Beaudaddy Presents the Pioneer Acappella Group


The Chessmen
Manhattan, NYC
1960-1967
An Acappella Street Corner Vocal Group

The Chessmen on Relic

James Meyers 17, William Ramirez 16, Ted Ziffer 18, Tommy Reyes 18, Arthur Crank 19

The Chessmen were from Washington Heights , around 166th St.
Eddie Gries discovered the group and recorded them on his Relic Record Label.
The Group wrote much of their material - 18 songs
The draft caused this group to break up.

From the 1965 LP - Acappella Showcase presents By Popular Demand

Please contact Relic Records at

http://members.aol.com/relicshopp/relicmain.htm

for more information on this LP


 

Read this email - Received - Wed 4/26/2006 9:54 PM

Hi, My name is Ted Ziffer. I was told about your site by a good friend of mine Steve Dunham. I am the founder and original second tenor of the Chessmen that recorded on Relic in the sixties. Thanks to Steves interest in my group he was helpful in putting me back in contact with the lead James Myers. We have recently been in touch with the bass Arthur Crank and have agreed along with the help of two other veteran acapella singers to attempt to rerecord some of our tunes.It will take us several months to work on this project. James lives in New York City and I live just outside of Philly but we will be flying Arthur in from Texas for the studio work. We will initially do four songs and if when they are done they are worthy of the Chessmen label we will continue the project until we have recaptured the majority of our material. James and I have been vocally active for most of our lives. He singing and recording with the Valentinos and I have recorded with the Allures and 45Rpm on Starlight. If you want any information on the Chessmen I will be glad to send you a bio. at some time . I am not computer high tech and do not know much about sending photos over the internet but I do have some. I think your sight is great. Should you wish to contact me by phone my cell Phone # is 555.555.555 .I just finished talking with Steve for a couple of hours. Seems we will be working on a couple of projects together. Long live acappella.

 

 


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beaudaddy © 2000 -2008
www.beaudaddy.com

beaudaddy's reference material - from my personal collection of books and LPs
- Special Thanks to -
Eddie Gries of Relic Records
Wayne Stierle of Snowflake Records
Stan R. Krause of Catamount Records
Ronni I of Clifton Records
- for all their LP Notes -
Some of my books include:
American Singing Groups - Jay Warner
Acappella Street Corner Vocal groups - Abe Santiago and Steve Dunham
They All Sang On The Corner - Phil Groia
Doo-Wop - Forgotten third of Rock 'n Roll - Gribin and Schiff
Complete Book of Doo-Wop - Gribin and Schiff