Everything about Frankie Lymon totally explained
Franklin Joseph "Frankie" Lymon (
September 30,
1942 –
February 27,
1968) was an
African-American rock and roll/
Rhythm and blues singer, best known as the
boy soprano lead singer of a
New York City-based early rock and roll
group called
The Teenagers. The group included five boys, all in their early to mid teens. The original lineup of the Teenagers, an
integrated group, included three
African-American members, Frankie Lymon, Jimmy Merchant and Sherman Garnes, and two
Puerto Rican members,
Herman Santiago and
Joe Negroni.
The Teenagers' first single, 1956's "
Why Do Fools Fall in Love", was also their biggest. After Lymon went solo in mid-1957, both his career and those of the Teenagers fell into decline. Lymon eventually fell into
heroin addiction, and died in 1968 at the age of 25.
Biography
Early years: joining the Teenagers
Frankie Lymon was born in
Harlem,
New York to a truck driver father and a domestic mother. Lymon's father, Howard Lymon, also sang in a gospel group known as the Harlemaires; Frankie Lymon and his brothers Louis and Howie sung with the Harlemaire Juniors (a fourth Lymon brother, Timmy, a singer, but not with the Harlemaire Juniors). The Lymon family struggled to make ends meet, and Lymon began working as a grocery boy at age ten, augmenting his legitimate income with proceeds gained from hustling prostitutes.
At the age of twelve, Lymon heard a local
doo-wop group known as the Coupe De Villes at a school talent show. He befriended their lead singer,
Herman Santiago, and eventually became a member of the group, now calling itself both The Ermines and The Premiers.
One day in 1955, a neighbor gave The Premiers several love letters that had been written to him by his girlfriend, with the hopes that he could give the boys inspiration to write their own songs. Merchant and Santiago adapted one of the letters into a song called "Why Do Birds Sing So Gay?" With Lymon's input, the song became "Why Do Fools Fall in Love". The Premiers, now calling themselves The Teenagers, got their first shot at fame after impressing Richard Barrett, a singer with The Valentines. Barrett in turn got the group an audition with record producer George Goldner. On the day of the group's audition, Santiago was the original lead singer but, Goldner noticed Frankie's voice in the background and asked him to have a try at singing lead. Lymon led the Teenagers through "Why Do Fools Fall in Love".
"Why Do Fools Fall in Love": fame and success
Goldner signed the quintet to
Gee Records, and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" became their first single in January 1956. The single peaked at #6 on the
Billboard pop singles chart, and topped the
Billboard R&B singles chart for five weeks.
Five other R&B top ten singles followed over the next year-plus: "I Want You To Be My Girl", "I Promise To Remember", "Who Can Explain?", "Out in the Cold Again", and "The ABC's of Love." "I'm Not A Juvenile Delinquent" and "Baby Baby" were also popular Teenagers releases. "I Want You To Be My Girl" gave the band its second pop hit, reaching #13 on the national Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Goody Goody" was a #20 pop hit, but didn't appear on the R&B chart. The Teenagers placed two other singles in the lower half of the pop chart.
With the release of "I Want You to Be My Girl", the group's second single, The Teenagers became
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers. A long-playing album,
The Teenagers Featuring Frankie Lymon, was issued in December 1956.
The group's success made Frankie Lymon the first African-American
teen idol. In March 1956, the Teenagers began appearing with pioneering rock and roll DJ
Alan Freed's rock-and-roll revues, performing alongside acts such as
Little Richard,
Bo Diddley,
The Platters, and
Bill Haley and His Comets. The group also appeared in two of Freed's early rock and roll films,
Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) and
Mister Rock and Roll (1957), and performed on Freed's radio and television programs. While touring with the Platters, Lymon befriended that group's sole female singer,
Zola Taylor, whom he later began a romantic relationship with.
Going solo
In early 1957, Lymon and the Teenagers split apart while on a tour of Europe. During an engagement at the
London Palladium, Goldner began pushing Lymon as a solo act, giving him solo spots in the show. Lymon began performing with backing from pre-recorded tapes. The group's last single, "
Goody Goody" backed with "Creation of Love," initially retained the
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers credit, but were actually solo recordings (with backing by session singers). Lymon had officially departed from the group by September 1957; an in-progress studio album called
Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers at the London Palladium was instead issued as a Lymon solo release.
