Earth Angel Vinyl Record Memories.

Earth Angel Vinyl Record Memories, a classic original, written by Curtis Williams, Jesse Belvin and Gaynel Hodge.

 It was recorded in 1954 making it one of the very first of the true classic ultra-romantic ballads that struck the nerve of teens all across America.

Another excellent example of one of the greatest music eras of all time.

The rhythmic, wailing plea to an idealized young woman captured the heartache of teen love in this enduring 1954 doo-wop hit "Earth Angel." For many the song evokes a glittering, timeless vision of proms, sock hops and impossibly young love.

Earth Angel Will You Be Mine - The Story Begins...

I met her in the quiet places first.

Not in the real world, but in that thin blue hour between exhaustion and sleep, when the mind loosens its grip on reason and the heart begins to speak in its own terms. She came to me there like a secret the universe had been saving...an Earth Angel, though not the kind from stained glass windows or old paintings. She had no throne of light, and no fearsome holiness to drive me to my knees.

She was softer than that. She was the feeling that somewhere, somehow, I had always been expected.

I began to look for her in every beautiful thing: in the pale gold of morning, in music drifting from a distant apartment window, in the ache of my own longing. She truly was my Earth Angel.

And because she was mine only in imagination, she became perfect there.

Falling In Love With An Angel.

I gave her eyes that could forgive every failure in me. I gave her a smile and a voice that could turn all my grief and loneliness into something bearable.

That was how I fell in love...not with a woman from the real world, but a woman I loved that asks for nothing and yet secretly asks for everything. I loved her knowing she lived nowhere but in my mind. I spoke to her when no one was there, and perhaps because of that, I loved her even more. She was my Earth Angel.

Still, love, even imagined love, makes fools of us all. Foolishness in loving what cannot answer back. Yet I prayed. I prayed not that she would become mine, but that I might become worthy of her. That someday, somehow, in some life or dream or secret world beyond reason, I would be the vision of her happiness.

The Vision of Her Happiness...

Someday, I told myself. Someday I will meet her, or maybe I will become enough...whole enough, true enough...that the distance between what I imagined and what I deserve will finally close. And if she never existed outside of me, then perhaps that is the final tenderness of the story: that somewhere in the deepest chamber of my heart, I created an Earth Angel just to survive the nights I could not survive alone.

I fell in love with her.
I will love her forever.
And yes, I became a fool for that love.

So let the wise laugh gently at me.
Let reason shake its head.
Let the world insist that love must be tangible to be true.

I know what visited me in the silence.
I know what saved me when I had no language for saving.
I know that somewhere between fantasy and faith, I gave my heart to an angel who never was, and in doing so discovered the most human part of me:

The part willing to love forever, the part willing to hope without proof, the part willing to look like a fool for the chance...however impossible...that someday...I might become the vision of her happiness.

The Beginning - The "Kool" Name - The Original Garage Demo.

Here's the story of this wonderful 60 year old Doo-wop classic from 1954.

The Penguins original members came from two different high schools in Los Angeles.   

The original lead singer, Cleveland Duncan, learned to sing in church. In 1953 he was singing in a talent show attended by Curtis Williams, an aspiring songwriter and baritone singer, and one of the co-writers of "Earth Angel." 

Williams thought Cleve Duncan would be the right fit for the recently penned "Earth Angel." Duncan and Curtis Williams formed the Penguins, along with Dexter Tisby and Bruce Tate, in 1953. Williams and Tate were friends from Jefferson High School. Duncan and Tisby were buddies from Fremont High.

They took their name from a pack of "Kool" cigarettes, whose advertising mascot was a penguin. Several other vocal groups were named after bird species, so why not?

"We wanted to be cool, so we took our name off Willie the Penguin, the trademark on Kool cigarette packs,"  Duncan later told a reporter.  

The group was formed while Duncan was still in high school. The Penguins gathered in a garage to make their first recording, the B side of a record by the Dootsie Williams Orchestra. It went unnoticed. 

In October 1954 they returned to the garage and released its first record on Dootone Records. "Earth Angel" was recorded as a literal garage demo. It was recorded in a garage at the Los Angeles home of a relative of Williams. 

The home was located on West 30th Street in South Los Angeles and was used as the primary recording space of Dootsie Williams for all of his Dootone artists.

The single was “Hey Senorita” with the Duncan-sung “Earth Angel” sitting on its b-side. When a disc jockey flipped the 45 over and played “Earth Angel,” the request lines lit up and the b-side suddenly became the a-side.

Watch and enjoy this wonderful live performance by original lead singer, Cleveland Duncan, and the Penguins.  Please continue reading below the video to learn some  interesting facts about The Penguins you many not know.

Earth Angel Vinyl Record Memories... 
The Penguins
Written by Curtis Williams, Jesse Belvin and Gaynel Hodge

Why only one hit for this super talented group?

While the song's dreamy romanticism would become a staple of oldies radio, the original Penguins were cast into the sea of one-hit wonders. The Penguins never again came close to their initial success. 

They partly blamed their manager they had hired after scoring their hit. He also managed the Platters, one of the 1950s’ most successful groups, and the Penguins came to believe he gave the Platters more attention and better songs.

I was not there, but it is hard to believe with the talent of the Penguins, why they never recorded any of the songs the Platters received. Sounds as though they got short-changed on the selection of songs.  Just my opinion.  

The Los Angeles-based group disbanded in 1957.  Duncan bought the Penguins' name and continued to perform with a succession of new members for more than 40 years. As Duncan told a Times reporter in 1983: "The Penguins are Cleve Duncan plus whoever's singing in the background."

He was convinced that “Earth Angel” would survive in the American memory. “I never get tired of singing it,” he said, “as long as people never get tired of hearing it.”

Earth Angel Vinyl Record Memories - Some facts you may not know. 

In 2005, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, deeming it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important."

The Penguins' recording of "Earth Angel" has sold over ten million copies, although the exact figures are uncertain. Some have placed the figure at twice that amount, but I have no documentation to back that up.  

Sadly, Cleveland Duncan, whose soaring tenor voice as lead singer for the Penguins helped propel the 1954 doo-wop ballad “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)” to rock-n-roll immortality, died on Nov. 7, 2012 in Los Angeles

 “Earrrrth Aaaangel, Earrrrth Aaaangel, (will you be mine),” Cleve Duncan crooned as I sat in a soda shop across the street from Taylor elementary school in Hamilton, ohio in late 1954. I had just turned eleven.  A few years later I would be dancing to this very song with my first girlfriend at a junior high school dance.  

Thanks for the memories, Cleve. God bless Celveland Duncan and The Penguins.   

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