The Dells
A vocal group from Harvey, Illinois, active for nearly sixty years, which took doo-wop into Chicago soul.
From a woodshed to Vee-Jay
The Dells began as the El-Rays at Thornton Township High School in Harvey, Illinois, in 1953 (Wikipedia's text says 1952). Marvin Junior, Verne Allison, Mickey McGill, Chuck Barksdale and Johnny Funches rehearsed in McGill's woodshed, aiming to sound like The Ravens and The Moonglows. In 1954 they made "Darling I Know" for Checker, arranged by Willie Dixon. By 1955 they had been renamed the Dells and signed to Vee-Jay, where "Oh What a Nite" in 1956 reached the R&B top five.
A car accident in November 1958 left McGill with a badly broken leg and the group went on hiatus. When they came back in 1960 and 1961, Funches had been replaced by Johnny Carter, formerly of the Flamingos, whose falsetto became part of the sound. They backed Dinah Washington and Barbara Lewis on records in the early 1960s.
Cadet and Chicago soul
When Vee-Jay collapsed in the mid-1960s the Dells went to Chess's Cadet label, where producer Bobby Miller and arranger Charles Stepney reworked their sound with strings and brass. The album There Is (1968) reached number 29 on the Billboard 200 and number 4 on the R&B albums chart. A remake of "Oh, What a Night" went to number one on the R&B chart and number 10 on the pop chart in 1969. "Give Your Baby a Standing Ovation" followed in 1973.
They moved through Mercury, ABC and 20th Century Fox in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1991 the film The Five Heartbeats, loosely based on groups including the Dells, put them back on screen as technical advisers and on the soundtrack. In 1992 "A Heart Is a House for Love" made them the first group with a top 40 R&B hit in five consecutive decades. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004 and gave a farewell concert in Cleveland in June 2012.
Albums
Songs
- Stay in My Corner There Is · 1968
A slow, building ballad the Dells recorded twice, and their first number one on the R&B chart.
Sources
- The Dells, Wikipedia
- The Dells discography, Wikipedia
- Stay in My Corner interview with Chuck Barksdale, Record Collector (2007-10-17)
- The Dells, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame