THE CLOVERS
by Billy Vera

The Clovers hold a special place in the history of Atlantic Records: they were the label's first successful vocal group. To attempt to categorize The Clovers would be folly. Let's begin with what The Clovers were not :
- They were not a doo-wop group. The Five Satins and Dion & The Belmonts were doo-wop groups. 
- They were not a ballad group in the sense that the Ink Spots and The Orioles were ballad groups. 
- They were not a gospel-based group. The Drifters and The Dominoes were gospel-based groups.
So, what were The Clovers? Maybe a rhythm & blues group? Certainly, as their music differs from that of early '50s R&B solo acts only in that it is sung by a lead, backed by several guys doing what would ordinarily be the function of a horn section. 

The Clovers' career spanned a greater period of time than that of most vocal groups, who could've considered themselves lucky to have a second hit record, much less to reach the national charts 21 times, as did The Clovers. During the '50s, The Clovers' decade of success, popular music went through what many consider its greatest changes. The '50s was the decade when pop, blues, and hillbilly music collided and spawned rock 'n' roll. And Atlantic Records, founded in 1947, was right there, positioned to document those changes. 

Atlantic's founders, Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson, were a pair of jazz fans and record collectors who knew the music and the musicians -- and where to find both. One of the important musicians they found was a veteran of the Southwest territory bands, medicine shows, and vaudeville named Jesse Stone. As an arranger who knew how to get what he wanted out of musicians, Stone was invaluable to Ertegun and Abramson in the recording studio. Atlantic had the idea that the young black constituency they were seeking to service wanted to dance to the music in the jukeboxes that were ubiquitous in post-WWII America. Atlantic aimed to claim their share of the nickels spent in those boxes. 

Being based in New York, where the best musicians were following the bebop muse of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, they soon found it difficult to achieve the simplicity they were looking for. So, together with Stone, they toured the South in search of the rhythms that would get young people up on the dance floor. Jesse transcribed those rhythms, and the results would later be incorporated into arrangements to be read and played by the New York studio players. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a young vocal group was singing at talent shows and after-hours joints. It was at one such joint, Washington's Rose Club, that they were discovered by a Baltimore record store owner named Lou Krefetz, who would remain their mentor for the next decade. 

At the time, the group's repertoire consisted of pop standards along the lines of the Ink Spots and The Charioteers, the two most popular black groups of the time. Krefetz introduced them to Eddie Heller, who recorded them for his Rainbow label. The resulting 78, "Yes Sir, That's My Baby," was sung in the ballad style of earlier groups like the famous Orioles and was a disappointment saleswise. So Lou took his act to Atlantic. Ahmet Ertegun, the son of a Turkish diplomat, had spent much of his youth in the nation's capitol and, like Krefetz, was an habitué of Waxie Maxie's Record Mart, the main black record store in the city. The jazz-collecting community was a small one in those days, and its members tended to know one another, so it was easy for Krefetz to contact Ertegun. 

Ahmet was unimpressed with vocal groups in general and was certainly no fan of the Ink Spots sound favored at the time by The Clovers. Yet he heard something in them and thought their young sound might go well with the Southern rhythms he'd brought back from his road trips. He later recalled, "They wanted to record 'Prisoner Of Love,' the Billy Eckstine hit, but I was sure they wouldn't have a chance of selling many copies of it. So I wrote a song for them, 'Don't You Know I Love You.'" To persuade the group to record his blues song, he allowed them to record the Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer standard "Skylark" on the B-side. At first, Ahmet wasn't happy with the way The Clovers sang his song: "I wrote it in a much blacker idiom than the way they sang it . . . . But I must say they built the song into something; they contributed much more than I did." Jesse Stone concurred, "I was assigned to rehearse them . . . . A week or ten days before the session, I'd go down to [Washington] to work with them. The music I was trying to show them was based on the sound that I had picked up in the South, but they were Northern boys and didn't feel it." 

February 22, 1951, the day of the first Clovers Atlantic session, found tenor saxophonist Frank Culley and his band in the studio. Culley refused to allow his rhythm section to be used without himself getting paid, to which Ertegun replied, "Now listen, man, if I pay you, you're gonna play." The result of the session was the first saxophone solo on a vocal-group record. The combination of the young, Northern voices singing bluesy material, the Southern beat, and the tenor sax solo made for a radically new sound, one that stayed at #1 on the R&B chart for two weeks. John "Buddy" Bailey, Matthew McQuater, Harold Lucas, Harold Winley, and guitarist Bill Harris were on their way. 

Over the next five years, The Clovers were never off the best-seller charts, despite lead singer Buddy Bailey's stint with Uncle Sam. Brought in to take his place were Charlie White, formerly of The Dominoes and The Checkers, and Billy Mitchell, who wound up staying on after Bailey's return from the Army. Atlantic's honchos were "song men" who believed that hit records started with hit material. To this end, they came up with consistently good songs, many written by Ertegun himself. Others were penned by former tap dancer Rudy Toombs, who also contributed hits of the era for Amos Milburn and Atlantic thrush Ruth Brown. 

Windfall profits for Atlantic's publishing division came when some of their songs were successfully recorded by other artists. Kay Starr charted with her version of The Clovers' second hit, "Fool, Fool, Fool," while Louis Prima had less success with a very nice attempt at "One Mint Julep." This latter tune would be revived a decade later in a hit instrumental version by Ray Charles. "I Played The Fool," The Clovers' first ballad hit, was covered by the now forgotten pop artists Bill Darnel and Art Mooney. The song was authored by artist manager and A&R man Lee Magid under the name of his daughter, Diane Alexis. 

