The Blossoms

The Blossoms are an American girl group that originated from California. During their height of success in the 1960s, the group's lineup most famously consisted of Darlene Love, Fanita James, and Jean King.

Although the group had a recording career in their own right, they were most famous for being the group to actually record the No.1 hit "He's a Rebel" (which producer Phil Spector credited to The Crystals), and for providing backing vocals for many of the biggest hits of the 1960s.

History

Early years

Their career began in Los Angeles, California, United States, while still in high school in 1954. Originally the group was a sextet of young girls singing for fun. Calling themselves The Dreamers, the group originally sang spirituals, since two of the members had parents who were against their daughters singing secular rhythm and blues music, which was popular on the radio during the early 1950s.

Fanita Barrett (later known as Fanita James), Gloria A. Jones (not to be confused with Gloria R. Jones of "Tainted Love" fame), Jewel Cobbs, Pat Howard and twin sisters Annette and Nanette Williams all came from musical backgrounds. The twins had taken vocal and dancing lessons as youngsters. Fanita's brother Ronald was already a success with his vocal group, The Meadowlarks. The Dreamers were introduced to local musicians through Dexter Tisby, then successful with his own group The Penguins who had a hit with "Earth Angel".

The Dreamers joined Richard Berry in the studio and, during 1955 and 1956, made several recordings for Flair and RPM Records. Among them was a version of Harry Warren and Mack Gordon's "At Last" and several of Richard Berry's compositions: "Together", "Wait For Me", and "Daddy, Daddy". The Dreamers gained attention as versatile singers and began to get studio work singing backup for other artists as well as recording a few singles of their own as the Dreamers.

The Dreamers signed with Capitol Records where one of the executives, noticing their different skin tones, said they looked like a bouquet; which is how they became the Blossoms. Even though signing to Capitol was considered a step up, the group's stay at Capitol was shortyielding only three singlesnone of which made the charts. The Blossoms also underwent significant changes at this time. By 1958, Nanette Williams was married, pregnant, and planning a leave of absence from the group.

Darlene Wright (later known as Darlene Love) replaced Nanette and was selected to be the lead, which the ensemble-based Blossoms had not previously had. The addition of Wright changed the style of the group but chart success was still elusive, despite Wright's unique presence as lead, on songs like "No Other Love" for Capitol in 1958, "Sugarbeat" for RCA (as the Playgirls) in 1960 and "Write Me A Letter" for Challenge in 1961.

The group provided back-up vocals to Sam Cooke's 1959 hit, "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha".

The 1960s

During the summer of 1962, the Blossoms were finally successful on the charts, although their biggest hit song, "He's a Rebel", was not credited to them.

Producer Phil Spector had learned that Vikki Carr was soon to record "He's a Rebel" for Liberty Records as her debut single, and decided he had to rush his own version to stores. Since the Crystals (his biggest girl group at the time) were touring on the east coast at the time, the Blossoms were instead brought in to record the track. However, when Spector released the record, the song was instead credited to the Crystals (much to the dismay of the actual Crystals). The Blossoms in turn received only a meager session fee (Darlene Love states they were paid "triple scale") and are not credited for contributing to the record. The song peaked at No.1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and firmly established Spector as a force in the music industry. Over the next three years, the Blossoms, with Wright as lead, would be the favored singers on all of Spector's sessions recorded in California.

Wright and Barrett sang with Bobby Sheen as Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans. This combo achieved hit singles for Spector, including a version of the Disney song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."

Spector also used The Blossoms as the prime backing group for the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', which was a No.1 hit in 1964 in the U.S. and in the U.K.. Helping out too with the crescendo was Cher, who had previously sung for Spector on recordings by The Ronettes, including "Be My Baby", which also featured The Blossoms.

Although The Blossoms were attempting to establish themselves as primary artists, they still contributed backing vocals behind many of the biggest hits of the 1960s including "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Shelley Fabares' "Johnny Angel", and the Blossoms lead singer Wright's solo efforts (which included "He's Sure the Boy I Love", although again Spector credited the song to the Crystals). Fabares has said that her strongest memory of that recording session was the "beautiful voices of the backup singers".

In 1964, the group was reduced to a trio of Wright (now Love), Barrett (now James), and newcomer Jean King and were a featured part of a relatively successful weekly rock' n' roll television program called ''Shindig!

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