The Chimes: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• The Five Crowns
• The Jive Five
• The Royaltones
• The Classics
• The Mystics
• The Paradons
• Jackie & the Starlites

• Dorothy Norwood

• Michael Edwards
• Bud Green

Formed:

Jan 1, 1959

Disbanded:

Jan 1, 1964

Genres:

R&B and Soul Music, Rock Music

Decades Active:

1950's|1960's

There may well have been hundreds of groups during the 1950s that used the name the Chimes. Only the quintet from Brooklyn -- Lenny Cocco (lead), Pat DePrisco (first tenor), Richard Mercado (second tenor), Joseph Croce (baritone), Pat McGuire (bass) -- ever made the charts, however, or became more than local stars.

Lenny Cocco, the son of a Brooklyn accordion player, organized the group in the mid-'50s, and their first record was a vocal arrangement of the old Tommy Dorsey hit "Once in a While," which was issued on the Tag label. The quintet scored right out of the box as that record reached number 11, which led to a follow-up record, a recording of the 1930s standard "I'm in the Mood for Love." By 1962, they were cutting songs under the name Lenny the Chimes. They left Tag Records in 1963, jumping first to Metro and then to Laurie, before releasing a single, "Two Times," on Vee Jay in 1964. The group broke up in 1964 amid the onslaught of the British invasion and the collapse of Vee Jay, but they have re-formed, usually as Lenny the Chimes, in various configurations for oldies shows since the early '70s.

- Bruce Eder, All Music Guide