Ivan Rebroff born 31 July 1931

Ivan Rebroff (31 July 1931 – 27 February 2008) was a German vocalist who rose to prominence for his distinct and extensive vocal range of four and a half octaves, ranging from the soprano to bass registers.

Instantly recognizable in trademark Russian chic - Cossack hat and brightly coloured peasant garb or fur greatcoat - Ivan Rebroff, was a European singing sensation. During the 1960s and 70s, he projected a television-friendly image and a sentimental picture of Mother Russia at odds with cold war rhetoric. More importantly, his voice gained him admirers worldwide. His repertoire comprised folk songs and carols, opera and operetta, hymns and songs from musicals, delivered variously in Russian, German, French, English and Afrikaans.

Rebroff, the epitome of a Russian singer for many, was, in fact, born Hans-Rolf Rippert in Berlin's Spandau district. He always played his cards close to his chest about his origins. His engineer father apparently came from Hessen, while his mother, he said, was Russian. He grew up in Belzig in Brandenburg and Halle in Saxony-Anhalt. At first he tried for a career in opera but despite his range failed to secure a future, instead he fell back upon his Russian heritage and soon found himself as soloist for Cossack Choirs (Don Cossack Choir, Black Sea and Ural Mountains Cossack Choir.

He progressed from singing in choirs to studying singing, piano and violin in Hamburg between 1951 and 1959 on a Fulbright scholarship. His professor of singing and voice, Adolf Detel, guided him towards eastern European song. After graduating, Rebroff showed his versatility, donning many musical hats including major operatic roles and performing the work of Hugo Wolf.

In 1968 he made his French breakthrough at the Théâtre Marigny in the leading role of Tevye in Un Violon sur le Toit (the French version of Fiddler on the Roof) and bringing If I Were a Rich Man in its original version to the French public's notice. His unbroken 1476 performances and French 

renditions of the popular musical won him international acclaim. France's love affair with Rebroff had begun and Rebroff  joined Zero Mostel, Chaim Topol, Shmuel Rodensky, Alfie Bass and Lex Goudsmit in the international pantheon of Tevye interpreters.

Rebroff employed his extraordinary vocal range - described in the Guinness Books of Records as extending "easily over four octaves from a low F to a high F, one and a quarter octaves above C" - on albums with titles such as Kosaken Müssen Reiten (Cossacks Must Ride, 1970).

                                

There are two, not necessarily contradictory accounts of why he adopted the stage name "Ivan Rebroff". In Russian that surname means "rib" and consequently carried an echo of Rippert since Rippe means "rib" in German. Rebroff was also supposedly the name of a famous singer with Moscow's Bolshoi theatre. 

(Reinforcing this russification, "Ivan" is also German slang for Russian, much in the vein of "Tommy".)

 Throughout his career Ivan had an impressive recording portfolio with an amazing 49 golden albums worldwide in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, USA, Canada, Iceland and almost every European country. He sang opera, light classics and folk songs in many languages. Laterally he based himself on the Greek Island of Sporade but worked tirelessly with a punishing average of 150-200 concerts per year. When he was in Australia in 2004 his schedule included 12 shows in 14 days.

Until almost the end of his life, he maintained a rigorous touring schedule, and his last concert was in Vienna in December 2007. Rebroff died February 28, 2008 in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany of heart problems.

Rebroff never married. After his death, Horst Rippert emerged to lay claim to part of his estate. The German press described him as his "secret brother".

Compiled and edited mainly from articles by Ken Hunt for The Guardian &  Toeslayer blogspot.com)

Clem Cattini born 28 July 1937

Clemente Anselmo Arturo Cattini (born 28 August 1937) is an English rock and roll drummer, who was a member of the Tornados before becoming well known for his work as a session musician. He is one of the most prolific drummers in UK recording history, appearing on hundreds of recordings by artists as diverse as Cliff Richard and Lou Reed, and has featured on 44 different UK number one singles.

He was born Clemente Anselmo Cattini in Stoke, Newington, London, in 1937(some sources say 1939), and because of the onset of the Second World War he was one of hundreds of thousands of children evacuated from the city. As a boy he listened to a good deal of big-band music, and was a particularly big fan of the Latin-flavoured music of bandleader Edmundo Ros, whose recordings led the young Clem to think in terms of rhythm. He played hockey as a teenager, but the injuries he suffered made him think of music as a career instead. He was swept up in the rock & roll boom in his late teens, drawn in by Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" and the records that followed after it from America.

