1956 - Robert Mills, Robert Randolph, Norman Palm & Charles McKnight
The Pastels (1) (Chicago)
Personnel :
Fred Buckley (Lead)
Norman Palm (First tenor)
Robert Randolph (Second tenor)
Charles McKnight (Baritone)
Charles Williams (Bass)
Discography :
Singles :
1955 - Put Your Arms Around Me / Boom De De Boom (United 196)
Unreleased :
1955 - Bye Bye (Unreleased)
1955 - Goodbye (Unreleased)
1955 - Patty (demo tape)
1955 - My Little Girl (demo tape)
1955 - Goodbye (demo tape)
Biography :
in 1954, Fred Buckley, the group's lead organized the pastels from
among High School Friends in his south side neighborhood, the other
members were Vernon Thomas (first tenor), Trey Clark (second tenor),
Charles McKnight (baritone), and Pettis Williams (bass). Thomas, Clark
and Williams eventually dropped out of the group and Fred recruited
Norman Palm (first tenor, whom he had met in the National Guard), Robert
Randolph (second tenor), and Charles Williams (Pettis Williams'
brother; bass). The group signed with United owned by Leonard Allen in
October of 1955. The songs they did at the October 19 session were "Bye
Bye" and "Goodbye," both of which were fairly good, but Leonard Allen
for some reason chose not to release them.
Leonard Allen obviously had plans for the group, because on November
23 the Pastels were recording again, putting on wax an average ballad,
"Put Your Arms around Me," with a bouncy El Dorados-type jump tune,
"Boom De De Boom." The latter song was originally intended for the El
Dorados to record (on Vee-Jay), but the group was out of town when the
person who brought it arrived from New York, so he took it to United.
"Boom De De Boom" got the original airplay on local station WHFC, but
then listener requests pushed "Put Your Arms around Me" onto the
playlist. After about a year, Buckley was replaced on Lead by Julius
Collins. The Pastels continued on a few more years and they broke up in
1958.
