The Zebulons (Brooklyn, New York)
Personnel :
Shawn Syville
Billy Hamilton
Leroy Harper
Clarence Ellis
Troy Mangum
Discography :
1960 - Falling Water / Wo-Ho-La-Tee-Da (Cub 9069)
Biography :
Billy Hamilton and Leroy Harper began to sing together in their spare
time in the Navy, and when they returned to their hometown of Brooklyn
(New York) they decided to form a Doo wop group, along with another guy
they had met in the Marine, Clarence Ellis, and a neighbour, Troy
Mangum. After some trials the success of Frankie Lymon & the
Teenagers was overwhelming, so they rushed to sign a singer with the
voice of a child like that of Lymon, Harper's cousin, Shawn Syville, who
although he was 19 years old was able to sing with falsetto tone.They
called themselves the "Zebulons. The Zebulons only did a couple of
shows, both at schools, appearing with the Crests and the Passions.
Gribble got the guys a six-month with the record division of M-G-M.,
From where they sent them to their cheap subsidiary, Cub records.There
they published the single "Falling water" (1960), Barely a month after
the album was released and when it started to start, Harper and Syville
went to a party where Sherman Williams was, a boy who wanted to join the
Zebulons but was rejected because I did not know how to sing. This one,
still hurt, told Syville that at least he danced better than he and the
thing was more, when Syville, a drunken Harper and two other friends
assaulted with punches, kicks, stabs, bottles, even with an antenna, to
Williams until it killed him and left him almost unrecognizable. The
four found their bones in jail and spent six and a half years behind
bars, despite constant appeals to their innocence. The other Zebulons
had tried to maintain the group, but the voice of Syville was
irreplaceable and in addition Gribble died of a heart attack in 1962,
reason why the group decided to separate.
http://www.uncamarvy.com/Zebulons/zebulons.html
Songs :
Falling Water Wo-Ho-La-Tee-Da