THE FOUR PALMS PREPARE FOR NEW YORK CITY

When we got back to 29 Palms that night and saw our friends back at the base, nobody really believed that we had actually taken first place.  Most of responses were, “you’re kidding.”  But when that first place trophy went up with our picture in the lobby of the theater, which also housed Special Services upstairs, there were many, believers.  The headlines of the following weeks base newspaper made us even bigger heroes.  There were, however, some true believers.

We had gotten into the habit of visiting the base PX after our rehearsals, and often, no always, Antoinette and Shirley, two civilian clerks who worked there would ask , “sing us a song”, and we would oblige. Antoinette was the young wife of one of the officers and Shirley was the daughter of one. We had met two or three Joans and an equal number of Jeanies, and I suggested at rehearsal that we should have at least one original song and we had none. So, since so many songs about girls names both before and during the rock and roll craze had become hits, I opined that a song about many girls would be even better. Thus, we began rehearsing, "Jeanie Joni, Shirley, Toni (Who Will It Be?)"  We weren’t quite ready to perform it in the two weeks prior to leaving for New York but it was written, and the copyright had been applied for.  We just told ourselves that if we ever made a record  then we had a song to sing. No, we never thought about a ‘B’ side.

Two weeks of rehearsal later we were on the plane to New York. We arrived late that evening. We were scheduled for rehearsal the next morning (Monday) and the competition would be held that same night. Twenty five nervous acts from Navy and Marine bases all around the world arrived for rehearsal Monday morning at St.Albans Naval Hospital.  We were the only Marines.  Regardless of what branch of service or where we came from we eagerly shared stories about the fancy Henry Hudson Hotel where we were all staying,and the fabulous Sunday meals we were served.  We were each receiving $12.00 a day per diem which was about $7.00  a day more than we needed to eat in May, 1957- especially The Four Palms-who pooled their money and ate “fast foods” or brought  our food in from one of the  New York delis.

If there was one thing that kept everyones ego in check it was the rehearsal. Those 25 acts were all deserving. The only acts we knew we were capable of defeating were those we had outpointed in San Diego and even those were no “lead pipe”  cinch. Don Wyatt, the runner up, was an excellent singer and impressionist. Randy Sparks the 3rd place act had records on the market and had just formed The New Christy Minstrels, a folk singing group. He had asked us to consider joining him but we told him that there was no way we were going to sing with anybody named "minstrels"!  I believe to this day that our genuine reluctance was why he changed the name of his group to The Serendipity Singers. The Playboys, a quartet that sounded like the Hi los singing, “It’s Blue World” were awesome. The Mallet Men, a duo who played a single Xylophone played ”The Flight of the Bumble Bee.” They made you want to reach for a can of Raid.

Many of the acts had to rehearse with musicians and the coordinator was concerned about pace and timing in order to maintain quality entertainment in the show so there was a lot of attention to detail.  We were concerned about being over-rehearsed and not being ‘fresh’ that night so we told the coordinator that we would march out but we didn’t tell him we would be singing as we marched. We didn’t sing “Bim Bam Boom”- we sang “Crazy Little Mama” a similar song but non-punch line, and we told him that “Without Love” would be 2 minutes 30 seconds without singing it, so that the rehearsal could move along. Of course we didn’t need instruments so the entire presentation was under our control.

That night, we were scheduled to go on as the fourteenth act. It beat the hell out of being sixtieth. In retrospect, however had we not been 60th in San Diego we would not have had the time to revise our act “on the fly” as we had done, and might not have won.

As we stood backstage, awaiting our turn, we were a bit concerned that instead of the two microphones we normally used, they were trying something new-a transistorized microphone, about the size of a silver dollar which was placed in a spot  front and center stage, with no wires attached.  It supposedly would pick up any sound on stage and balance it relative to its volume.  We were skeptical but really had no choice but to try it. 

That night The Four Palms sounded so good it was frightening. The microphone was ideal for our clowning around as well as the mood altering harmony. The audience reaction was the same as in San Diego but multiplied by four times. This was, no doubt, the most perfect presentation we could do or had ever done and we knew it. We didn’t know if we would win but we wanted to make the Ed Sullivan show for all kinds of reasons-the first being, to stay in New York the remainder of the week in order to see New York and to meet some New York women.

