The Crescendos

A doo-wop and early rock-n-roll group from Cumberland High in the mid 50s, they recorded for Nasco, which was an imprint of Nashboro Records.

The Crescendos with Noel Ball

History[edit | edit source]

Starting out as a gospel-focused group called The Spades, they were discovered by radio DJ Noel Ball at the annual high school talent show at Cumberland High. Their break-through hit was a song called "Oh Julie" with writing credits given to Noel Ball and Kenneth Moffit- some stories attribute the writing work to Moffit alone, as it was a popular custom at the time to give a radio DJ co-writing credit for promotional purposes to encourage spinning of the record. The Crescendos had the biggest Nasco label hit by far, selling about a million copies. To compete with this success several other groups did their own recording of the song: Otis Williams and the Charms sold 300,000 on King, and Sammy Salvo sold 250,000 copies with RCA. The Crescendos traveled with Sam Cook and the Everly Brothers and played to the biggest crowds of the day.

L to R: Kenneth Brigham far left, Jim Lanius, George Lanius, Tommy Fortner, and Jimmy Hall far right

Lead singer George Lanius, discussing their 1958 Show of Stars package tour, reported to Wayne Jancik that "Touring we made about $300, a piece, per week. And all expenses were paid. We toured with the ‘Show of Stars.’ With us were the Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, Sam Cooke, LaVerne Baker, and I believe Frankie Valli and the Four Lovers...We didn’t get incredibly wealthy. You might’ve guessed that. But, I do remember one royalty check. for about $6,500 [per man]. That wasn’t bad, then. Our situation was like a lot of acts back then, a bunch of naive school kids being taken under the wing by individuals who took most of the profits. And we got the leavings. I still hear the record on the radio and sometimes they mention this Ward fellow. It’s still in print, and we haven’t gotten a royalty check since 1963; if I’m not mistaken. We traveled a year on ‘Oh Julie,’ which did sell a million and [for] which we didn’t get the gold record. We did get to see it though, hanging on the wall at our manager’s office." Afterwards, "None of us went on any further in music."

In an interview for Emory Report in 2007, Kenneth Brigham reflects: "This was the ’50s so this was three-chord vanilla rock, pretty simple stuff. I took up the guitar, but did mostly background vocals. We entered a few talent shows and began to win some prizes,” says Brigham. “A local disc jockey identified potentially promising groups, recorded them and sold the recordings. He came up with this song that a friend of his had written, and he said this is the song you ought to do." “Oh, Julie” was such a hit that The Crescendos soon found themselves face to face with Dick Clark while performing on “American Bandstand.” Soon afterward, Brigham dropped out of college so he and the band could hit the road, traveling throughout the United States and Canada in a series of 30 one-nighters. “We traveled all over, a different town every night. I traveled with Frankie Avalon, LaVern Baker, the Everly Brothers, Jimmie Rogers, Paul Anka. It was a fairly lucrative year. I made enough money to go toward paying for the rest of college and then medical school,” says Brigham. Ken Brigham went on toe become a leading physician at Emory in predictive health.

Local historian Chip Curley writes: The Crescendos were a Cumberland High School group that won a talent contest about 1955. As a prize they were given a recording date with a record company. The result was a 1957 release of a tune titled “Oh Julie” which was a large regional hit. Noel Ball pushed the tune hard on his DJ shows and they actually made it to American Bandstand later that year. Like the Casuals they made quite a few appearances at local and regional rock-in-roll shows. On the release of “O Julie” there was a prominent backup part that was filled by a girl named Janice Green. On the strength of that record she crafted a string of personal appearances and some recordings. She was billed as Janice Green; The O Julie Girl.

Discogs writes: Formed in 1957 by five men who attended Cumberland High School in Nashville. the Crescendos succeeded with the song "Oh, Julie" the following year, which rose to #4 on the U.S. Black Singles chart and #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. George Lanius, who was lead singer for the quintet, told Wayne Jancik in The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders that a Nashville DJ named Noel Ball discovered the group playing talent shows. "He took us to Nasco [Records]. And he gave us 'Oh, Julie' to record. The label says Ball and Ken Moffit wrote it, but if the truth were to be known, it was Moffit's song. The record sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc. The song featured backing vocals by Janice Green, who happened to be auditioning at the recording studio where the single was recorded. They recorded two more singles for Nasco which flopped, then disbanded by 1959. Reportedly all members of the Crescendos lived within 15 miles of each other at least 30 years after "Oh Julie" was a hit, but they avoided performing together in favor of working on individual careers outside of the music industry.

Richie Unterberger, for AllMusic, writes: One of the definitive one-shot rock groups of the '50s, the Crescendos reached number five right out of the box with their first single, "Oh Julie," in early 1958. A rather average doo wop ballad, it was lifted from the ordinary to the exalted with the addition of ghostly high backup vocals by Janice Green, who was not even a member of the group, having been plucked for the job by chance while auditioning at the same studio at which the single was recorded. Also pushing the single were the engaging sub-Elvis vocals of George Lanius and the appealingly crude -- indeed, garage-like -- production (there's not even a bass on the record). It was an inspired fluke that couldn't really be repeated, and in fact the Nashville group were dropped from their Nasco label after just two follow-up singles, leaving "Oh Julie" behind to haunt oldies radio shows for decades.

Releases[edit | edit source]

7" single label sticker

Michael Jack Kirby writes: Maintaining the momentum of their hit record proved difficult. Actually, momentum ground to a halt, so impossible would be a more direct way of putting it. First they provided backup vocals, uncredited, for Lowell McGuire's rock-and-roller "Spellbound," then Janice Green rejoined them for their second single "School Girl." In an effort to work every angle, Ernie gave Janice her one shot with the solo single "Jackie," clearly identifying her on the label as "The Oh Julie Girl." The third and final Crescendos release was "Rainy Sunday." None of these efforts went anywhere and Nasco dropped the whole lot of them, McGuire and Green included.

The group made the most of their one hit, touring for much of '58 and '59 (sans Janice, never an actual member of the Crescendos) on rock and roll and R&B tours. In 1960, the Fleer company put out a set of "Spins and Needles" bubble gum cards; number 57 in the series (same as the year "Oh Julie" was released...coincidence?) was a Crescendos card proclaiming they would soon "...bust loose with a new hit!" It was in grocery stores at about the time they had a new recording session (down to four members with Jimmy Hall's departure) resulting in two singles on the Scarlet label, "Let's Take a Walk" (a refreshingly different sound) and "Angel Face" (oops, this one's just "Oh Julie" with a new title). Neither paid off and the remaining members broke up, each embarking on his own family life and careers in various professions. As for Janice Green, she kept at it awhile longer. A meeting with Bob Crewe in the early '60s led to some backing session work for The 4 Seasons at about the time they were riding that lightning bolt with the letters "VJ" emblazoned on it.