The Kool Gents - When I Call On You 1956

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The Kool Gents aka The Delegates (Chicago)
Personnel:
Delecta "Dee" Clark (Lead Tenor)
John McCall (Lead Tenor)
Doug Brown (Second Tenor)
Teddy Long (Second Tenor / Baritone)
John Carter (Bass)

Biography:
One of the most interesting groups to emerge from Chicago in the '50s was the Kool Gents. An early incarnation called the Golden Tones consisted of Cicero Blake, James Harper, Howard McClain, Teddy Long, and John Carter. Delecta "Dee" Clark, John McCall, and Doug Brown replaced Harper, McClain, and Blake.

McCall, not Clark originally sung lead until Vee Jay's A&R man Calvin Carter recommended that Clark sing lead. Long served as the groups' main songwriter. Clark, from Arkansas, had previously recorded "Hambone" with the Red Saunders Orchestra as a member of the Hambone Kids. They renamed themselves after disk jockey Herb "Kool Gent" Kent, who introduced them to Calvin Carter and Vee Jay Records.

Their first release, "This Is the Night" b/w "Do Ya Do" sold locally in 1956. A second release, "I Just Can't Help Myself" b/w "You Know" did fine in Chicago also, but failed to make any inroads outside the city. The Kool Gents didn't burn up the charts, but they sounded good, so Calvin Carter and Ewart Abner decided to spoof the Democratic National Convention by releasing "The Convention" as "the Delegates”.

It received a tremendous amount of airplay, which unfortunately didn't transform into a tremendous number of sales. A second Delegates single, "Mother's Son" b/w Teddy Long's "I'm Gonna Be Glad" didn't even excite Chicagoans. In 1957, Dee Clark decided to go solo (with Calvin Carter's OK), and the Kool Gents and the Delegates recording activity ended. Some members of labelmates the El Dorados ("At My Front Door") left the group, leaving only lead Pirkle Lee Moses, so Calvin crowned the Kool Gents the New El Dorados and they backed Moses for two fruitless years.