When the Four Palms were announced as the winners of the Worldwide All-Navy Talent Contest, unknown to us: 
1) The Marines had won the Navy’s competition for the first time in its history.
2) A doo-wop group had taken first place for the first time.
3) An African-American act had won for the first time.
4) Our lives were about to take a turn for the better and
5) The winner automatically appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. 
 

The next day, U.S. Marine Corps public relation people were with us most of the day taking pictures, quotes, writing human interest stories back to our hometowns, and, the Bible of the Marine Corps, Leatherneck Magazine took our pictures for their cover and world-wide distribution.  While all of this was going on we received a telegram to report to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to be fitted for the dress-blue Marine uniforms.  Contrary to popular opinion, although the dress-blue uniform is the one most associated in the public eye with Marines, this uniform is not normally issued to all Marines.  With rare exceptions, Marines must buy the dress-blue uniform out of their paychecks.  We had become a “rare exception;” and the Marine Corps was determined to get bragging rights for at least a year, and they wanted us to look good on television.  We loved all of it!

     We were informed prior to Thursday rehearsal that there would be no All-Navy television show that Sunday on the Ed Sullivan show.  Fidel Castro had run Batista out of Cuba and, since New York City was holding a ticker-tape parade for him the entire Ed Sullivan show would be dedicated to the new U.S. hero, Fidel Castro.  We were asked to spend an additional week in New York at their expense and the Navy show would be televised the following week.  This occurred in May, 1957 so if anyone ever tells you that politics have nothing to do with entertainment, please remind them of this story.  A couple of year later, Castro is a bum.  Go figure…. Now we had New York, a free fancy hotel, money, and time on our hands.  We were young, talented, and eager.

We walked through Central Park singing. We were in Rockefeller Plaza, roller-skating and singing.  Each time we went under a viaduct, with its echo effect, we sang, “Oh What A Night, to love you dear…. the popular song by the Della which was on top of the charts then.  We had a 2 bedroom suite at the hotel. Jack and I roomed together, while Hasker and Louis roomed together.  ack and I had and still have similar personalities and we always got along well avoiding conflict.  Louis and Hasker were polar opposites and once-in-a- while there was conflict-usually over girls. I will say this once in this article and I will never broach the subject again. As far as girls go our suite was like a revolving door. We never had any orgies but we could have. Suffice to say that when we left there were some broken hearts and a lot of damage control, and each of us contributed.  It is an unavoidable perk of notoriety and it comes with the territory, and it didn’t just start with rock and roll music.  For those men out there who are saying, “How awful! ” I ask you this : “Who are you crapping?”….Eat your hearts out.

We went to the Apollo Theater and the Paramount Theater to see live shows and some of our heroes.  In California, we had never heard of Louis Lyman & the Teenchords or the Paragons, and the song  “Florence” which was #1 in New York at the time.  We heard “Wonderful Wonderful” by the Tymes.  We had thought that it was a Johnny Mathis original.  We also saw acts we had heard before like Mickey & Sylvia, The Jive Bombers, Louis Jordan & his Tympany Five.

Louis Lyman may recall this incident.  After the show at the Paramount we were outside the theater singing and drawing a crowd.  Louis Lyman & his group stopped and decided to challenge us to a sing-off.  After we had each sung a song, and Lymans group found out that we were going to be on the Ed Sullivan show, he told his group, “Come on guys let’s go”.  The crowd cheered, and we continued.

Rehearsals came and went for the Sullivan show. We were disappointed in that we would sing “Bim Bam Boom” but not the more serious “Without Love”. They were right. We did a bang-up version of the up-tempo song along with Ray Block’s Orchestra and received a huge ovation.  It went so fast I don’t even remember doing the song.  All I can say is we were functioning on pure adrenalin.  We were so hyped-up we were floating on just the idea of being seem by 18 million people.  But, more than our appearance, one incident stands out concerning the show at dressed rehearsal.  Randy Sparks had a record out on the market and wanted to promote it by doing it, a calypso number, on the show.  The shows producer, the late Marlo Lewis, wanted him to do, “Freight Train” the new Rusty Draper release.  Randy refused and was axed from the show. Don Wyatt was asked to sing it and accepted. He was already scheduled to do “Come Back to Sorrento” since he was a better singer than impressionist. During the live show, after Don finished “Sorrento”, a man, out of view of the television camera held up a sign, saying, “CONTINUE APPLAUDING”, which the audience did, whereupon Ed Sullivan, asked “Would you like to hear another song?”  (MORE ENTICED APPLAUSE) and then Don commenced to sing “Freight Train”. And after the show we walked the two blocks back to the hotel, still in our dress-blues. People were waving to us at almost every step and some strange women wanted to follow us to our hotel rooms. We went to our rooms alone.  Since there was no videotape then, we never saw the show until 1986 when I discovered a copy of the show in Beverly Hills, California and bought a copy.  For the first time I saw The Four Palms as the public saw them.  They had it “going on” . 

