Doo-wop group keeps tradition alive

Original member of The Chaperones to lead new version of his group in upcoming concert

SPECIAL TO VIEWThe New Chaperones include. from left, Skyler Jewell, David Dannemiller, Nick Salvato, Ken Allen Phillips and Stevie Dunham. Salvato is an original member of The Chaperones, which had a couple of doo-wop hits during the early 1960s. Advertisement

The Chaperones weren't there for the beginning of doo-wop music, but they were there for what looked like the end and stuck around to see its resurgence. Now, Nick Salvato, one of the last members of the original group, is performing with and guiding The New Chaperones back into the limelight.

The original group was formed in 1957 on Long Island in New York and featured Tony Amato, Roy Marchesano, Tommy Ronca, Richard Messina and Salvato. Ronca and Marchesano met in high school and soon were performing with the others in nightclubs under a number of names including The Fairlanes and The Sharptones. A chance friendship that Salvato struck up while attending C.W. Post College changed everything for the group.

"I became friends with a guy named Jerry Blaine and told him about the group," said Salvato, who now lives in Las Vegas. "He didn't mention until we got pretty close that his father, Steve Blaine, was with Josie Records."

Jerry Blaine arranged an audition with his father, and in 1959 the group went into the recording studio and cut "Cruise to the Moon," which the group wrote after Marchesno began working on the song. Salvato said Elvis Presley was recording in the studio at the same time, though they only got to see him walking by, surrounded by his entourage.

When "Cruise to the Moon" finally was released a year later, it became a regional hit.

"It was a million-seller on the East Coast," said Stevie Dunham, the tenor lead for The New Chaperones. "Over the last 50 years, it's appeared in around 30 doo-wop compilation albums."

Although the song led to success for the band, it wasn't exactly world-tour, trashing-the-hotels-and-rubbing- elbows-with-starlets success.

"We became kings of supermarket grand openings," said Ronca, who lives in Arizona and co-owns The Chaperones trademark with Salvato. "We came to the shows in a limo because the record was a hit."

The group also played fairgrounds and amusement parks.

The group released its last hit of the doo-wop era, "Man From the Moon," in 1963. Dunham believes the song was on its way toward the top of the charts when the British Invasion changed the sound of popular music.

Not long after, Ronca moved to Las Vegas, performing for years and producing shows on the Strip before he moved to Arizona. Salvato and Amato carried on in The Chaperones with many other members coming and going through the group. They rode the waves of several doo-wop revivals over the years.

The original surviving members of The Chaperones, Salvato, Messina and Ronca, still have an amicable relationship, but they don't perform together. Messina is a retired teacher, still living on Long Island. Ronca still performs with The Chaperones, mostly on the East Coast. Salvato originally was a guiding force behind The New Chaperones but has found he can't stay in the shadows and has to perform the music he loves.

The Chaperones, including Salvato and Ronca, performed at a doo-wop Convention at Las Vegas' Alexis Park Hotel in 2007, and it was there that they saw and were impressed with Dunham and his group. Last year, Dunham, along with Skyler Jewell, David Dannemiller and Ken Allen Phillips, began performing as The New Chaperones. They worked closely with Salvato to capture the original sound of The Chaperones.

"The original guys, we learned to sing with Mr. (William) Miller, who wrote '1000 Miles Away,' " Salvato said. "He taught us close harmony and to have confidence when we got out there and to make sure we all blend as one. With Stevie now, we've really got that sound down."

The New Chaperones are scheduled to perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Community Lutheran Church, 3720 E. Tropicana Road. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online at www.thenewchaperones.com or by calling 454-3278.

Contact Sunrise and Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.