He was a frequent habitué of the legendary 2i's Coffee Bar, backing performers such as Terry Dene, before joining the touring band known as the Beat Boys, backing singers managed by Larry Parnes, including Marty Wilde and Billy Fury. He then joined Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, playing on their hit "Shakin' All Over", and became Joe Meek's in-house drummer, backing artists such as John Leyton and Don Charles, before helping found the Tornados in 1961, and playing on their international No. 1 hit "Telstar".

                             

After leaving the Tornados in early '65 Clem issued a solo single under the name of "Clem Cattini Ork". He then went on to become one of Britain's most prolific session musicians, drumming on recordings by the Kinks, Herman's Hermits, Dusty Springfield, the Merseys, Bee Gees, Lulu, Marianne Faithfull, Tom Jones, P. J. 

Proby, the Hollies, Paul and Barry Ryan, Gene Pitney, Donovan, Love Affair, Jeff Beck, Engelbert Humperdinck, Nirvana, the Ivy League, Edison Lighthouse, the Yardbirds, the Family Dogg, Marc Bolan, Clodagh Rodgers, Keith West, the Flower Pot Men, Georgie Fame, Roy Harper, Ralph McTell, Harmony Grass, Joe Cocker, Graham Gouldman and Brian Auger plus the Walker Brothers to name but a few.

In the 1970s, he played on recordings by Marvin, Welch & Farrar, Lou Reed, Cliff Richard, Justin Hayward, Phil Everly, Julie Covington, Claire Hamill, Alvin Stardust, the Bay City Rollers, Kenny, the Wombles, Carl Douglas, Christie, Tim Rose, Demis Roussos, the Goodies, John Betjeman, Malcolm and Alwyn, John Schroeder, Paul McCartney, Hank Marvin, Mike Batt, Chris Spedding, Bob Downes, Dave Kelly, Christopher Neil, Evelyn 

Thomas, Barbara Pennington, Slapp Happy, Mike Berry and Grace Kennedy, and prog rock bands including Beggars Opera, Amazing Blondel and Edwards Hand.

Cattini has played on at least 44 UK number 1 singles, including "Telstar", Ken Dodd's "Tears", Rolf Harris's "Two Little Boys", Clive Dunn's "Grandad", "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)" by Benny Hill, "Whispering Grass" by Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, Peters and Lee's "Welcome Home", Typically Tropical's "Barbados", J. J. Barrie's "No Charge", Renée and Renato's "Save Your Love", and "(Is This The Way To) Amarillo" by Tony Christie featuring Peter Kay.

He also played in the orchestra for BBC TV's Top of the Pops, and toured with Cliff Richard, Roy Orbison, Lynda Carter, the Kids from "Fame" and many others. He was also considered for Led Zeppelin – he was initially on Jimmy Page's shortlist of drummers when forming the band before they settled on John Bonham. He 

had earlier played alongside John Paul Jones on Donovan's hit single "Hurdy Gurdy Man".

In the 1980s, he reactivated the Tornados' name for tours and, in 1989, played in the West End run of The Rocky Horror Show. In the 1990s, Cattini also reactivated the Tornados name, which counted for enough even 30 years after the fact to keep him busy on-stage when he wasn't working in the studio. In the 21st century, he has come to be regarded as one of the most beloved figures from early British rock & roll.

In October 2000 Cattini was awarded a gold badge by BASCA for 
his services to the music industry. He more recently recorded the drums for the track "No Tears to Cry" from Paul Weller's 2010 album Wake Up the Nation. He was portrayed by James Corden in the 2009 film Telstar, and appeared himself playing John Leyton's chauffeur.

In 2016, he recorded a new version of the 1960s hit "Telstar", with the North London ska band the Skammer.  (Compiled and edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Mary Love born 27 July 1943

Mary Love (born Mary Ann Varney; July 27, 1943 – June 21, 2013), was an American soul and gospel singer, and Christian evangelist. After the 1980s she was known as Mary Love Comer.

Love was born as Mary Ann Varney (or Mary Ann Allen, according to some sources), in Sacramento, California to a single 16-year-old mother who married her father shortly after giving birth. At three months old she was attacked by her father with a broken bottle, an event so traumatising her mother fled from their home. Injured and suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and pneumonia, Mary was rescued by her grandmother.