The trip back to California was a blast. The crew of airline attendants had seen the show and we sat in their special section in the back of the plane, singing, eating, laughing, and joking around all the way back to California.  Please note that I didn’t mention, “drinking”.  We were all “tee-totalers” at the time, and with the exception of an occasional beer by Jack, we never drank. Smoking anything other than cigarettes was out of the question. We just wanted to sing. 

When we got back to 29 Palms it seemed like it was all over, but there was mail from all over the country, invites to visit local organizations and one incident that keyed our future.  We received word that Gen. McFarland, the Commander of the base, wanted to see us.  We figured more congratulations a job well done, etc. etc. now back to work. Instead the General was hesitant, almost apologetic, as he greeted us and he hoped that this wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. Can you imagine a general in the Marine Corp saying that to a Corporal and three Pfc’s?  He continued by telling us that he had seen the show along with his wife and daughter and they all loved our music. He explained that he was retiring in three months, but he promised his daughter that he would try to get us to perform at her birthday party at the Officers Club the following week. We didn’t know his daughter but we told him that we would be honored to perform.  After all, we said, after a thank-you appearance at the San Diego YMCA that Saturday his daughters birthday would probably be our last show. He seemed pleased and guaranteed us a full house. We told him to just give us two mikes and a decent sound system.  With that we left, none the worst for wear and tear.  After the record hop in San Dan Diego where we sang, signed pictures and danced with those who asked,  we went back to 29 Palms looking forward to doing our last show and maybe someday recording  “Jeanie Joanie Shirley Toni”.

At the Officers Club we greeted the general and this wife and prepared to do the show. Before the show we asked Gen. Mc Farland if we could we meet his daughter and maybe bring her up on stage and do something special for her birthday.  Imagine our shock when she introduced us to Shirley McFarland, his daughter, the clerk from the PX, our biggest fan, for whom we had written 25% of “Jeanie Joanie Shirley Toni”! .  What a set up!!  After doing 15 minutes of what we normally did we invited Shirley to the stage along with Antoinette, who was present along with her husband. We kidded them about how they bugged us to sing, and made us practice harder because we needed a new song each time we visited the PX. We asked Antoinette to just listen while we serenaded Shirley with out first public singing of the song we had written especially for them, “Jeanie Joanie Shirley Toni”. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house-including ours. Shirley was ready to lose her virginity-on the spot. It was just one of those romantic moments in time that seem to happen once in a lifetime-genuine, poignant, moving, emotional and soul-stirring. As we hit the last note of the song, all was silent for about 5 seconds as everyone could hear the sobbing as tears of happiness engulfed Shirley, The General and his wife were crying for her. 

As we prepared to leave the general said to us “You have made me and my family so happy, there is no way I can repay your kindness, But, if there is anything I can do for you before I retire, all you have to do is ask”. With that we told him how, following the Ed Sullivan Show, the Navy performers went on a worldwide recruitment tour. As Marines, we were not eligible and even if we were, our orders did not include a tour. We wanted to go somewhere-some base near civilization where we could perform, on behalf of the Marine Corps. We suggested San Diego or Los Angeles. He said that he would see what he could do.

Two weeks later, maybe more, The Four Palms received orders to report for duty at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Santa Ana, California, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles and 80 miles north of San Diego. The Four Palms weren’t finished after all. We were just warming up. The orders included 20 days of furlough, after which we were to report to El Toro.  To each of our set of orders he added a note  which read….”Break-A-Leg”

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