Chart entered : 3 April 1953
Chart peak : 4
Number of hits : 10
Heard of this lot ? Me neither but they were the first faux-siblings to make the charts. From the pictures you couldn't really claim them as the first boy band.
The Johnston Brothers were an all-male quartet led by WWII vet Johnny Johnston ( birth name John Reine ) who worked for the BBC Light Programme as a singer and arranger. He used his clout to sign up with Decca as a member of two different groups, his "Brothers " and a mixed quartet, The Keynotes ( who never had a hit ). His friend Alan Dean was also in both groups. The other members were Eddie Lester and Denny Vaughan.
This is not the gospel song that was a big hit for the Edwin Hawkins Singers in the late Sixties but a close harmony number given an almost comically lugubrious treatment by the guys ( and an uncredited female ) . The accompaniment uses the bottom notes on the piano apart from a brief Wurlitzer break. It sounds like a group of undertakers having a knees-up.
Nope - never heard of them either!
ReplyDeleteBut setting the precedent of "band that aren't really siblings despite the name" that will be followed by a trio of more-famous Americans that we'll meet in the mid 1960s...