But at the age of seven her mother reclaimed her and took her to California for a life Mary later called “a horror to my soul”, as her mother moved from one abusive pimp to another. A brief spell with her father brought no relief and ended when he tried to sexually molest her. She fared no better under foster care where she was raped by a preacher and tried to take her own life on more than one occasion, but her family moved to Los Angeles when she was still a young child. She sang in church and when she got out of High School she met and became friends with a member of the group, The Vows.

Mary began rehearsing with the group and they worked together with Mary taking a major vocal role. They secured a booking at the California Club and Mary was asked to go along to perform a song they had worked on together. She did this and J.W. Alexander, Sam Cookes manager, happened to be in the club. He liked what he saw and asked her to come over to a studio on Hollywood Boulevard the next day to cut some demos. This she did and it resulted in her cutting a demo with Sam Cooke of "Talking Trash" a song destined for Betty Everett and Jerry Butler. They liked the way she worked and so she was used to cut numerous demos.

                           

She began singing on sessions in Los Angeles before recording "You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet" for the Modern record label in 1965. Later records for the label met with little success until the

single "Move a Little Closer" made #48 on the R&B chart in 1966. Her recordings for Modern, some of which were issued in the UK, became popular on the English Northern soul scene. She revisited the lower reaches of the R&B chart with "The Hurt Is Just Beginning" which reached #46 for Josie in 1968, but thereafter she made few recordings for some years.

Despite her achievements and superficial success, Mary’s complex and troubled life contrasts starkly with her career. Life then intruded once more as a failed marriage and addiction to both alcohol and drugs shattered her personal life and hampered her professional career. This time it took more than music to ease the pain, but she came back impressively, writing and performing. After an inevitable flirtation with disco she returned to recording religious music, devoting her life to God’s word and works.

In 1984 Mary recorded “Save Me" for Eddie Garons Golden Boy Records in L. A. although it was released on the Mirage label. 

Shortly after this Mary began to collaborate with Brad Comer who was soon to be her husband.  In the early 1980s, she re-emerged as Mary Love Comer, singing gospel-flavoured soul with a Christian message.

 Her 1980s Co-Love gospele cordings were of such quality that they were partly responsible for rejuvenating the modern soul scene in the UK, where ‘Come Out Of The Sandbox’ and ‘The Price’ became indispensable for lovers of inspired black music of any genre or period. Love followed through this success with trips to the UK and Europe in the 1990s. With her husband the couple also ran their own church in Moreno Valley, California.

An album of her material, Now and Then, including some old unreleased recordings, was issued in the UK. She made special appearances onstage at the Jazz Café in 2000, and at a Kent Records anniversary show in 2007, both in London.   

Sadly, her final years brought more trauma; her husband left her and she suffered from ill health, before finally she died on June 21, 2013, at the age of 69.

(Compiled and edited from Wikipedia, The Independent,  Ace Records and Soul Source)

Here's Mary live at a Cleethorpes soul weekender.

Dobie Gray born 26 July 1940

Dobie Gray (born Lawrence Darrow Brown; July 26, 1940 – December 6, 2011) was an American singer and songwriter, whose musical career spanned soul, country, pop, and musical theater. His hit songs included "The 'In' Crowd" in 1965 and "Drift Away", which was one of the biggest hits of 1973, sold over one million copies, and remains a staple of radio airplay.

Gray's origins have always been the subject of debate, but it seems most likely that he was born Lawrence Darrow Brown in Simonton, a small town near Houston, Texas, to a family of sharecroppers and Baptist ministers. It was through his grandfather's influence that he developed a love of gospel music and singing in general, and in his early 20s he moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a show-business career, either in acting or singing.

He met Sonny Bono, then a well-connected hustler in the Hollywood music business, and it was with Bono's help that he made his first record, To Be Loved, which appeared on the small Stripe label in 1960, under the name Leonard Ainsworth. Other recordings appeared on several small labels and there was a minor hit in 1963 with Look at Me on the Cor-Dak label. By that time he was recording as Dobie Gray, a name suggested by a popular TV situation comedy, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, whose cast included Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty.

                                

His true breakout was a 1965 recording of "The 'In' Crowd," whose Motown-style bounce distinguished it from jazzman Ramsey Lewis' celebrated version. Gray hit the Top 20 with "The 'In' Crowd" and also had some success with the follow-up, "See You at

 the Go-Go"; this period -- spent mostly on the small, poorly distributed Cordak, Charger, and White Whale labels -- was the most soul-oriented of his career.

It would be some time before Gray returned to the charts; in the meantime, he pursued a concurrent acting career, eventually spending two and a half years with the Los Angeles production of Hair. During his Hair years, Gray also sang with the band Pollution, which recorded two albums on Prophecy beginning in 1971.

