By Paul Goldfinger, Editor, Blogfinger.net. 2018.
Dale Whilden, a multi-talented and versatile CMA COO presented the liveliest moment of the Doo Wops Flops concert when he introduced the program. Sept.12, 2018. Paul Goldfinger photo.
Blogfinger video:
Dale is a dentist, but he is the temporary COO of the Camp Meeting, so he stood up before about 2,000 attendees who were partially filling up the place at the Doo Wop concert including the upstairs bleachers where someone might catch a fly ball. He is a most valuable player in the CMA, and in fact, he will be manning a life guard stand tomorrow where girls in bikini’s will beg that Dale rescue them.
Here’s a tune for Dale by Fontella Bass:
He usually seems to be a reserved kind of guy, but I know him to have a great sense of humor, so it was not a big surprise to see him un-tuck his pink shirt and introduce a rock and roll show. So he had everyone stand up and he said, “You may rinse now.”
He also might have brought some Novocaine along in case someone blew out their eardrums from that unruly and ridiculously loud speaker system. I even spoke to the sound guy before the show about that, but he reassured me that “everyone would be comfortable.” But there was one moment where I actually stuck my fingers in my ears. Also, 5 acts were too much; the show was too long. In the past they did it with just 3 or 4 acts.
In my opinion, the best musical moment of the concert was when Dale got the audience to get up and sing the Star Spangled Banner. They did and they harmonized without even trying, and no one took a knee..
I know that I am in the minority, because most people seemed to be enjoying the show, with standing O’s, cheers and applause. But I don’t get it. The sound quality was distorted and unclear. The groups were has-beens who brought no electricity to the crowd, so much so that the lights went out. The same backup band played for each group, making it all sound the same.
In the past, some groups tried to regroup with an updated and welcoming new sound using young voices including some women and new arrangements, but this group just wheeled out their hits from fifty years ago. The Duprees belong in Vegas, if they can get in, not in a Doo Wop concert. They are suffering from an identity crisis.
Jay and the Americans were a huge disappointment with two of the originals acting more like cheerleaders rather than professional singers. Their red, white and blue jackets made them look like popcorn salesmen. The Coasters and the Drifters barely made it through their hits like “Under the Boardwalk.” These Medicare age vocalists were trying to capture the imagination of the audience with lyrics like, “We’ll be fallin’ in love under the boardwalk…yeah boardwalk.”
And the Drifters were failing to inspire anyone with these lyrics, “Baby don’t you know I love you so. Can’t you feel it when we touch I will never never let you go. I love you oh so much” The lead singer is 81 years old. He can barely turn around without grimacing.
This was a history lesson in big old emotionless faded hits. But if you want authentic heart stirring music of that era , go see Kenny Vance, who will soon appear in Red Bank.
And listen some other way to recall the real sound of that time, including performers who brought us true Doo Wop heart-breakers such as “Earth Angel” “Gloria” “Put Your Head on my Shoulder,” “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Angel Baby,” “That’ll Be the Day,” “Tears on My Pillow”, “In the Still of the the Night” “At The Hop,” Whispering Bells,” and so so many more, but that sound is dead in the Great Auditorium.
And, if you don’t know what I am talking about, here is Kenny Vance and the Planotones with a modern version of a super-classic of the Doo Wop era—-so gorgeous is “Gloria” that this is the kind of music that made my friends and I get the hairs on the backs of our necks erect when engineering slow dances in the Rutherford High gym where the only time I ever scored was a free shot from the foul line in a varsity game.
And if you want authentic, authentic, listen to this: the Cadillacs with another tune also called “Gloria.” Goose bump time……