Rosa Hawkins - Chapel of Love: The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the Dixie Cups

Advisory Board

David Evans, General Editor

Barry Jean Ancelet

Edward A. Berlin

Joyce J. Bolden

Rob Bowman

Susan C. Cook

Curtis Ellison

William Ferris

John Edward Hasse

Kip Lornell

Bill Malone

Eddie S. Meadows

Manuel H. Pea

Wayne D. Shirley

Robert Walser

The Story of New Orleans Girl Group the

DIXIE CUPS

Rosa Hawkins and Steve Bergsman

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of University Presses.

Copyright 2021 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2021

All photographs are courtesy of Rosa Hawkins.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hawkins, Rosa, 1944 author. | Bergsman, Steve, author. | Vera, Billy, author of foreword.

Title: Chapel of love : the story of New Orleans girl group the Dixie Cups / Rosa Hawkins and Steve Bergsman.

Other titles: American made music series.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2021. | Series: American made music series | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021006496 (print) | LCCN 2021006497 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496829566 (hardback) | ISBN 9781496834959 (epub) | ISBN 9781496834966 (epub) | ISBN 9781496834973 (pdf) | ISBN 9781496834980 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Dixie Cups (Musical group) | African American women singersLouisianaNew OrleansBiography. | Women singersLouisianaNew OrleansBiography. | SingersLouisianaNew OrleansBiography.

Classification: LCC ML421.D5815 H38 2021 (print) | LCC ML421.D5815 (ebook) | DDC 782.42163092/2 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006496

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006497

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

This book is dedicated to my mother, Mrs. Lucille Cordelia Merette Hawkins, who until her death was the single most influential person in my life. A proud, single mom who worked hard to give her daughters the things she didnt have growing up. A hardworking woman who instilled in me at an early age that reading was essential to my growth and development as a child and later as a young woman. She would always tell me how reading was not just about learning but a chance to experience diverse cultures, history, and places from around the world. The gifts I received from reading were the catalyst for my imagination and the drive for my career in entertainment. Thanks, Mom, for being you! Still reading today!

Rosa Hawkins

by Billy Vera

The 1964 New York Worlds Fair was held at Flushing Meadows in the borough of Queens, the same location as the Worlds Fair of 1939.

One of the 140 pavilions was Louisianas Bourbon Street Pavilion, inspired by the French Quarter of New Orleans. Among the ten theater restaurants, which all served that citys delicious Creole cuisine, was a nightclub called Jazzland, featuring miniature Mardi Gras parades, a voodoo shop, a doll museum, an old-time minstrel show produced by Mike Todd, and various homegrown jazz groups.

One of these latter was the rhythm and blues band of Joe Jones, whose hit record You Talk Too Much had been a big national hit in 1960. Musicians from all over the New York area, especially drummers, were flocking to Flushing Meadows to see this band, once word got out that someone was playing a rhythm previously unheard of north of New Orleanss city limits. The drummer was Charles Honeyman Otis, and local drummers knelt at his feet to catch the funky off-beats he played. Guitar players and bassists also came to see what the hell was going on. Joness guitarist was one Alvin Shine Robinson, and the bass player is remembered today only as Preacher.

This little band changed how New York musicians played music virtually overnight and soon came to the attention of songwriters/producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The producers recorded Otis as The Honeyman on a song called Brother Bill (The Last Clean Shirt), and Robinson had a hit with Chris Kenners Something You Got, along with several wonderful sides like How Can I Get Over You, Down Home Girl, and a revival of Little Willie Johns Fever.

The big news, though, came from three little Crescent City girls that Jones brought to Leiber & Stollers offices, called the Meltones. At this stage of their career, Jerry and Mike werent much interested in teenage music. Their focus was more on the young adult sounds they had been making with the Drifters and Ben E. King, and they were talking about writing a Broadway show.

So, to keep their hands in the teenybopper marketplace, they hired a pair of staff songwriters, a married couple named Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, to their publishing company, Trio Music. The couple had the knack for capturing the overwrought feelings and emotions of teenage girls and had a list of hits to show for themselves by the Crystals, the Ronettes, and other girl groups of the period.

Jeff and Ellie pulled a song out of the trunk that had been attempted by Phil Spector with his groups the Crystals and the Ronettes. But Spectors Wall of Sound didnt work with this plain tune, so they tried it a different way, soft and simple, with no lead singer, just basic harmony, sort of like the old Andrews Sisters, whod been so popular during World War II.

It worked, and with a name change to the Dixie Cups, Chapel of Love lit up radio stations across America and rose to the top of the charts. More hits followedPeople Say, You Shouldve Seen the Way He Looked At Me, and Iko Ikobefore the British Invasion elbowed the Dixie Cups and most other American acts off the charts and into the dustbin of rock n roll history.

During this period, my band and I served as the house band at a place called the Country House (later the Deercrest Inn) in the tiny hamlet of Banksville, New York, on the border of Greenwich, Connecticut. Each weekend wed play two dance sets and back two shows featuring the hit record acts of the day. Most of these acts were in the $400 per night range, other than the bigger names, like the Coasters or the Drifters or the occasional Fats Domino or Jerry Lee Lewis. One of these $400 acts was the Dixie Cups. I remember them as shy, unassuming girls, not like the Ronettes or Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles. They sang their songs and a few other hits of the day to fill their forty-minute set.

Their guitar player and conductor was the same Alvin Robinson whose records Id bought and loved, so I got a big kick out of talking with him. I remember telling him I thought he was the one singer who came closest to Ray Charles of any who tried. He played a black and white Silvertone electric guitar, the same one Id bought from Sears for $35 as a teenager. It sounded a lot better when he played it. He seemed surprised and flattered that anybody outside of his hometown knew who he was.