The whole thing began with the Flamingos (no not those Flamingos). These Flamingos were a loose organization of singers, and their ranks ebbed and flowed, depending on who was available for rehearsals and shows. Forming in Jefferson High around 1952, one of their more stable lineups was (you might recognize some of these names): Cornelius “Cornell” Gunter (tenor lead, and still in junior high), Gaynel Hodge (first tenor), Curtis Williams (baritone), and Richard Berry (bass). (Second tenor Jody Jefferson was also an occasional part of the group.) Not a bad lineup. Said Gaynel, “We were young and talented and won every talent show around. We had the whole city of L.A. inspired and in our corner. Large companies were negotiating for us. Letting the Flamingos fall apart was a big mistake.”
But fall apart they did. In time, Cornell and Richard drifted away to form the Flairs, Curtis and Gaynel went off to the Hollywood Flames (“we were 'duped' into it by Bobby Day and David Ford, who promised a better career than the one we seemed to be enjoying as the Flamingos,” said Gaynel). Replacements were hurriedly brought in: Tony Williams (for Cornell), Herb Reed (for Richard), David Lynch (for Gaynel), and Gaynel's older brother, Alex (for Curtis). Therefore, by the time the dust had settled and the Flamingos had gotten a recording contract with Federal Records, it was a completely different group!
Unfortunately, just before the Flamingos were ready to record, Chicago's Flamingos started hitting it big on the Los Angeles charts with “That's My Desire.” It was Alex Hodge (or maybe Herb Reed) who redubbed them the “Platters.” This is probably a good time to leave this group; wonder what ever happened to them?
On September 4, 1954, the Hollywood Flames (with Gaynel Hodge, David Ford, Curlee Dinkins, and Bobby Byrd) recorded at least four songs for John Dolphin: “Fare Thee Well,” “Clickety Clack I'm Leaving,” “Emily,” and “Wagon Wheels.” The first two of these were released, under the Hollywood Flames name, later that month on Dolphin's Money label. The other two songs would make life more confusing for us all. [Notice that Curtis Williams is gone from the Hollywood Flames. He'd been booted out of the group for being “too independent,” according to Gaynel. But singers didn't stay quiet long in L.A. Soon, Curtis was back, with his new group, the Penguins, poised on the brink of the authorship war over “Earth Angel.”]
“Emily” (with Gaynel in the lead) was first released in February 1955, also on Money. However, the name on the label wasn't the Hollywood Flames, but the “Turks” (even more confusing, the flip side was “When I Return,” by the [West Coast] Turbans). Why the Turks? It wasn't a tune by anyone called the Turks, it was a tune by the Hollywood Flames. Possibly Dolphin was mad at them for some reason. He'd taken some of their Lucky sides (another label he owned) and placed them with Decca, which was pretty big time. Then, in February 1955, the Flames backed up Patti Anne [Mesner] on “Shtiggy Boom” (on rival label, Aladdin). However, they weren't credited on the label, so did Dolphin even know it? The short answer is “I simply don't know.” (The long answer is suspiciously similar.) As far as the name goes, the best evidence is that Dolphin simply made it up.
John Dolphin was the epitome of the record business hustler. He had a record store (“Dolphin's Of Hollywood”) which was open 24 hours a day. It was originally opened during the Korean War to capitalize on the city's round-the-clock war workers (especially those in shipbuilding). He featured a DJ in the window (starting with Ray Robinson broadcasting over KGFJ in 1951). Within a couple of months he'd added Robin “King” Bruin (KWKW; he's the voice you hear doing the recitation on the Hollywood 4 Flames' “The Glory Of Love,” which was on Recorded In Hollywood, conveniently owned by Dolphin). By late 1953, Dick “Huggy Boy” Hugg became another of his DJs (replacing Charles Trammell, over KRKD). Since Huggy Boy was white, Dolphin then attracted
both black and white customers (many simply when the neighborhood bars closed up for the night). It was said that Huggy Boy was capable of drawing a bigger crowd outside the store window than a stage show at a nearby theater.Because Dolphin was stingy (to say the least) and a micromanager to boot, he made as many deliveries to record dealers as he could, just dumping boxes of records in the trunk of his car. Because he tended not to go through distributors whenever possible, his records rarely made any trade paper charts. (No one in L.A. was surprised when Dolphin set up labels named Cash and Money.)
