The Mello-Moods

THE BRAND NEW York-based Mello-Moods are significant in the annals of teen vocal groups, coming together almost four years before Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, who have been acclaimed as the main one from the first black “kiddie” groups to fully capture the public’s attention in the first ’50s. 13 and 14-year-old 8th graders Ray “Friend” Wooten (business lead), Bobby “Schubie” Williams (second business lead, tenor, and piano), Bobby Baylor (second tenor and baritone), Monteith “Monte” Owens (tenor and acoustic guitar), and Jimmy “Bip” Bethea (bass) had been so youthful that these were all still going to Resurrection Grammar College on Western 151st Road in Manhattan if they started to attract interest. By past due 1950/early 1951, the unnamed band of teenie vocalists could possibly be found exercising at Macombs Dam Recreation area over the bridge in the Bronx, directly behind Yankee Stadium. Bobby Robinson, who possessed the Crimson Robins record shop and was seeking to begin the Crimson Robins record label, captured the group and made a decision that he’d invest his money and time to record them. By Dec 1951, the group — today contacting themselves the Mello-Moods — had documented their first one, a gentle ballad known as “Where Are You,” which shortly found its method to Billboard’s nationwide R&B graphs on Feb 23, 1952, where it reached amount seven in the country. Jimmy Keyes, a pal of the group (afterwards a member from the Chords — “Sh-Boom” — on Kitty) became their supervisor and got them in the bill on the Apollo Movie theater, aswell as nightclubs generally reserved for adults. The Mello-Moods also came out in the Limelight on Harlem Television show. The group’s following solitary, a ballad known as “I Couldn’t Rest a Wink YESTERDAY EVENING” gained them some airplay, but didn’t chart as well as the group was quickly registering with fresh supervisor Joel Turnero. Turnero required these to Prestige Information, who released a couple of singles, “I’m Shed” and its own follow-up, “Ask Me,” but both didn’t graph. By 1952, the group became restless and began drifting off to create other groups. Quickly enough, the Mello-Moods experienced simply vanished. Schubie Williams, Bobby Baylor, and Monte Owens later on formed the famous Solitaires, whose biggest strike was “Embraceable You” on Aged City. In 1963, this same group started support Ray Brewster as the Cadillacs (“Fool,” Artic) as well as toured for some time as both Cadillacs and among the bazillion functions phoning themselves the Drifters, with Bobby Baylor performing his greatest Clyde McPhatter impression. Monty Owens later on remaining the music biz and visited function for the U.S. Postal Support and Baylor became a transit conductor in the brand new York Town subway program. Ray Wooten was the regrettable victim of a bad robbery in the ’70s that soured him around the music business for a lot more than 30 years. The storyplot is usually that two guys confident him that these were associates of well-known R&B radio display who wished to do a mag content and radio display about his profession. Wooten changed over important personal products, including photos and docs, that have been to be utilized and came back to him, but since it changed out, both had been thieves and the non-public items were hardly ever came back. Wooten was therefore harm by this that he vowed to never have anything regarding the music business once again and it wasn’t until Oct of 1998, in the stage from the UGHA, that Wooten — a visitor of UGHA member/previous Mello-Mood bassman Jimmy Bethea — was welcomed with great applause which produced him feel just like he had changed his back on the musical community that hadn’t forgotten him.