1962 - The Combination / Look At Her Eyes (Darrow 71)
1963 - Feel Like A Million / On Saturday Night (Darrow 5-20)
Unreleased :
1962 - Crossfire
1962 - That’s Right
1962 - All That’s Good
1962 - Dream
1962 - No Greater Love
1962 - Just One Of Those Things
The Mystery Men
1963 - Feel Like A Million / On Saturday Night (Pow 1001/1002)
Marc Tanno bb Tyrone & Nu-Ports
1962 - Too Many Times Before / Someday (President 718)
Al Belmont bb Tyrone & Nu-Ports
1963 - I Just Gotta have You / Baby I Wanna Know (Darrow ??)
Slip & Dell bb Tyrone & Nu-Ports
1964 - Don’t Take A Chance / Gotta Get Away (Modern Artists 100)
Dante bb Tyrone & Nu-Ports
1960 - Baby, Baby / How Much I Care (Darrow 515)
Biography :
Around
1956, Tyrone Johnson entered Lower Camden County’s Overbrook High
School in Pine Hill, NJ. It was in high school that Tyrone met four
other students who shared his love of singing and they soon formed a
vocal group. Initially the group was called the Deltones and they
consisted of Tyrone Johnson (lead), Alex Lancaster (first tenor), Calvin
McDonald (bass), Ronald Turner (second tenor) and a fifth fellow
singing baritone. By the time they entered high school, all the group
members were living around the Berlin, NJ, area.
Tyronne & the Nu-Ports at Holiday Hop with The Emotions, Billy & The Essentials, Off Keys …
By 1959 the group was finishing high school and the fifth member had
left the group. The Deltones were looking for a new baritone. That’s
when Calvin Henderson entered the picture. With the new baritone came a
new name : The Nu-Ports . Before recording , the group also made
appearances in Pennsylvania. The Nu-Ports used to sing at all the local
record hops in South Jersey. They played the Ice House in Cherry Hill
and the Inferno in Hammonton among other venues.
The group wrote a lot of their own material and putting together the
harmony was always a group effort. By 1962, Calvin Henderson was in his
senior year at high school and the Nu-Ports were ready to start a
recording career. The group was managed by Moon Rasso from Hammonton,
NJ, who introduced them to Joe Ricci. They had already written numerous
songs; “The Combination,” “Feel Like A Million,” “Look At Her Eyes,” and
so forth. They first went and cut “The Combination” to the Reco Arts
Studio. Joe Ricci released “The Combination” on his Darrow label with
“Look At Her Eyes” on the flip side. Tyrone Johnson was lead on “The Combination” while Calvin Henderson
led “Look At Her Eyes”. “The Combination” was released and got airplay
from Oaky Miller on WEEZ, Jerry Blavat on WCAM and a few other
stations. With “The Combination” attracting a lot of attention locally,
Joe Ricci looked toward the Nu-Ports’ next release, a catchy up-tempo
number called “Feel Like A Million.” It was backed with “On Saturday
Night.”
Marc Tanno Dante
“Fell Like A Million” was a big record for the group. It never made
Billboard’s national charts, but then the “Hot R&B Singles” charts
in 1962 only listed the top 30 songs. The Nu-Ports said they were told
by their management that the record sold 50,000 to 75,000 copies, mostly
locally. Throughout the Fall of 1962 and all of 1963, the Nu-Ports
played numerous shows with other Philadelphia artists. Tyrone & the
Nu-Ports also began working on enough songs for an album. The group
recorded at least fifteen sides. The album was just never released.
While waiting in vain for their album to come out, Tyrone & the
Nu-Ports began doing backup studio work: Marc Tanno, Al Belmont, Dante,
Slip & Dell . An automobile accident involving four members of the
group stopped their projects. Still working with Ray Eskridge (the “Del”
from Slip & Del), Ricci took the Nu-Ports’ background track to
“Feel Like A Million” and had Eskridge record a new lead track to the
song. His intent was to issue the new version of the song on his Pow
label as by the “Mystery Men”.
