The Tangled History of The Drifters

 

1954 ad for The Drifters at Harlem's Apollo. 

When Charlie Thomas died earlier this week, the New York Times tried to report on his place in musical history, in particular the history of the Drifters.

They had a hard time parsing it all out. With good reason: the history of the Drifters is very confusing.

What the Times did settle on was this: Thomas sang lead on the Drifters’ hits “Sweets for My Sweet” (which peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1961), “When My Little Girl Is Smiling” (which topped out at No. 28 in 1961), and on “I Don’t Want to Go On Without You” (the flip side of “Under the Boardwalk” in 1964). He sang on – but did not sing lead on many of their best-known hits from the early sixties, including “There Goes My Baby,” “Up on the Roof,” and “Save the Last Dance for Me,” the group’s only number one hit.  

 

1960 photo from New York Age newspaper. 

I tried to unravel the story of the Drifters in 2007, after the death of another lead singer, Bill Pinckney, who was touted at the time as an original Drifter.

Here’s what I wrote:

 

The Drifters are well known for such beach music hits as “Under the Boardwalk,” “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “More Than a Number in my Little Red Book.”

As it turns out Bill Pinkney didn’t sing on any of those songs. And here’s the rub: original isn’t always original and sometimes that doesn’t even matter.

Pinkney was a member of the original Drifters, but that’s Original Drifters with a capital “O.”

He was not an original original Drifter. He was part of the second organization of the group, one sometimes called the classic Drifters. But by the time the group had any of those beach music hits, he had already left the group in a dispute over money. Still his rich bass voice is well-known with the Drifters because he sang lead on the group’s 1954 do-wop take on “White Christmas,” a record made famous in the 1990 movie “Home Alone.”

1954 story about Drifters appearance at the Apollo. 

The Drifters are just one of a number of early rock groups that are still playing dates around the country despite the fact that most if not all their “original” members are dead or no longer with the group.

In fact a friend of mine at the Kansas City Star newspaper was all set to cover a concert by the Coasters when he discovered the group that would be performing in K.C. had exactly zero members of the original group. When my reporter-friend confronted the group’s manager, the guy explained that he had purchased the group name years earlier and was perfectly within his rights to promote a show by “The Coasters.”

That’s pretty much the story of The Drifters, too.

And if you get technical about it you probably wouldn’t want to see the real original Drifters since they never had a hit. The beach music Drifters were the fourth major iteration of the group.

The original Drifters were formed in 1953 by Clyde McPhatter after he left the Dominoes and had only one recording session. That group was made up of McPhatter, William “Chick” Anderson, David Baldwin (brother of author James Baldwin), James “Wrinkle” Johnson and “Little Dave” Baughan and had one release, “Lucille,” which was not a hit.

1958 story in the Charlotte News. 

McPhatter disbanded that group and recruited Gerhart Thrasher, Andrew Thrasher, Willie Ferbee, Walter Adams and Bill Pinkney. This is the group that released the 1953 hit “Money Honey.”

McPhatter was drafted in 1954 and sold out to manager George Treadwell. From then on it was constant turnover. McPhatter was replaced by original original Dave Baughan, who was soon replaced by Johnny Moore of the Hornets, who was drafted and replaced by Bobby Hendricks of the Swallows.

Bill Pinkney was fired in 1958 after asking for a raise. Later that same year after a group member got in a fight with the manager of the Apollo Theater, manager Treadwell fired everyone and replaced them with members of the Five Crowns, whose lead vocalist was Ben Nelson, who would later be known as Ben E. King.

Whew! And we are only up to 1958.

Pinkney then put together a group he called the Original Drifters. That group toured for the next ten years as a trio, quartet and quintet that rotated personnel. Pinkney managed to keep a Drifters group touring for the next 40 years, until his death July 4, 2007. Bill Pinkney’s Original Drifters last appeared in the Kingsport area in Coeburn in August 2006 at Wise County’s 150th birthday celebration. They were scheduled to appear on the Fourth of July at Daytona Beach’s Red, White and Boom celebration in 2007.

"Original Drifters" show in Owensboro, Ky. in 1960.

If you think this is complicated, realize this doesn’t include the subsequent iterations of the Drifters under Ben E. King and his successors as lead singer, Johnny Lee Williams and Rudy Lewis.

By my rough count at least sixty people sang with the “Drifters” over the years.

The Original Drifters were still performing in 2022 - this show was in Clearwater, Fla. 

At one time there were four groups touring under the name “Drifters,” all with legitimate ties to the group.

There are even two different Tams groups currently touring [in 2007], each featuring one original Tam. The Rhythm in Riverview show [that summer] features Robert Lee Smith and the Tams. Smith was part of the group that was founded in Atlanta in 1952 as the Four Dots. The other touring Tams is the Joe Pope Tams, featuring original Tam Charles Pope. (Joe Pope, Charles’ brother and a group original, died in 1996.)

If you want to know the history of the Coasters, another group of many iterations, you’ll have to do that research yourself.