Hello doowop lovers,
This is the first of a 2 part series featuring the music of the Anthony "Tony" Maresco led groups Tony & The Dynamics, Tony & The Twilighters and Anthony & The Sophomores.
The featured CD is Anthony & The Sophomores - Play Our Oldies Mr. D.J. and was released in 2004 on Wizard 1001. I bought the CD as soon as it came out and it is one of my favorites still today.
Today I will be featuring Tony's first 2 groups, The Dynamics & The Twilighters, aka Twiliters.
Tony & The Dynamics were from Philadelphia and the group formed in 1957 when the guys were young teenagers who spent their time singing on the street corners. The group was made up of Tony Maresco, his cousin Anthony Perri (baritone), who recruited Tony to join him and his other friends Ernie Funero (first tenor) and John Donato (second tenor) as the lead singer for the group. Maresco was 13 years old at the time and the guys called themselves Tony & The Teens. It was the era when kiddie doowop was all the rage with Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, his brother Lewis Lymon & The Teenchords and Pearl McKinnon & The Kodaks leading the pack. The early recordings of The Dynamics and Twilighters featuring Tony as lead were very similar in style and every bit as good as those other groups, at least in my opinion.
When 1958 rolled around the guys decided to cut 2 demo recordings, the first one was a remake of the Charts' song "Zoop", which was the B-side of their 1957 "Deserie" on Everest. The group renamed the song "And When I'm Near You" and for the flip side covered the Five Satins "In The Still Of The Night", the doowop national anthem. It was at this time they changed the name of the group to the Dynamics. Encouraged by their sound, they went into the studio again and cut two more demos, this time with a more polished band backing them. They recorded a remake of the Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers classic, "I Promise To Remember" and did a fantastic cover of the Crests' "Gee (But I'd Give the World)." It was at this recording session that they caught the attention of a songwriter by the name of J. Micomonaco who was present and was waiting on a group he scheduled to record two songs he had written. When the group didn't show up and impressed with Tony and his group, he offered the songs to them. That led to the Dynamics first and only official record release on Herald, "Forever Love" b/w "Betty My Own", released in 1959 under the name of The Dynamics featuring Tony Maresco. I first discovered these 2 songs when I bought the Relic CDs spotlighting Herald Records back in the mid- 90's and they were 2 of the standout songs on those discs for me.
All four of their demos were previously unreleased prior to the release of this CD. I have remixed all the songs used for my videos to expand the sound and added a little bit of echo.
I will share the first demo here and then provide the link to the playlist for the rest of the videos on my You Tube channel at the end.
After the release of their record, Anthony and the Dynamics split up and Maresco formed a new group called Tony & The Twilighters, aka, Twiliters.
The first release by the group was "Did You Make Up Your Mind" b/w "Be Me Girl" on the Jalynne record label. This single was released as by Tony & The Twiliters. Their second and final release was "Yes or No" b/w "The Key To Your Heart" on the Red Top label and released as by The Twilighters. All four of their recordings were written by Joseph "Jr." Pirollo and Bob Finizio of the Fabulous Four and Four J's.
That was all the recordings for the Twilighters group. Tony Maresco reformed the original Dynamics group and they became known as Anthony & The Sophomores. I will present their recordings tomorrow.
Link to all the Tony & Dynamics & Twilighters videos on my "Dave's Doowop Shop" You Tube channel:
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