Customer Reviews

Get a Job

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the all-time opening bars of any R&R song has to be "Sha-na-na-na, Sha na-na-na-na naaah." It even spawned a 1970s group calling themselves Sha Na Na.

Yes, The Silhouettes usually lead the list whenever someone speaks to the phenomenon known as "the one-hit wonder." But I think, to be fair, such lists have to be divided into two categories. Those who could only manage one hit while under contract to a large label able to spend on promotion and influence airplay, and those whose careers were spent struggling with small labels barely able to pay the rent.

Such was the case with The Silhouettes. Earl Beal, Billy Horton, Richard Lewis, and Raymond Edwards had started out as The Four Gospel Tornados in 1955 in their native Philadelphia, and when signed to a contract with the tiny Junior label in 1956 cut the ear-catching Get A Job b/w I Am Lonely. However Junior, owned by disc jockey Kae Williams, didn't have the funds to push it and so leased the rights to the marginally larger Ember.

When they turned it loose in January 1958 it fairly rocketed to # 1 Billboard Top 100 AND R&B (and stayed there for two (Top 100) and six (R&B) weeks in February. Spending a total of 26 combined weeks on the charts, it outdistanced a cover put out by the venerable Mills Brothers on Dot (# 21 Top 100), selling one million copies within three weeks (not long after the fledging Miracles would cut an "answer" song - Got A Job - that failed to chart).

Yes, if you're only looking for The Silhouettes' Get A Job it's obviously available on umpteen compilations, and it would be silly to buy an entire CD of their stuff to get one song. But wait. You have to think that if they, like a lot of other black groups back then, had had the backing of a giant label like RCA Victor or Columbia they would have had a few more charters.

Certainly they do more than just a credible job on things like I Sold My Heart To The Junkman (a hit for The Blue Belles in 1962) and should be accorded a little more respect.

This group of Philadelphia "doo woppers' made it big in January of 1958 with a rock'n roll classic called "Get A Job". This cd contains the original recording and several other attempts at hitsville but as you can tell by listening, they didn't have it together for some reason. The follow-up to "Get A Job" was a song called "Headin' For The Poor House", that title sort of tells you what happened to the group. The only person to make any money from the hit "Get A Job" was the producer. The song was a "fluke" and the group never had a chance. So Sad!!!!

Why can't they make music this good anymore? Why did swing music and doo-wop have to go out of style? Once upon a time, we were treated to such music as "Get a Job" and "Earth Angel", but now we have such rubbish as "Fergalicious", among other things. There was bad music in the 1950's, too. I've heard some of it- simply frightful. But there is a reason, I think, why songs like "Get a Job" and "In My Merry Oldsmobile" don't come along much anymore. And while I don't know that reason, whatever it is, it may have a fair amount to do with why $25,000 once bought you the finest cars in the world and now buys a new Ford. Not that Fords are bad... though some might disagree. Hey, each to his own. And besides, this is not meant to spark the old "Imports vs. Domestics" or "Ford vs. GM vs. Chrysler" argument.

Anway.
On to the CD itself. Named after its feature song, the golden classic "Get a Job" of 1957, this CD contains 12 other songs by The Silhouettes, who tragically never got another hit after "Get a Job" and saw all the rest, even the group itself, fade into an obscurity it never, by any means, deserved. Listen to these songs, folks. "Get a Job" was not the only great song these fellas made. "Never Will Part", "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman", and "Evelyn" in particular deserve far more recognition than they've ever received. To anyone who knows and likes- or loves- The Silhouettes, their genre of music, or the time that they are most associated with, I highly recommend this fine CD, "Get a Job". Any collection of 1950's music can't be called complete without it.