On June 9, 1955, Gaynel and Alex Hodge joined with David Ford (the usual tenor lead of the Hollywood Flames) and Jesse Belvin to record as the Tangiers for Decca. There were two resulting records: “Tabarin”/“I Won't Be Around” in August, and “Remember Me”/“Oh Baby,” issued in July 1956.
Probably around this time, Gaynel left the Hollywood Flames to start his own group, consisting of himself as lead tenor, brother Alex Hodge (baritone; he'd left the Platters sometime prior to their September 1954 session), Jody Jefferson (second tenor), and Delmer Wilburn (first tenor; he'd been in the Squires on Combo). To further keep it in the family, their manager was Katherine Hodge, Gaynel and Alex's mother.
On September 3, 1955, the trades rated “Emily” a Tip in Los Angeles. It was finally reviewed on October 29 (“good”), along with Shirley & Lee's “Lee's Dream,” the Cadillacs' “Speedoo,” Little Richard's “Tutti-Fruitti,” the Rolling Crew's “Home On Alcatraz,” the Orioles' “Please Sing My Blues Tonight,” the Diablos' “The Way You Dog Me Around,” the Meadowlarks' “This Must Be Paradise,” and the Sh-Booms' “Pretty Wild.”
Along the way, Gaynel had agreed with Dolphin to use the Turks name for his new group. For a distinctive look (but mostly as a joke), they decided to wear fezzes onstage. Alex Hodge later claimed that the group's name (and, more important, the fezzes) became a liability, since the emerging Black Muslim movement wasn't amused.
Finally, the Turks did a session for Dolphin. The result was “I'm A Fool”/“I've Been Accused,” both led by Gaynel and released in February 1956.
In March, it was reported that Huggy Boy was besieged with requests to play “I'm A Fool” on his all-night show (he broadcast from 9 PM to 4 AM). However, since he broadcast from Dolphin's store window and “I'm A Fool” was released on a Dolphin label, draw your own conclusion as to how accurate the press release was.
Both sides were rated “good” on March 17, along with Little Richard's “Long Tall Sally,” the Charms' “Ivory Tower,” the Midnighters' “Open Up The Back Door,” the 5 Royales' “I Could Love You,” the Pipes' “Be Fair,” the 5 Notes' “Show Me The Way,” the Barons' “Cryin' For You Baby,” and the Carpets' “Why Do I.” On March 24, it “I'm A Fool” was a Tip in Los Angeles. April 28 found it a trade paper Pick Of The Week. (Both Tips and Picks Of The Week were designed to alert distributors to the records that could potentially net them the most money in sales to juke box operators and record stores.)
After the Dolphin session, Jody Jefferson left, to be replaced by Carl Green. Carl had been the first “Johnny” in Marvin [Phillips] & Johnny; he was on “I'm Not A Fool”/“Baby Doll,” which had been released by M&J on Specialty, in October 1953. In the intervening years, he'd written “Hey Senorita” for the Penguins.A few months later, the Turks got to back up Wynona Carr on a couple of Specialty tunes: “Hurt Me” and “Jump, Jack, Jump!”. These were released in June 1956, but the group wasn't credited on the label.
The next Turks' release was on Dolphin's Cash label, around July 1956, and it's another mystery. This time there was a real Turks song (“It Can't Be True”) backed with another Hollywood Flames song (“Wagon Wheels,” led by Bobby Byrd [the future Bobby Day], from the Flames' September 1954 session). This side is credited to the “Original Turks.”
In July, the Turks appeared as part of an Al Jarvis show at the L.A. County Fair Grounds in Pomona. They shared the stage with the Six Teens, the Platters, Joe Houston, and Shirley Gunter.
Then there was a record on Chicago's Bally label in September of 1956: “Why Did You,” backed with “This Heart Of Mine.” They got this session through producer George Motola, who probably owed the pinball people in Chicago a “favor.”
Both sides of the Bally disc were rated “good” on September 29. Other reviews that week went to Big Maybelle's “Mean To Me,” the Cadets' “I Got Loaded,” the Heartbeats' “A Thousand Miles Away,” the Emeralds' “I Cry,” and the Marigolds' “It's You, Darling, It's You.” Also that month, the Turks appeared at the Shrine Auditorium as part of an Earl McDaniel show (he was a DJ on KPOP). Others on the bill were the Coasters, the Six Teens, Sonny Knight, Gene Vincent, the Dots, the Gassers, Ernie Freeman, and Alis Lesley (a flash-in-the-pan billed as “The Female Presley”; as I remember it, she always appeared barefoot, probably for some good [read: “invented by a press agent”] reason).