Portions of The Clovers' songs found their way into those of later acts. Lines from "Hey, Miss Fannie" show up in "I Want You To Be My Girl" by Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers and "Hey Little School Girl" by The Paragons, who recorded for Harold Winley's brother Paul's Winley label. Also, lines from Ertegun's "Lovey Dovey" appear in Steve Miller's "The Joker." Jesse Stone contributes "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash" (under the name Charles Calhoun) and "Down In The Alley," the latter of which came out of Atlantic's experience recording slide-guitar master Elmore James in Chicago backing up Joe Turner. Here Elmore's signature lick is vocalized by the group as "chang-ity chang-ity chang-ity chang-ity chang chang." Never a hit, the record remained for years a cult favorite and was recorded in the '70s by Ronnie Hawkins. 

The Clovers came into their own as balladeers with their recordings of "Blue Velvet" and "Devil Or Angel." Despite the act's great early success with its bluesy material, it is for these two tunes that they are most fondly remembered by rock 'n' roll and doo-wop fans today. "Blue Velvet" was a pop hit recorded by Tony Bennett, Arthur Prysock, and others. It has since seen service in versions by rock-a-ballad practitioners such as The Moonglows, The Velours, and The Paragons and was revived in the '60s by schmaltzmeister Bobby Vinton, whose version was itself revived in the oddball movie of the same name. 

Atlantic partner Jerry Wexler says that "'Devil Or Angel' holds the distinction of being the only outside song to ever have been a hit on Atlantic. Back in those days, we had an 'open-door policy.' We'd listen to songs from anybody [rather than just professional songwriters and publishers]. This woman, Blanche Carter, brought us 'Devil Or Angel.' It was the only good song we ever got in all those years from a nonprofessional. Not long after that, we stopped listening to songs by amateurs." More gold was brought into Atlantic's coffers when Bobby Vee revived "Devil Or Angel" a few years later. When the rock 'n' roll era arrived, the hits stopped coming for the group and many other R&B acts who had sewn the seeds of this new music. Yet, Atlantic stuck with The Clovers for a few more years, trying to recapture the old hit formula to no avail. 

Atlantic and The Clovers eventually parted company, and Lou Krefetz formed Poplar Records to record his act. He enlisted Jesse Stone to supervise an album called The Clovers In Clover, which mainly consisted of the pop standards that were the group's first love. With Jesse Stone's arrangements, The Clovers produced an album that was commercial yet still appealed to the now-adult audience that had grown up with the group. For the album, Stone revived his own song, "Idaho," which had been a hit during World War II in a version by Benny Goodman, along with "Pennies From Heaven," the '30s Bing Crosby standard. The Skyliners' version, strongly influenced by The Clovers', would emerge from their album to become a big chart hit. 

The Clovers' album was beginning to make a little noise when Krefetz was given the opportunity to take over United Artists Records. He accepted, bringing with him both the album and the group. Armed with United Artists' corporate cash (which was hardly trash), he deputized Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to work the same magic they had worked on their many Coasters hits -- in service of The Clovers. Only one hit resulted, but what a hit! "Love Potion No. 9," led by Billy Mitchell, became the biggest national (and last pop) hit for The Clovers. "Lovey," an obscure favorite recorded at the same session, is also included here. Leiber & Stoller didn't last long at United Artists. After producing "She Cried" for Jay & The Americans and several less successful records, they departed, returning to Atlantic, where they produced, but did not write for, The Drifters, Ben E. King, and others. 

Left high and dry without adequate producers, The Clovers floundered, mismatched with Don Costa, who had worked magic with Paul Anka but could not find a formula for our guys. Lou Krefetz and Jesse Stone tried again, but the magic was gone. They even attempted remakes of old Clovers hits. Nothing worked. The Clovers began the long ride to oblivion, recording for a series of small independent labels, including a stint with Harold's brother's Winley label, a brief return (one single) to Atlantic, and one record for Leiber & Stoller's Tiger label -- the original version of a Leiber/Stoller tune, "Bossa Nova Baby," later recorded by Elvis. 

By this time, the early '60s, the first "oldies" revival was in full swing. But, as listeners were more interested in reviving the doo-wop side of the rock 'n' roll coin, there was little interest for these nostalgists in the bluesy sounds of The Clovers. The group's main fan base had always been black R&B fans, as opposed to the white teenage rockers who liked their vocal groups to express the simple "moon/June" sentiments of doo-wop ballads. 

By the time of the second rock 'n' roll revival in the early '70s, newer oldies fans were more open to The Clovers' professionalism, and they performed at many of the countless "oldies" shows with an altered lineup, including lead singer Tippie Hubbard and John Bowie, who had sung with a pair of less successful Washington groups, The Bachelors on Aladdin and The Jets on The Clovers' first label, Rainbow. In 1988 the Rhythm and Blues Foundation bestowed one of its prestigious Pioneer Awards on the remaining living original members, Bailey, McQuater, Lucas, and Winley. 

Buddy Bailey has since passed on. At the time of his death, he was performing, without irony, in one of the numerous Ink Spots groups. Not long before, I'd had him as a guest on my radio show, where he performed a lovely version of "Blue Velvet" backed by The Spaniels, who were also guests that day. The British label Sequel has recently reissued The Clovers' complete Atlantic recordings, a fitting tribute to this seminal act -- the first true R&B vocal group. 

-- Billy Vera