America’s Little Darlins By early 1955 The Diamonds had been signed to Decca's subsidiary label Coral Records. Following the lead of the Crew Cuts they did two covers - "Black Denim Trousers" a tepid original by a one hit group called The Cheers (with TV's Bert Convy) on Capitol, and The Clovers' "Nip Sip".  Neither of these Coral releases went anywhere. The  second try for Coral "Smooch Me" / "Be My Lovin' Baby" also did an immediate deep six. The group was now adrift  after the two failures and without direction and they might have vanished but for a big move by their manager Nat  Goodman who got in touch with the country's number one breakout disc jockey, Bill Randle of WERE in Cleveland,  Ohio. Through his influence, they were sent for an audition with Mercury Records in Chicago which was the label  that had The Crew Cuts under contract. The powers that be at the label saw a similar possibility as the other  Canadian group and soon The Diamonds were in the studio and their first release for their new label hit the streets. In January of 1956 they covered The Teenagers "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" and The Cleftones "You Baby You".  Unbelievable as it may seem in the context of the times, "Fools" became a top fifteen pop chart hit for The  Diamonds and Mercury hit pay dirt again with a Canadian cover. The rest of 1956 saw The Diamonds hit with three more covers - The Willows "Church Bells May Ring", The Clovers "Love Love Love", and The G-Clefs "Ka-Ding  Dong" on. The group did an original "My Judge And Jury" which bombed, and ended the year with another cover of The Heartbeats "A Thousand Miles Away" which went nowhere. By now the Mercury execs were in a bit of a  quandary. They felt the cover record concept might be wearing a bit thin as many of the country's teenagers were  becoming much more astute and going with the originals rather than lukewarm covers by pop music oriented  recording artists. In early 1957 someone at Mercury Records heard a strange R & B sound from a unique label based in Nashville,  Tennessee, called Excello Records. The label specialized in "down home" blues musicians such as Lazy Lester,  Earl Gaines, and especially Slim Harpo. The label recently had success with a vocal group called The Marigolds  on a R & B original "Rollin' Stone", and they followed that up with "Two Strangers", and two sides featuring former  Prisonaires lead vocalist Johnny Bragg on "Foolish Me" and "It's You Darling It's You". The success with The  Marigolds led the label to launch a group from South Carolina called The Royal Charms. Lead singer of the group  Maurice Williams felt the group was ready to expand their local base and contacted Ernie Young head of Excello  Records in Nashville where they soon headed for an audition. Young was impressed with the group especially the  songs written by Williams, and in particular one tune called "Little Darlin'". He had the vocalists change their name,  and staying with his "flower" motif (a la The Marigolds) he named them The Gladiolas. "Darlin'" was released early  in January of 1957 on Excello and from the get-go the strange Latin rhythms and vocal inflections made for  success on the R & B charts where it went as high as the number eleven best seller in the country. The scene shifts to Chicago where Mercury Records played the tune for Somerville and his fellow Diamonds. They  learned the song and soon went into the studio to record their cover version of the song. Mercury released it late  February of 1957 and because of its status as a major label with access to airplay and national distribution, the  Diamonds soon were being heard from coast to coast. This time something was different. Somehow everyone got  it right on this one recording, from the tricky rhythms, the exaggerated falsetto of Kowalski, strong lead by  Somerville, and the speaker rattling bass of Reed, it was the ultimate cover record. An absolute "killer" intro  featuring castanets, a clanging cowbell, and the piano glissando, leads into the wordless first chorus featuring  Reed on bass leading into the lead vocal. Reed's recitation in the middle of the song is not too far from a "fool"  voice used in many tunes but he pulls it off keeping with the dramatics of the song. After this section another piano  touch leads into the final chorus featuring an almost brittle vocal by Somerville where he almost spits out the vocal  with an elongated exaggeration with background also featuring a hard vocal edge. The "cha cha cha" ending caps  it off, and the record is over. In one of the extremely rare instances in American musical history, a White cover  group (Canadians no less) outdid the original in rhythm and feeling making for the greatest vocal group cover  record ever (yes better than the Charms "Hearts Of Stone" and The Drifters "Adorable"). "Little Darlin'" sold more  than a million, got as high as number two on both the pop charts and R & B charts and was a major hit of 1957. After "Darlin'" the Diamonds got on the charts with "Words of Love" on and "Zip Zip", and then the top ten with a  cover of The Rays "Silhouettes" (the flip was a cover of The Rays flip "Daddy Cool"-one of the best flip sides of the late fifties). Early in 1958 The Diamonds made the top five with an original called "The Stroll" regarding the dance  step popularized on American Bandstand. The group made sporadic appearances on the best seller lists through  the early sixties including covers of The Solitaires "Walking Along" on (which spurred Old Town Records to re-  release the original) and The Danleers "One Summer Night" in 1961. After that last moderate charter, The  Diamonds disbanded became part of history. And The Gladiolas ? They had three more sides, all unsuccessful for  Excello - "Run Run Little Joe", "Hey Little Girl", and "Shoop Shoop". Maurice Williams then got a taste of the  business end when they were dumped by Excello and told the label had the legal right to the name. Back to South  Carolina they went with a new name as The Zodiacs and did five tunes for obscure local labels that are rare  collector items today : "Golly Gee" / "T Town" Cole #100, "Lover" / "She's Mine" Cole, "College Girl" / "Say Yeah"  Selwyn, the hopefully named "Another Little Darlin'" / "Lita" Soma .  By 1960 with numerous personnel changes the new Zodiacs were given a shot with veteran New York R & B label  owner Al Silver of Herald Records. The 'A' side was a slow-medium tempo tune called "Stay" featuring a blasting  falsetto section by Williams and an original sound for the group. Reaction was not long in coming for Herald. The  record began to sell and be played on radio stations across the country. By the time the record had crested,  Maurice Williams had the monster hit he had possibly been deprived of by The Diamonds cover three years  before. "Stay" went all the way to the top spot, becoming the number one selling record in the entire country. There were no follow up successes for the group and they subsequently recorded for a number of labels throughout the  sixties after Herald such as Atlantic (one side), Scepter, SphereSound, Seahorn, and Deesu. The group has kept  in the public eye ever since because of the incessant popularity of "Stay" from a place in Beach Music (based in  Myrtle Beach, South Carolina) and on soundtrack recordings such as "Dirty Dancing" and television advertising. The parallel stories of The Diamonds and Gladiolas / Zodiacs are each interesting enough, but that moment in  early 1957 when the two worlds collided and produced the greatest vocal group cover record ever, is the stuff of  dreams and legends, and the kind of occurrence that will probably never ever happen again - but we were there ! Special thanks to J. C. for the reprinting of this article.  For a very interesting journey into the history of music,  please visit his site J. C. Marion.