The Turks were quiet for almost two years after this, finally surfacing again on Robert “Bumps” Blackwell's Keen label. In April 1958, they released “Father Time” (misspelled “Fathertime” on the label) and “Okay.” By this time, they'd lost Delmer Wilburn and Carl Green. The personnel on Keen was Gaynel Hodge, Alex Hodge, Tommy “Buster” Williams (a first tenor), and his pal Jesse Belvin (singing bass). (Actually, Jesse and the Hodge brothers were pals too, having grown up only a few houses apart.) [Only a month before, Buster and Jesse had been the “Shields” on “You Cheated” (backing up lead Frankie Ervin,
with Johnny “Guitar” Watson and “Handsome” Mel Williams); on that one, Jesse was top tenor!]“Fathertime” was reviewed on April 14 (both sides “good”), along with the Chanters' “My, My Darling,” the Dells' “What You Say Baby,” Frankie Lymon's “Portable On My Shoulder,” and the Cadillacs' “Speedoo Is Back.”
At this point, the Turks joined Eugene Church, as the “Fellows,” on “Pretty Girls Everywhere,” released in August 1958 on Class. Church, a Jesse Belvin sound-alike, had dueted with him in the Cliques (“The Girl In My Dreams”), back in 1956. It's unclear whether Jesse Belvin was ever a part of the Fellows, but if there was a session, Jesse was usually there.“Pretty Girls Everywhere” was reviewed on September 15, 1958 (both sides “good”), along with the Danleers' “I Really Love You,” Clyde McPhatter's “A Lover's Question,” the Robins' “A Quarter To Twelve,” the Charms' “Don't Wake Up The Kids,” and the Sedates' “I Found.” By November 17, it was a Tip in L.A.
Then, for some reason, Imperial Records purchased “I'm A Fool” and “It Can't Be True” from John Dolphin's widow, Ruth (he'd been shot to death by Percy Ivy, a disgruntled songwriter, back on February 2, 1958). These 1956 sides were released on Imperial's Knight subsidiary in November 1958 (and, amazingly, on the parent label itself in 1961). The disc was reviewed (both sides “good”) on December 1, along with Bobby Day's “The Bluebird, The Buzzard, And The Oriole,” Chuck Berry's “Run, Rudolph, Run,” Johnnie & Joe's “Warm, Soft And Lovely,” the Teenchords' “Dance Girl,” the Loungers' “Dizzy Spell,” the Impressions' “The Gift Of Love,” and the Boptones' “I Had A Love.”
In those more leisurely days, Stan Lewis, owner of Stan's Record Shop in Shreveport, Louisiana, finally reported, in January 1959, that “Pretty Girls Everywhere” showed strong potential. In February, Cosnat distributors (allied with Jubilee Records) reported the disc as one of their top movers.
The final original release by the Turks was issued in July 1959, while they were still Eugene Church's background group. Also on Class, it was “Rockville U.S.A.”/“Hully Gully.” These were done as a trio: Gaynel, Alex, and Buster.
Both sides were rated “good” on July 27, along with Lloyd Price's “I'm Gonna Get Married,” the Miracles' “Bad Girl,” and Roy Brown's “Good Looking And Foxy Too.”
That was the last gasp of the Turks. As a trio, they continued to back Eugene Church for a couple of years, finally disbanding around 1960. As a coherent group, however, they don't seem to be on any other Eugene Church records, which mostly feature a female group.
Around that same year, John Dolphin's widow, Ruth, reissued “Emily,” (the song that had started it all back in 1954) on her Ball label.
In the early 70s, Gaynel, Alex, and Buster reunited to back up Bill Medley on an A&M album. This would have to be 1973's Smile, since 1971's A Song For You had been recorded in Paris.
Finally, sometime in the 90s, Gaynel recorded “What Now” and “Heartbreak” for the Preserve label. Background credit went to the “Turks,” but the personnel is unknown.It was a long and bumpy ride for the Turks. Some of the above is pure speculation, but that's how it was with L.A. groups. They just weren't as competitive as New York and Chicago aggregations, and were constantly switching around members (to the delight of researchers down through the years).
Special thanks to Victor Pearlin and Gordon Skadberg. Discography by Ferdie Gonzalez.