The Top Ten Most Successful “Missing” Number Ones Artists – Number 2: Bobby Rydell

(Note: Criteria, Scoring and Rationale for this series may be found here.)

In 1978, my parents’ best friends invited me to go see Grease with them and their daughter.

For example, I went to the YMCA’s Youth Convocation in the summer of 1990 with teenagers from twenty-six other nations.

That movie (and Broadway musical) was based on a 1971 musical of the same name, but a lot of changes were made to make it PG-rated. The original Chicago show was ethnic, raunchy, edgy; the music and dialogue diluted and made more family-friendly for a national audience.

Broadway did keep the name of the high school, however – a name which grounded the show with the confines of the late 50s/early 60s:

Rydell once said:

“It was so nice to know that the high school [in ‘Grease’] was named after me.”

“And I said, ‘Why me?’ It could have been Anka High, Presley High, Everly High, Fabian High, Avalon High.

“And they came up with Rydell High, and once again – total honor.”

Bobby Rydell

But it couldn’t have been – those artists had peaks and memorable moments beyond that period just before The Beatles. It was always going to be Bobby Rydell.

Robert Louis Ridarelli was born in the Moyamensing section of South Philly:

As a young boy, Ridarelli loved mimicking singers on TV, and his dad thought he had some ability – by the time he was seven, Robert was singing and doing impersonations around the city. 

Robert won the contest, and became the show’s drummer for the next three years. Whiteman had difficulty with Ridarelli’s last name, so he called him “Bobby Rydell,” and the name stuck.

In March of 1952 Channel 6 WFIL in Philadelphia premiered a new program called Bandstand, hosted by Bob Horn.

Freddy Cannon…

….of local Philly record label Swan held the record with 110 appearances on the show. Cannon also just missed this countdown at #11.

While American Bandstand became THE go-to program for teenage artists and its fans, Rydell’s career struggled.

His work with minor labels went nowhere. But Bernie Lowe, co-founder of Cameo Records, knew of Rydell’s talents because he used to play piano on Whiteman’s show.

Their headquarters was only thirty blocks away from the American Bandstand studio, and new host Dick Clark remembered Rydell as well.

Finally, he was able to lip-sync to his third single:

“Kissin’ Time” hit #11, and Rydell’s career took off. His next single “We Got Love” hit #6 (it’s a 6), and with his first hit of 1960, Rydell became an American teen idol.

“Wild One” was written by Cameo co-founders Bernie Lowe, Kal Mann, and jack-of-all-trades employee Dave Appell.

They played supporting Chubby Checker, The Dovells (#13; 3 Top 10, 5 Top 40, 6 Top 100), The Orlons (#23), Dee Dee Sharp and Bobby Rydell among others at the label. 

The quartet didn’t have a percussionist, so on “Wild One” Appell reached out to New York City drummer Gary Chester, whose career credits are too long to list here.

But does include this one:

(Stereogum reviewer Tom Breihan gave “Sugar, Sugar” a 9.)

Lowe and Mann were extremely successful songwriters as well, known for 1957 #1 hits like Elvis’ “Teddy Bear” and Charlie Gracie’s “Butterfly”, and their ability is evident on “Wild One”. It’s the work of professionals who know how to create a pop song. The saxophones kick in right away, then seventeen year-old Rydell croons.

The subject of the song is wild (in a 1950s way), and Bobby is just the one to get her to settle down.

Rydell is Safe Elvis here, the backup singers respond perfectly to his pleas. It’s not a song that would work for The King, but PG-rated banter ready for the dance floor, a dance with no touching like The Twist, Wah Watusi, The Mashed Potato or any of the series of dance songs Cameo would release through the early 60s: Teenage fun, parent approved.

The music was recorded at the label’s headquarters at 14th and Locust Streets on a small mono board.

Emil Korsen, the sound engineer/owner, set up a mic in the men’s bathroom two stories above the studio where Rydell sang, which fed back into the mixing board to add reverb to his vocals. 

Cameo had a successful formula, dammit, and they were going to ride it: they bought a larger studio at 309 South Broad Street, pumped out singles, sent their stars onto Bandstand, and for most of the early 60s they were successful.

Rydell had seven songs chart in 1960, including “Swingin’ School” (a 5), and an English remake of Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)”:

(Tom gave the original a 5; this is a 4.)

Eight more songs charted in 1961, and five in 1962 including when Rydell returned to the Top 10 with “The Cha-Cha-Cha”, which referenced all the dance-titled songs the Cameo team had written.

Nothing like beating a dead horse; this one’s a 4. 

Rydell took a break from touring in May of 1962 to join the cast of Bye Bye Birdie.

He auditioned for Hugo Peabody, a role with no lines in the Broadway musical.

1963 found Rydell with his last Top 10 hit, “Forget Him”, which is widely celebrated as the inspiration behind The Beatles “She Loves You”.

In Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, Macca said he and John Lennon were inspired to write a third-person song after hearing a Rydell song. No one is sure which hit it was (some claim it to be “Swingin’ School”, but “Forget Him” was on the charts when Lennon-McCartney wrote it), but it might be ironic that Rydell played a role in The Beatles’ biggest-selling single ever- and the subsequent British Invasion which crushed Rydell’s popularity.

(“Forget Him” reached #4, and is a 4. Tom gave “She Loves You” an 8, which included the minus-3 Tom deducts off every Beatles song.)

Then suddenly it was over.

On February 7, 1964, The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, signifying the start of the British Invasion. The following day American Bandstand was recorded for the first time in Los Angeles. The Bandstand-Cameo pipeline was broken; Philly pop artists had a much harder time getting into teenaged culture.

Finally, Bernie Lowe didn’t want to run the business anymore so he sold Cameo to a Texas businessman, and others left:

Rydell moved onto Capitol Records, but was a forgotten artist behind The Beatles and the Beach Boys. Interestingly, one of his last singles to chart was a remake of “A World Without Love”, a #1 hit penned by Paul McCartney and recorded by Peter and Gordon (Tom gave it a 6). Rydell’s version hit #80.

There was a last gasp for Cameo Records: in 1966, ? and the Mysterians hit #1 with “96 Tears” (Tom gave it an 8), but that was it, and the label was sold to the infamous Allen Klein, who locked up Rydell’s catalog until 2005. 

As for the recording studios, you might not know Rec-O-Art, or the studio Cameo built on South Broad Street, but you’ll know their history: in 1968 Joseph Tarsia bought them, and they became the home of Gamble & Huff’s Philadelphia International Records.

(Contrary to Tom’s opinion: “Backstabbers” is a 10.)

GRADE: 7/10

TRIVIA: Tom mentioned Dinah Washington two times in the column – once, when he covered “Everybody Loves Somebody” which she’d recorded, but she was also performing in New York City and invited a young five-year-old child prodigy onstage to sing with her. What song did that young artist later reach #1 with?

In 1976, William Bell hit the #10 with his #1 R&B smash “Trying to Love Two”, but Tom didn’t rate that song. Tom mentioned him once, when Billy Idol remade his “I Forgot to be Your Lover” as “To Be a Lover” in 1986. It’s a 4.

BONUS BEATS: I can’t find any covers of “Wild One”, but why don’t we spin “Swingin’ School” – in French – by Richard Anthony?

BONUS BONUS BEATS: I would be remiss if I didn’t share high school dropout Frenchie as she’s visited by Rydell’s childhood neighbor and Rocco and the Saints bandmate Frankie Avalon in Grease: