the moonglows

musicology #155

duets2 # 4

(Loe & Joe – Little Ole Boy, Little Ole Girl)

slipping out of the Jamaican selection into some Detroit action with a piece from one of post war urban music’s great innovators Harvey Fuqua…original lead singer of the Moonglows, (musicology #46), and Soul legend. influential in moulding the new sound that sprung out of the wells of Rhythm & Blues and Gospel, Harvey Fuqua helped, (along with Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, Marv Johnson…), to ‘create’ the Detroit sound as head of artistic development at Motown after tiring of the effort required to run his own label, (which this one is on),

the duet is courtesy of almost unknown pairing, Lorrie Rudolph and Joe Murphy, who certainly do the song justice. more than that I can only add that it’s a 45 from 1961 and it’s on the ‘Harvey’ label.

musicology #46

vocalgroupaction .. day5

(Sincerley – Moonglows)

theres no way this one could have been left out of the vocalgroup selection. for themusicologist the benchmark against which all vocalgroupaction is measured. first heard this sometime in the early 70’s through a foundation musicologist who has often been the catalyst for introducing new sounds and it still sounds at least as sweet now as it did more than 30 years ago … amazing how music can trigger detailed memories, I can almost reach out and touch them.

One of these cats, Harvey Fuqua, (not singing lead on this one), was instrumental in the development of the vocal group sound eventually moving on, (with protege Marvin Gaye), to Detroit where he worked his creative magic and helped build the Motown Sound … Released in December 1954 on the Chess label out of Chi’