clockwise from left : Furman Haynes, Walter Springer , Benjamin Peay and Adriel McDonald
The Sandmen (New-York)
Personnel :
Benjamin Peay “ "Brook Benton" (Lead)
Walter Springer (Second Tenor)
Furman Haynes (Baritone)
Adriel McDonald (Bass)
Discography :
Biography :
When Brook Benton was young he enjoyed gospel music, wrote songs, and sang in a Methodist church choir in nearby Camden, where his father, Willie Peay, was choir master. So in 1948 he went to New York to pursue his music career. He went in and out of gospel groups such as The Langfordaires, The Jerusalem Stars, and The Golden Gate Quartet. It wasn't until 1954, however, that the dedicated young singer's efforts began to pay off with record industry recognition. It was during that year that Peay, still in New York, was recruited by former Ink Spots bass singer Adriel McDonald for a new vocal group called The Sandmen. Since McDonald had worked with the Moe Gale agency during his tenure with the Ink Spots, this was the firm he engaged to manage the Sandmen. Disc jockey Bill Cook, who had been impressed with Peay's voice several years earlier when he first heard him singing gospel, was working for Gale at the time representing popular vocalist Roy Hamilton, one of Peay's heroes.
Brook Benton
It was Cook who brought the Sandmen to Epic Records, the Columbia subsidiary that was marketing Hamilton. With Benny Peay as lead singer, the Sandmen recorded their first Epic session on December 14, 1954. The resulting single, issued on Columbia's Okeh rhythm-and-blues label rather than Epic, paired Cook's "Somebody To Love" with the old standard "When I Grow Too Old To Dream". It was released the following February and got good reviews in the trade papers, but nothing came of it. Following their release as the Sandmen, they did some backup work for Chuck Willis and Lincoln Chase.
Chuck Willis