As a solo artist, Lymon wasn't nearly as successful as he was with the Teenagers. Beginning with his second solo release, "My Girl", Lymon was moved to
Roulette Records. On a
July 19,
1957 episode of Freed's live
ABC TV show
The Big Beat, Lymon began dancing with a white teenage girl while performing. His actions caused a scandal, particularly among Southern TV station owners, and
The Big Beat was subsequently canceled.
Lymon's slowly tapering sales fell sharply after his voice changed and he lost his signature soprano voice. Adopting a
falsetto, Lymon carried on. His highest charting solo hit was a cover of
Thurston Harris' "
Little Bitty Pretty One", which peaked at number 58 on the Hot 100 pop chart in 1960, and which had actually been recorded in 1957. Addicted to
heroin since age 15, Lymon fell further into his habit, and his performing career went into decline. According to Lymon in an interview with Ebony in 1967, he said that he was first introduced to heroin by a woman twice his age, when he was 15. In 1961, Roulette, now run by
Morris Levy, ended their contract with Lymon and the singer entered a
drug rehabilitation program.
After losing Lymon, the Teenagers went through a string of replacement singers, the first of whom was Lymon's immediate successor Billy Lobrano. In 1960, Howard Kenny Bobo sang lead on "Tonight's The Night" with the Teenagers; later that year, Johnny Houston sang lead on 2 songs. The Teenagers, who had been moved by Morris Levy onto End Records, were released from their contract in 1961. The Teenagers briefly reunited with Lymon in 1965, without success.
Later years and death
Over the next four years, Lymon struggled through short-lived deals with
20th Century Fox Records and
Columbia Records. Lymon began a relationship with Elizabeth Waters, who became his first wife in January 1964. Lymon's marriage to Ms. Waters wasn't legal in the beginning, due to her still being legally married to her first husband. However, they supposedly became married by way of
common law marriage eventually. Lymon's marriage failed, and he moved to
Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, where he began a romantic relationship with
Zola Taylor. He appeared at the Apollo as part of a revue, adding an extended tap dance number. His final television performance was on
Hollywood a Go-Go in 1965, where the then twenty-two year old singer lip-synched to the recording of his thirteen-year-old self singing "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," which was a bold and courageous step toward revitalizing his career. Taylor claimed to have married Lymon in
Mexico in 1965, although their relationship ended several months later because of Lymon's drug habits. Though, Lymon has been known to say that their marriage was a publicity stunt. Taylor could produce no legal documentation of their marriage.
The same year, Lymon was drafted into the
United States Army, and stationed at
Fort Gordon, Georgia near
Augusta, Georgia for training. While in the Augusta area, Lymon met and fell in love with Elmira Eagle, a schoolteacher at Hornsby Elementary in Augusta. The two were wed in June 1967, and Lymon repeatedly went
AWOL to secure club dates at small Southern clubs. Dishonorably discharged from the Army, Lymon moved into his wife's home and continued to perform sporadically.
Traveling to New York in 1968, manager Sam Bray signed Lymon to his Big Apple label, and the singer returned to recording.
Roulette Records expressed interest in releasing Lymon's records in conjunction with Big Apple and scheduled a recording session for
February 28. Lymon, staying at his grandmother's house in Harlem where he'd grown up, celebrated his good fortune by taking heroin -- he'd remained clean ever since entering the Army three years prior. On
February 27,
1968, Lymon was found dead from a
heroin overdose. He was twenty-five years old. He was buried at
Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the
Throggs Neck section of
The Bronx in
New York. "I'm Sorry" and "Seabreeze", the two sides Lymon had recorded for Big Apple before his death, were released later in the year. "Seabreeze" showcased the beauty of his mature sound along with the vocal skills and techniques that made him famous.
