page_title: Doo-wop
section_title: Popularity
hierarchical_section_title: Doo-wop / Popularity
caption_attribution_description: English: The doo wop band from New York called The Cleftones during their participation in the festival of this genre celebrated at the Benedum Center for the performing arts in Pittsburgh, Pensilvania in may 2010. Español: La banda de doo wop neoyorquina llamada The Cleftones durante su participación en el festival de este género celebrado en el Benedum Center for the performing arts en Pittsburgh, Pensilvania, en mayo de 2010.
context_page_description: Doo-wop is a genre of rhythm and blues music that originated among African-American youth in the 1940s, mainly in the large cities of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Detroit, and Washington, DC. It features vocal group harmony that carries an engaging melodic line to a simple beat with little or no instrumentation. Lyrics are simple, usually about love, sung by a lead vocal over background vocals of repeated, varying syllables, and often featuring, in the bridge, a melodramatically heartfelt recitative addressed to the beloved. Gaining popularity in the 1950s, doo-wop enjoyed its peak successes in the early 1960s, but continued to influence performers in other genres.
context_section_description: Doo-wop groups achieved 1951 R&B chart hits with songs such as "Sixty Minute Man" by Billy Ward and His Dominoes, "Where Are You?" by The Mello-Moods, "The Glory of Love" by The Five Keys, and "Shouldn't I Know" by The Cardinals.
  Doo-wop groups played a significant role in ushering in the rock and roll era when two big rhythm and blues hits by vocal harmony groups, "Gee" by The Crows, and "Sh-Boom" by The Chords, crossed over onto the pop music charts in 1954.
  "Sh-Boom" is considered to have been the first rhythm-and-blues record to break into the top ten on the Billboard charts, reaching #5; a few months later, a white group from Canada, the Crew Cuts, released their cover of the song, which reached #1 and remained there for nine weeks. 
  "Only You" was released in June 1955 by pop group The Platters. That same year the Platters had a number one pop chart hit with "The Great Pretender", released on 3 November. In 1956, Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers appeared on the Frankie Laine show in New York, which was televised nationally, performing their hit "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?". Frankie Laine referred to it as "rock and roll"; Lymon's extreme youth appealed to a young and enthusiastic audience. His string of hits included: "I Promise to Remember", "The ABC's of Love" and "I'm Not a Juvenile Delinquent".
  Up tempo doo-wop groups such as The Monotones", The Silhouettes, and The Marcels had hits that charted on Billboard. All-white doo-wop groups would appear and also produce hits: The Mello-Kings in 1956 with "Tonight, Tonight," The Diamonds in 1957 with the chart-topping cover song "Little Darlin'(original song by AfroAmerican group)", The Skyliners in 1959 with "Since I Don't Have You", " The Tokens in 1961 with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". 
  The peak of doo-wop might have been in the late 1950s; in the early 1960s the most notable hits were Dion's "Runaround Sue", "The Wanderer", "Lovers Who Wander" and "Ruby Baby" and The Marcels' "Blue Moon". There was a revival of the nonsense-syllable form of doo-wop in the early 1960s, with popular records by The Marcels, The Rivingtons, and Vito & the Salutations. The genre reached the self-referential stage, with songs about the singers ("Mr. Bass Man" by Johnny Cymbal) and the songwriters ("Who Put the Bomp?" by Barry Mann), in 1961.
caption: The Cleftones during their participation in the doo-wop festival celebrated in May 2010 at the Benedum Center.
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