Lead)
Richard Berg
Richard Perry (Bass)
Richard Rosenberg
Discography :
Biography :
The Year was 1961 and a local high school group from Polly Prep in Bay Ridge Brooklyn had recorded a demo "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom ». Richard Rosenberg, Richard Berg, Richard Perry and lead singer Jim Picardi had stopped the demo around ending up at Coral Records. That attracted the interest of Dick Jacobs, a conductor/arranger/A&R man at Coral Records -- who also happened to be the father of a classmate from the school and they were signed to a recording contract.
By the time of their first session, however, Rodney Garrison had replaced Picardi on lead vocals. Their first four sides, "Gloria," "Seven Wonders of the World," "Gaudeamus", and "As I Love You," revealed The Escorts as an unusually talented and spirited white doo wop group, reminiscent of the Mystics but with some fascinating wrinkles to their sound. And while those sides never charted, they did get local club bookings.
It was at one such booking, at the Lollipop Lounge, that they made the acquaintance of an aspiring female singer named Genya Zelkowitz, who used the nickname "Goldie." The next time The Escorts went into the studio, Garrison had departed and Zelkowitz was singing lead -- "Submarine Race Watching" was far more advanced than The Escorts' first sides, and their rendition of "Somewhere" from West Side Story showed how rich and compelling the mix of female falsetto and male doo wop accompaniment could be. They later worked and recorded for a time as Goldie & the Escorts, and Zelkowitz developed a very unusual girlish-yet-soulful approach to singing that might've carried them somewhere.
