The Bobbettes: The First Girl Group?

One of the quirkier terms of major league baseball is “a cup of coffee,” when a player who has toiled in the minor leagues is promoted, only to wind up having a very short-lived career.  One such person was pitcher Charles “Bumpus” Jones, who hurled a no-hitter in his debut in 1892 only to appear in just seven more big league games.

In pop music, there are hundreds of groups who never came close to matching their first taste of success.  The Bobbettes were one such group, thanks to their peppy 1957 hit, “Mr. Lee.”

The future one-hit wonders attended P.S. 109 in Spanish Harlem, where they called themselves the “Harlem Queens.” At one Apollo Theater talent show, promoter James Dailey loved their voices but loathed their name; he felt that the Harlem Queens sounded like a motorcycle gang.

Lead singer Reather Dixon and second lead Emma Pought were twelve, as was Helen Gathers; Jannie Pought was eleven, Laura Webb was thirteen when they renamed their group “The Chanels” in honor of Laura’s sister who’d given birth to daughter Chanel Bobbette. Unfortunately, the Chanels sounded too much like The Chantels, another girl group from the Bronx. So they chose the next part of the name, The Bobbettes.

The subject of their hit, “Mr. Lee,” was their fifth-grade teacher.  Author Cullen Dorn (The Hierophant of 100th Street), who was also taught by Mr. Lee, wrote that he “was a lookalike of the old TV series Superman’s Clark Kent. I remember him being uptight, too conservative, nervous eyes, and up to the time when he wept hearing his song reach number one on the charts, emotionally constipated.”

Lee had heard an early version of the Bobbettes’ song that claimed their instructor was “the ugliest teacher you ever did see” and was “four-eyed”; he met with them in his office.  Later on, Mr. Lee heard the rewritten ditty on the radio where they now sang his praises, gushing he was “the handsomest sweetie you ever did see.”  Lead singer Dixon claimed he was “ecstatic.”

Record label Atlantic was equally ecstatic at the 1957 song’s success; it peaked at #1 in the R&B charts and spent 24 weeks in the Top 100. They went on the road on the “Chitlin’ Circuit,” touring with other black acts.

The youngsters stuck out like unsightly sore thumbs thanks to their manager, James Daily, who created their bland stage costumes.  Thankfully, seasoned singers Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker acted as temporary mothers and mentors, teaching them how to apply makeup and how to win over an audience.

But those changes didn’t change the fact that the Bobbettes had lost their star power. On December 6, 1957, the girls appeared at the Apollo Theater, praised for an excellent performance. But one year later, the head of the theater was not impressed. He noted, “Same act. Held spot adequately. No drawing power. Overpaid.”

Follow-up singles (“Zoomy” and “Speedy”) to “Mr. Lee” did not tickle the fancy of the record-buying public, so the group had to resort to a sequel with the bizarre “I Shot Mr. Lee.”

When Atlantic Records refused to release the song in 1960, the Bobbettes pitched it to the Triple-X label, who released it to an unsuspecting public. After the song went to #52 on Billboard, Atlantic successfully sued Triple-X for copyright infringement, resulting in X surrendering their copies to Atlantic.

Where once a Bobbettes’ song inspired an “answer song” (sax player Lee Allen’s cool 1958 instrumental “Walking with Mr. Lee”), the group was relegated to releasing answer songs, the death knell of groups. In 1961, “I Don’t Like It Like That” was a note-for-note reply to Chris Kenner’s hit “I Like It Like That,” marking the last time they scored a (minor) hit (#72). Recording under different labels (Diamond, Bareback, Mayhew and Galliant) and under a different name (Sophisticated Ladies) and even a different style (disco) didn’t boost their career or bank accounts.

Had they hooked up with a better producer or songwriters, the Bobbettes might have had a storied career. Their final appearance on a hit record (#4 in 1963) occurred when they sang back-up on Gil Hamilton’s  “Loop de Loop,” which half consisted of the nursery rhyme about everyone going loop de loop then everyone going loop de lie.

If legendary lyricist Johnny Mercer heard the simplistic song, he may have repeated what he declared as he walked out of a dreadful musical: “I could eat alphabet soup and crap better lyrics!”

-Mark Daponte

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