In 1972, Gray resurfaced as a solo artist on MCA, with producer/songwriter Mentor Williams in his camp. Gray promptly scored the biggest hit of his career with the Williams-penned "Drift Away," which hit the Top Five in early 1973 and remains an oldies-radio staple today.

The subsequent "Loving Arms," written by Tom Jans, grew into a much-covered repertory item, recorded by singers from the realms 
of rock, country, and R&B. Gray's own sound was shifting more 
toward country as well, and when he moved to Capricorn in 1975, he recorded in Nashville with new songwriting collaborator Troy Seals (he eventually relocated there permanently). Gray's popularity in Europe and Africa was growing steadily, and he managed to talk South African authorities into allowing him to play to integrated audiences during the apartheid era.

Gray's tenure in Nashville was marked by a commercial downturn, but his increased activity as a songwriter -- mostly in a country vein -- resulted in covers by the likes of Don Williams, Charley Pride, George Jones, and John Denver, among others. The disco-

flavoured "You Can Do It" became his final Top 40 hit in 1978, the same year he recorded the first of two LPs for Infinity.

When Infinity went bankrupt, Gray concentrated exclusively on songwriting for a few years, then re-emerged on Capitol in the mid-'80s as a full-fledged country artist. He made the lower reaches of the country charts with singles like "That's One to Grow On" and "From Where I Stand," but found it impossible to break through to a wider country audience, and again faded from view after two albums. In 1997, Gray released Diamond Cuts, a mix of new songs and re-recorded past hits.

In 2001 the bass-guitarist and producer Norbert Putnam, whom he had met at Quadrafonic, supervised an album titled Soul Days, in which Gray's readings of soul standards such as When a Man Loves a Woman and People Get Ready demonstrated how comfortably his voice could locate the middle ground between country and R&B, with a warm tone and a delivery that was un-dramatic but heartfelt. That same year he released a set of Christmas songs, entitled Songs of the Season, on his own label. He returned to the US charts for the last time in 2003, when he appeared on a remake of Drift Away, singing with the rap-rock star Uncle Kracker.

Gray died on December 6, 2011 of complications from cancer surgery in Nashville, Tennessee, aged 71. His remains were buried at Woodlawn Memorial Park And Mausoleum in Nashville.

(Compiked and edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic & theguardian.com)

Johnny Hodges born 25 July 1907

John Cornelius Hodges (July 25, 1907 – May 11, 1970) was an American alto saxophonist, best known for solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. 

He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years, except the period between 1932 and 1946 when Otto Hardwick generally played first chair. Hodges was also featured on soprano saxophone, but refused to play soprano after 1946, when he was given the lead chair. He is considered one of the definitive alto saxophone players of the big band era (alongside Benny Carter).

Hodges was born in Cambridge, Mass. He started his musical career playing drums and piano before taking up the saxophone at the age of 14, beginning on the soprano and later the alto. Originally self-taught he was given lessons by Sydney Bechet, whom he got to know through his sister. He followed Bechet into 

Willie 'The Lion' Smith's quartet at the Rhythm Club (around 1924), then played in the house band with Bechet at Bechet's Club Basha in Harlem at 2493 Seventh Ave at West 145th Street. Drummer Tommy Benford was also in the band (1925). He continued to live in Boston and travelled to New York at weekends playing with such musicians as Bobby Sawyer (1925), Lloyd Scott (1926), then from late 1926 with the great Chick Webb at The Paddock Club and The Savoy Ballroom, etc. followed by a short stint with Luckey Roberts.

In May 1928 Johnny joined Duke Ellington's orchestra and he remained a mainstay of the group for the next 40 years. From his first recording in 1928 he revealed his authority and technical 
mastery of the saxophone, playing with a broad, sweeping tone and producing impressive, cascading runs. In the opinion of many people, he soon became Duke's most valuable soloist. He made hundreds of recordings with Duke and from 1937 led his own small studio group drawn from the orchestra which made many successful series of recordings for Victor and other labels. Titles included 'Jeep's Blues', 'Hodge Podge', 'The Jeep is Jumpin' all of which were co-written with Duke. Also in this period of great creativity he played in many other small groups with musicians such as Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, etc., producing classics of the period.

