Essential Doo Wop  40 Soul Classics on 2 CDs

Featuring: The Temptations The 5

Royales The Dells The Profiles

The forgotten part of rock'n'roll was doo-wop, which

was mostly associated with the large cities like New York, Chicago and

Philadelphia. But what is doo-wop? The Oxford English Dictionary calls it

\""a style of pop music marked by the use of close harmony vocals using

nonsense phrases, originating in the US in the 1950s.\"" The abiding image

of doo-wop is of four kids singing under a street lamp or in the doorway of an

apartment block, probably black, and probably in Harlem. Although we now regard

those three vocal groups as doo-wop, the singers would have been confused

because, at the time, there was no such term. They considered themselves

rock'n'roll or rhythm and blues, and the descriptive phrase 'doo wop' wasn't

created until 1969 for some radio broadcasts in New York. Today, many doowop

fans collect the original 45s and some of them are worth thousa;