Chessmen
The Chessmen
Manhattan, NY
An Acappella Street Corner Vocal Group
Ted Ziffer 18, William Ramirez 16, James Meyers 17 , 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
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
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.