                             

Johnny was one of the many stars of the Ellington band of the 40s producing solos of immense authority on songs such as 'Things Ain't What They Used To Be', 'Don't Get Around Much Any More', 'Passion Flower', etc. From the 40s he concentrated on the alto 

leaving the soprano alone completely and in this period he regularly won the popularity polls run by magazines such as Downbeat, Metronome, and Esquire. 

In March 1951 Johnny left Duke to form his own small group taking with him Lawrence Brown and Sonny Greer and in their first recording session they produced a hit record of 'Castle Rock'. Johnny disbanded the group in the spring of 1955 and after a brief spell of TV work on the Ted Steele Show, rejoined Duke in August
 of that year where, apart from a few brief periods, he remained for

the rest of his life. In the spring of 1958 he worked with Billy Strayhorn and in 1961 went to Europe with some of the other band members in a group called The Ellington Giants.

He continued to record prolifically with musicians such as Wild Bill Davis, Earl Hines, and even one session with Lawrence Welk. Duke and Billy Strayhorn continued to write compositions and arrangements featuring Johnny's unique sound and talents leaving a wonderful legacy of recorded music for the enjoyment of successive 

generations of enthusiasts. He won the admiration of many saxophonists such as Ben Webster and even John Coltrane who played in one of the small groups in 1953-4 said that Johnny was always one of his favourite players.

In his later years Johnny used fewer and fewer notes, remaining close to the melody in ballads and improvising simple but telling riffs on the faster numbers, many of which were based on the blues . The power of his playing came from his sound and his soul, generating immense swing and building the dramatic tension from chorus to chorus.

Hodges' last performances were at the Imperial Room in Toronto, less than a week before his May 11, 1970 death from a heart attack, suffered during a visit to the office of a dental surgeon in New York City. His last recordings are featured on the New Orleans Suite, which was only half-finished when he died.

(Compiled and edited mainly from Who's Who Of Jazz, The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz and Wikipedia)

Jimmy Holiday born 24 July 1934

Jimmy Holiday (24 July 1934, Sallis, Mississippi – 15 February 1987, Iowa City) was an American R&B singer and songwriter. He recorded for Everest Records in the 1960s and later moved to the New Orleans label Minit Records. This versatile singer first came to prominence in 1963 with the self-penned ‘How Can I Forget?’ which was covered at the same time by Ben E. King.

A soul singer whose success as a recording artist never matched his success as a songwriter, Jimmy Holiday is best-known for penning "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" along with Jackie DeShannon and Randy Myers. By the time that song appeared in 1969, Holiday had been grinding away at the soul circuit for over a decade, a trek that culminated in a hit in 1963 with "How Can I Forget" and then a contract with the New Orleans-based R&B label Minit in 1966. Despite strong work, Holiday never became a star and faded away in the '70s.

Born on July 24, 1934 in Durant, Mississippi, Jimmy Holiday was raised in Iowa. After flirting with a career as a boxer, he devoted himself to music, first playing alto saxophone in jazz combos before transitioning to writing and singing R&B. He released his first single, "Voice of the Drums," on the Los Angeles-based Four Star in 1958, which was unsuccessful and it took him a while before he wound up on Everest Records in the early '60s. Everest put out Holiday's "How Can I Forget" in 1963, and it unexpectedly took off, climbing all the way to eight on Billboard's R&B charts while reaching 57 on the Hot 100. Further singles for Everest didn't go anywhere and he hopped around recording for a number of smaller imprints -- KIT, Tip Records, Diplomacy -- before signing with Minit in 1966.

                                

Minit was where Holiday recorded the bulk of his catalog. "Baby I Love You," his first single for the label, wound up peaking at 21 in 1966 and while that wound up being his biggest hit at Minit, his work at the label is generally held in high regard among soul aficionados. 

Clydie King and Jimmy

A full album called The Turning Point showed up in 1966 and it went to 25 on the Billboard R&B charts.

Jimmy was a good duet partner with Clydie King and in 1967 released Ready, Willing and Able. The track was a floor filler and a major hit on the UK Manchester soul scene. He also released a"Everybody Needs Help" which went to 36 and the funky "Spread Your Love" did one better in 1968, peaking at 35, but by that point his career was starting to slow. Worse, his health was starting to go: he collapsed after a concert in June 1968 and needed to have open heart surgery. 

He wound up spending much of the next year writing instead of performing, but he returned to recording in 1969 with "I'm Gonna Use What I Got," while continuing to work with DeShannon and Myers. Holiday's final single for Minit, "A Man Ain't Nothin' Without a Woman," showed up in 1970 and, like his 1969 sides, it failed to do business so his time with the label came to an end.

