Harvey Fuqua & The Moonglows

The Moonglows
(1952 - 1957)

Alexander Graves, Bobby Lester, Prentiss Barns, Harvey Fuqua
Billy Johnson

Their Story

The Moonglows first break came in 1952 when they came to the attention of local disc jockey Alan Freed, who was already making a name for himself playing R&B records. They auditioned and did well enough to earn a chance to record on Freed's own Champagne Records label, changing their name from the Crazy Sounds to the Moonglows. The group enjoyed a modest local hit with a Lester composition, "I Just Can't Tell No Lie." They began performing in venues throughout the industrial Midwest and underwent their first membership change when Coggins quit for a more stable life as a gas station owner. He was replaced by Alex Walton and Alexander Graves.

Lester and Fuqua shared the lead vocal spot, sometimes even on the same song, and both of them had a keen interest in songwriting as well. The group was special not only for their mix of subtle polish and visceral excitement, but also the sheer attractiveness of the singing and the way in which their arrangements locked it all together -- Lester and Fuqua were the leads and the most visible talents, but there were no weak links anywhere in the Moonglows' sound; from bass to the occasional falsetto, all of the singing was dazzling, animated, and bracing, whether on the jump numbers or the ballads; each of their finished records was the total package, distinctly voiced, gorgeously textured, and exciting. In the early fall of 1953 the Moonglows auditioned for Ewart Abner, general manager of the Chance Records label. and landed a contract. Chance Records, a small Chicago outfit that was making a serious noise in blues and R&B, and already had the Flamingoes and the Spaniels under contract. For a year, they tried to chart with ballads -- including a killer version of "Secret Love" with Lester singing lead -- and jump numbers but saw little success at Chance, before they left the label.

In October of 1954, the group moved to Chess Records, and their first session was one of the most productive in the history of the label, yielding 13 songs including one of the biggest hits in Chess' history, "Sincerely" -- authored by Fuqua (with Freed taking half the royalties as "co-author," a common arrangement at the time for Freed and other managers), the Moonglows' recording charted in December of that year and bumped "Earth Angel" by the Penguins out of the number one R&B spot the following month. It later climbed to number 20 on the Hot 100 pop chart. The single rode the R&B listings for 20 weeks and sold over a quarter of a million copies, an extraordinary number for Chess in those days and all of it happening before R&B had fully crossed over to white listeners.

In the case of "Sincerely," it was such an attractive song that it begged to be covered by other artists in other styles -- thus, the Moonglows became one of the earliest R&B groups to see an original of theirs picked up by a pop act, when the white sibling vocal trio the McGuire Sisters covered "Sincerely" in a pop style and got a number one pop hit and a million-selling single out of it. The success of the Moonglows' original version was the break they'd been waiting for, and they began playing some of the best gigs of their history, as part of Alan Freed's huge package shows alongside acts like Joe Turner, the Clovers, and Lowell Fulson. In early 1955, the group's ranks expanded with the addition of guitarist Billy Johnson.

The group then recorder "Most of All" (number five R&B), "Foolish Me," "Starlite," and "In My Diary." Then, in the middle and latter half of 1956, they succeeded anew with the ballad "We Go Together," which reached number nine on the R&B charts and attracted considerable interest from young white listeners. Their next recording "See Saw," reached number nine on the R&B charts and got to number 25 on the pop charts. During this period, Chess also briefly attempted to double-up on the group's approach to the airwaves and radio play lists by taking some of the sides featuring Lester and Fuqua together on lead and issuing those under the name "the Moonlighters."

The group's status in the hierarchy of rock & roll was confirmed when the Moonglows were included in the jukebox movie Rock, Rock, Rock, working alongside Chuck Berry, the Flamingoes, LaVern Baker, the Johnny Burnette Trio, and Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. Later that same year, they also began work on what was to have been their debut LP, and early in 1957 they made another screen appearance, in Mr. Rock and Roll, a second jukebox feature, sandwiched in between many of the same acts as the prior movie -- this was to mark the last screen appearance of the original group.

During 1957, in the wake of their unfinished debut album, there was some friction within the group. Harvey, who already dominated the group as a producer, songwriter, and their de facto vocal arranger sang lead on "Please Send Me Someone to Love". The friction between the group continued through most of the year. Changes in public taste that had taken place since 1955. The group couldn't decide who ought to be leading them, or agree on who should sing lead, but also on which direction their music should go in, toward the more pop-oriented sound of the Platters, who were selling large numbers of records to white audiences, or toward the harder sound that seemed to be coming out of some quarters of the black community, and seemed to be where black listeners were moving.

Torn by these multiple schisms, the Moonglows' lineup collapsed under circumstances that are still a bit murky, in terms of who decided what and who exited.
Moonglows 2000

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