Legal issues
Lymon's troubles didn't end with his death. After R&B singer
Diana Ross returned "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" to the Top Ten in 1981, a major controversy concerning Lymon's estate ensued. Zola Taylor, Elizabeth Waters, and Elmira Eagle each approached Morris Levy, who retained possession of Lymon's copyrights and his royalties, claiming to be Lymon's rightful widow - Lymon had neglected to divorce both Taylor and Waters. The complex issue resulted in lawsuits and counter-lawsuits, and in 1986, the first of several court cases concerning the ownership of Lymon's estate began.
Trying to determine who was indeed the lawful Mrs. Frankie Lymon was complicated by more issues. Waters was already married when she married Lymon; she'd separated from her first husband, but their divorce was finalized in 1965,
after she'd married Lymon. Taylor claimed to have married Lymon in Mexico in 1965, but could produce no acceptable evidence of their union. Lymon's marriage to Eagle, on the other hand, was properly documented as having taken place at the Beulah Grove Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia in 1967; however, the singer was still apparently twice-married and never divorced when he married Eagle. The first decision was made in Waters' favor; Eagle appealed, and in 1990, the New York State Supreme Court reversed the original decision and awarded Eagle Lymon's estate.
However, the details of the case brought about another issue: whether Morris Levy was deserving of the songwriting co-credit on "Why Do Fools Fall in Love". Although early vinyl single releases of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" credit Frankie Lymon, Herman Santiago, and Jimmy Merchant as co-writers of the song, later releases and cover versions were attributed to Lymon and George Goldner. When Goldner sold his music companies to Morris Levy in 1959, Levy's name began appearing as co-writer of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" in place of Goldner's. Lymon was never paid his songwriters' royalties during his lifetime; one result of Elmira Eagle's legal victory was that Lymon's estate would finally begin receiving monetary compensation from his hit song's success. In 1987, Herman Santiago and Jimmy Merchant, both then poor, sued Morris Levy for their songwriters' credits.
In December 1992, the
United States federal courts ruled that Santiago and Merchant were co-authors of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love"
Legacy
Although their period of success was brief, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers' string of hits were highly influential on the rock and R&B performers who followed them. Lymon's high-voiced sound is said to be a direct predecessor of the
girl group sound, and the list of performers who name him as an influence include
Ronnie Spector,
The Chantels, Diana Ross,
The Temptations,
Smokey Robinson, and
Len Barry, among others.
Lymon's music and story were re-introduced to modern audiences with
Why Do Fools Fall in Love, a 1998 biographical film directed by
Gregory Nava, also the director of the
Selena biopic.
Why Do Fools Fall in Love tells a comedic, fictionalized version of Lymon's story from the points of view of his three wives as they battle in court for the rights to his estate. The film stars
Larenz Tate as Frankie Lymon,
Halle Berry as Zola Taylor,
Vivica A. Fox as Elizabeth Waters, and
Lela Rochon as Elmira Eagle.
Why Do Fools Fall in Love wasn't a commercial success: it met with mixed reviews, the film grossed a total of $12,461,773 during its original theatrical run.
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1993, and into the
Vocal Group Hall of Fame in
2000.
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers discography
Singles
Gee releases:
- 1956-01: [Gee1002] "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" / "Please Be Mine" 1 (#1 on the R&B chart for 5 weeks)
- 1956-04: [Gee1012] "I Want You To Be My Girl" / "I'm Not A Know It All" ² (#3 on R&B chart)
- 1956-07: [Gee1018] "I Promise To Remember" / "Who Can Explain" (double-sided hit on R&B chart (#10 and #7))
- 1956-10: [Gee1022] "The ABC's Of Love" / "Share" (#8 on R&B chart)
- 1957-02: [Gee1026] "I'm Not A Juvenile Delinquent" / "Baby, Baby"
- 1957-04: [Gee1032] "Paper Castles" / "Teenage Love"
- 1957-05: [Gee1035] "love Is A Crown / Am I Gooling Myself Again"
- 1957-06: [Gee1036] "Out In The Cold Again" / "Miracle In The Rain" 1 (#10 on R&B chart)
- 1957-07: [Gee1039] "Goody Goody" / "Creation Of Love" ³
- 1957-12: [Gee1046] "Everything To Me" / "Flip Flop" 4
==
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