Holiday next recorded for Dial, releasing "Save Me" in 1971 and when that didn't catch, a fallow period followed before he showed up in the mid-'70s on Ray Charles' label Crossover. His single for the label, "When I'm Loving You," also didn't catch attention so Holiday decided to concentrate on writing. Eventually, he moved back to Iowa, where he died of heart failure on February 15, 1987.

His Minit recordings have showed up on budget-line CD compilations over the years, but Ace's 2015 set Spread Your Love: The Complete Minit Singles 1965-1970 collected them all and offered the first biography courtesy of Tony Rounce's liner notes." (Info mainly from AllMusic)

Here’s a clip of Jimmy on the Shivaree Show December 1965 

Rosalie (Rosie) Hamlin born 21 July 1945

Rosalie "Rosie" Méndez Hamlin (July 21, 1945 – March 30, 2017) was an American singer and songwriter who was the front-woman of the group Rosie and the Originals, best known for the 1960 song "Angel Baby", which became a Top 40 hit in 1961 when Hamlin was only fifteen years old.

Hamlin's "Angel Baby" was covered by several artists, including Linda Ronstadt and John Lennon, who cited Hamlin as one of his favorite singers. She was the first Latina to be honoured by the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as the first Latina to appear on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in 1961.

Rosalie "Rosie" Méndez Hamlin was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon, on July 21, 1945, to a Ofelia Juana Méndez and Harry Hamlin. Her mother was Mexican, and her father was of Anglo-American ancestry. She spent part of her childhood between Anchorage, Alaska and California, before her family moved to National City, California. Hamlin came from a musical family; her father and grandfather were both musicians who had backgrounds in vaudeville.

In the summer of 1956 Rosie's mother bought her an old upright piano from a thrift store and an aunt taught her a few chords and helped her with her vocal technique. The shy schoolgirl began sitting in with local country bands to gain experience and was still attending school, in San Diego, when she teamed up with a quintet of teenage instrumentalists named the Originals. She wrote the lyrics for "Angel Baby" as a poem for her  very first boyfriend when she was 14 years old, still attending Mission Bay High School in San Diego, California.

                                

At age fifteen, Hamlin and some friends rented the only recording studio they could find within 100 miles of San Diego located in San Marcos, California, to record the song. The studio was owned by an airplane mechanic who had taken part of his hangar to

make it. After taking the master to a Kresge's department store in downtown San Diego, they convinced a manager to play it in the listening booth of the store's music department.

The song received positive reactions from teenage listeners, and a scout from Highland Records offered the group a recording contract, under the condition that the company take possession of the master recording, and that David Ponce be named as the author of the song, as he was the eldest member of the group. Hamlin along with her band performed six shows with Jackie Wilson at the Brooklyn Paramount Theatre in New York City in late 1960.

"Angel Baby", which featured Hamlin's noted soprano vocals,

made its radio debut in November 1960, before the group had even received their contract; the track was also played on K-Day Radio from disc jockey Alan Freed. When the group formally established a contract, Hamlin found that she was ineligible to collect record royalties from the song because she was not listed as the songwriter. This led to the group's break-up, and although Hamlin secured the copyright to her music in 1961, decades of battles over royalties followed. "Angel Baby" charted at number 5 on the Billboard Singles Chart.On March 30, 1961, Hamlin appeared with Rosie and the Originals on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, performing "Lonely Blue Nights", making her the first Latina to appear on the

series.

Rosie and the Originals were also was one of the opening acts for the Rolling Stones at a 1964 concert at San Diego's Balboa Park Bowl. The show's promoter told the San Diego Reader he paid Rosie and the Originals $500, but only $400 for the Stones.

Hamlin retired from the music industry after her marriage to guitarist Noah Tafolla. The couple had two children. Joey Tafolla, and Deborah (b. 1964). She returned to record singles in 1969 and again in 1973, performing occasionally throughout the 1970s and 1980s and more regularly

throughout the 1990s and 2000s, which included performances at Madison Square Garden in 2002. She then formally retired from performing due to advanced fibromyalgia. She spent her retirement painting and tending her lovely garden.

Hamlin died in her sleep of undisclosed causes on March 30, 2017 at her home in New Mexico. Her family confirmed she had suffered health problems in her later life which prevented her from performing live.

(Edited mainly from Wikipedia)

Rosie Hamlin singing Angel Baby live on an oldies TV special. She still sounds great. This song was released in December of 1960 and became a hit. This performance was in 2002.