Who Are the Unknown Singers?

David Crosby once raved about the Beatles: “They had the goods. And they really had the songs.” But if the Beatles weren’t such good-looking blokes, would the lads still have been chased by hysterical fans after The Ed Sullivan Show?  If viewers only heard, and didn’t see “cute Paul” and his mates perform, would Beatlemania have gone to a higher level the next day? After all, hundreds of singers appeared on Sullivan’s show and sold millions of records, but their appearances never caused any public scenes.  Let’s call them the Unknown Singers.

For example, for seven years, the Grass Roots had fourteen hits in the Top 40.  Yet, only select groupies seemed to know the name of the lead singer, Rob Grill.  Luckily for the Roots, they had songwriters P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the composers of “Eve of Destruction” and “Secret Agent Man,” to thank for kick-starting their career.

Early on, Sloan and Barri released “Where Were You When I Needed You?” as a demo, calling themselves “The Grass Roots.”  When the tune became a minor hit, P.F. wasn’t up to touring, so the label, Dunhill, scrambled for musicians to assume the role of the Roots.

Kent Hartman, author of The Wrecking Crew, said Dunhill’s search ended: “–when the group ‘The 13th Floor,’ three good-looking kids competent on their instruments, walked into the Dunhill offices looking for a recording contract. The producers countered with the option to assume the Grass Roots name and tour an album.”

When singer Kenny Fukumoto was drafted into the Army, Grill replaced him and became a vital cog in the hit-making machine.  In the 1980s, Grill found it was much more lucrative to tour as “The Grass Roots Starring Rob Grill,” wisely realizing that he was a member of a club that could be called “Singers Anonymous.”

Other S.A. members include the Turtles’ singers, Howard Kaylan and the late Mark Volman, who had to perform as “Flo and Eddie” because their old record company prohibited them from using their band’s name.  After a fifteen-year fight in the courts, the singers were granted the right to be Turtles again.

Unfortunately, Howard and Mark claimed only partial victory when, as part of a class action suit, they sued Sirius Radio in 2013 because Sirius, by law, didn’t have to pay any artist for playing any records made before 1972.  In 2016, Sirius reluctantly paid approximately $99 million to right the royalties wrong; five years later, the company appealed, which reduced Sirius’s licensing rate for future royalties to zero.

After twelve years of Turtle silence, Sirius only recently started playing their music again on their ’60s Gold station

Perhaps if the lead singers in Three Dog Night (Chuck Negron, Danny Hutton, and Cory Wells) were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, they would have better impressed a car full of ladies.

Negron described his bandmates’ first taste of success. In a May 2022 interview with Forbes, Chuck recalled: “[In 1968] We were driving from Detroit to the Miami Pop Festival. When we pulled into Miami at a stoplight, there were these girls in a convertible next to us. The radio disc jockey says suddenly, ‘This week’s number one is Three Dog Night,’ and he started playing ‘One.’ I yelled to the girls, ‘That’s us, that’s us!’ They looked over and said, ‘Sure it is.’”

-Mark Daponte

Photo: Three Dog Night, 1969 (public domain)