Pony Sherrell born circa 1924

Pony Sherrell (born circa 1924 - December 8, 1990) was an American lyricist, songwriter, singer, and performer best remembered for her work in mid-20th-century radio, film soundtracks, and Las Vegas musical reviews.

Doris & Grace Sherrell

Doris “Pony” Sherrell was one of thousands of performers that attempted the jump from screen to jukebox. Born as Doris Gislen, a first generation native New Yorker, she later adopted the stage name of Pony Sherrell. She was on stage at the age of three, and began performing with her sister Grace as the Sherrell Babes in the late 1920s. They appeared on the “Horn And Hardart Hour,” “Uncle Don’s Radio Show” and on the Loews and RKO circuits. The team eventually got its own radio show on WOR New York.

Doris in 1942

A chance encounter with “My Blue Heaven” crooner Gene Austin landed the sisters steady work, who flanked Austin throughout his early ’40s cowboy phase and eventually lead to Gene and Doris’s marriage on Thanksgiving Day 1942. By then, the thrice married Austin, his child bride, and her sister had decamped to Hollywood to pursue their celluloid dreams. The sisters spent the first half of World War II on stage, performing separate and together in various theatre troupes and nightclub acts. They got their first big break in 1944, when they starred as themselves in both Moon Over Las Vegas and Follow The Leader, alongside Austin. By 1947, the honeymoon was over. Her first marriage behind her, the lifelong brunette did something incredibly bold: She went blonde.

                                  

The following year, the pair of platinum sisters were out for the night at The Haig, a jazz club on South Kenmore in Hollywood. Appearing that evening was “English piano Wizard” Phil Moody, who’d recently migrated to the States from war-ravaged Britain. A rapport was immediately struck, but this time with Doris as the third wheel. Moody spent his evenings playing in any restaurant and lounge that would have him, and briefly he worked under the tutelage of Phil Moore at Discovery Records. But his real passion was writing and arranging music. It was his new wife Grace that suggested he partner with a lyricist, and she knew just the filly to help get him in the money.

A 1954 press kit describes how Doris Sherrell got her nickname: “She’s called ‘Pony’ for two reasons. Firstly, she’s only 5-2 and 115 pounds. Secondly, she won a beautiful legs contest and the emcee of the event said she ‘had the slender legs of a colt.’” The writing duo of Moody and Sherrell got going in earnest in 1950, and had close to 200 songs by the end of the year. An audition for Irving Mills’ American Recording Artists firm resulted in a publishing deal in 1953, and the two were immediately drafted to write music for the film So This Is Paris, starring Tony Curtis, followed by The Second Greatest Sex and Paris Follies of 1956.

In the middle of this long-delayed Hollywood fantasy, Pony set her eyes on a recording career all her own. After Jimmy Durante tracked his own version of the Moody/Sherrell original “Little People” in 1954, Coral Records paid for Pony to cut her own. Though the single failed to go anywhere, there was enough chum to attract publicity shark Tim Gayle, who issued Grace and Pony Sherrell’s “Can-Can Blues” on his Advance imprint in 1955, and would continue to rep the Moody/Sherrell/Moody tricycle well into the ’60s. A deal with Irving Gwirtz’s revived Diamond label bore two gorgeous, orchestral singles: September 1956’s “No News” b/w “Hey Angelino” and “Jungle, Ungle Um Bai” b/w “Don’t Put Off ‘Till Tomorrow.” The racy “Jungle, Ungle” never sniffed the charts, and would be the last record issued on Diamond. Dozens of other songs were composed over the next decade, including the playfully xenophobic “Tobago,” but with their sound drifting out of vogue there were few takers.

Grace & Pony Sherrell

Undeterred, Phil Moody and Pony Sherrell persisted. Under the management of club magnate Frank Sennes, the two wrote and performed steadily over the next decade at his Moulin Rouge and Desert Inn nightclubs. In 1967, with the backing of her new husband, Texas financier Jess Metcalf, Pony and Phil set up Pony Records in the Moody living room, issuing and reissuing their entire catalogue on 45 and LP over the next five years to a completely disinterested marketplace. 

Phil & Grace Moody

Phil and Grace Moody spent the bulk of the ’70s living in Las Vegas, where he performed regularly at the Stardust, Sahara, and Flamingo hotels. In 1980 the couple opened Moody’s Supper Club in Palm Springs, and Phil continued to perform off and into the late ’90s. Grace’s light went out in 2006, Phil followed in 2011. Pony Sherrell never did settle down, keeping homes in Beverly Hills, Connecticut, Palm Springs, and Manhattan. She closed out her days managing Metcalf’s vast financial empire. She died from a heart attack at her New York on December 8, 1990.

(Sourced from Bandcamp)(date of birth estimated from Sam Houston State University profile on Gene Austin)

Grady Chapman born October 1, 1929

Grady Chapman (October 1, 1929 – January 4, 2011) was best known as the American lead singer of doo wop group The Robins.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Chapman joined The Robins in 1952, singing alongside Bobby Nunn, Billy Richards, Roy Richards, Ty Terrell, and later Carl Gardner. During that time, the Robins recorded for RCA where Grady is heard leading many of the groups' classic recordings, including "How Would You Know," "Oh Why," "My Heart's The Biggest Fool," and "Ten Days In Jail." Later they recorded for Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's Los Angeles–based "Spark" label, where Grady also led the Robins on "Whadaya Want" and "I Love Paris." in October 1954 Grady issued a recording on the Money label backed by the Suedes, "Don't Blooper" and "I Need You So." 

                                   

When the Robins split in late 1955, Leiber and Stoller took members Nunn and Gardner east to form the Coasters. Grady stayed with the Robins, who then signed with Gene Norman's Whippet label.  Gene had his own TV show on Los Angeles' Channel 9 and named his record label Whippet after his dog, Boris. Grady's recording "Since I First Met You" from 1957 with The Robins is included in the films Pulp Fiction and American Strays. Around March of 1957, Grady Chapman's first solo effort was issued on Geordie Hormel's Zephyr label. Zephyr, located a few doors down Sunset Boulevard from Whippet, was distributed by GNP Records (“Gene Norman Presents,” Whippet's parent company). On both sides of the record (“My Love Will Never Die” and “The Smiling Gondolier”), Chapman is backed by a female group. Despite these solo efforts, Chapman still remained a member of the Robins. He wrote "Sweet Pea" for Bob and Earl.

In the summer of 1958 there was a Grady Chapman solo released on the Knight label: “Star Light, Star Bright” and “Say You Will Be Mine.” Once again, he's backed by a female chorus on the tunes which had been recorded on his previous single. After this release, Grady Chapman parted company with the Robins and was replaced by Bobby Sheen. The last known Grady Chapman solos were released on the Mercury label: “My Life Would Be Worth Living” (with the ubiquitous female group) and “Ambush.” These were issued in September 1960. Early the following year, there was “I'll Never Question Your Love” and “This, That, 'N The Other.”

Chapman sang with The Dominoes alongside Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson and would later become a member of one of the Coasters' many spin-off groups, The Coasters Mark II, which included Bobby Nunn, Bobby Sheen, and Billy Richards, Jr. In 1977, along with Billy Guy and Jerome Evans, he sang on "Paid The Price" on Michelle Phillips' album Victim Of Romance. Chapman would also substitute for Carl Gardner a few times in the 1990s and 2000s with The Coasters. 

He still performed as Grady Chapman & The Robins with various back-up musicians, until his death, from congestive heart failure in a Los Angeles hospital, on January 4, 2011.

(Edited from Wikipedia, Marv Goldberg & Academic)