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Darren Paltrowitz

TALKING WITH ROB GRENOBLE OF WATER MUSIC RECORDERS IN HOBOKEN

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 Water Recorder Studio Hoboken

By Darren Paltrowitz

 A Hudson music business staple along with Bar/None Records and WFMU, Water Music Recorders opened in Hoboken over 30 years ago. Based on Madison Street, Water Music may look like a typical non-descript building, but recording history has been made there, right across the street from Shop-Rite. Beyoncé, Shakira, Ryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, U2, R. Kelly, Taking Back Sunday, and the Dave Matthews Band are among the many artists whose music has been helmed there.

 Owner Rob Grenoble – himself an RCA recording artist before his Water Music life — spoke to RIVER VIEW OBSERVER about his life as a studio owner, which is nowhere near as bleak as music industry critics have led many to believe. In fact, Water Music is currently in discussions to open a satellite studio and artist management firm in 2016.

RVO: What brought you to Hoboken in the first place?
RG: In September 1978, we were dying to get out of Long Branch, where we had moved months before, foolishly thinking it was close to Manhattan. A friend of the band was working as a receptionist at a commercial film production company in Manhattan. One day she turned to Bob Ramos, one of their sales people, and said, “Ramos, my friends want to move to the NY area. They don’t have a lot of money. Where should they go?” Ramos was running out the door. Without missing a beat, over his shoulder he yelled, “Tell them to go to Hoboken. It’s the next big thing.”

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Cover Story

Golden Girls of Doo-Wop- The Carmelettes inspire new play








New Play at LaMama in New York based on The Carmelettes, the 1950s All-Girl Doo-Wop Group from Jersey City

The Carmelettes: Angela LaPrete, Vicky Cevetello and Virginia Verga
The Carmelettes: Angela LaPrete, Vicky Cevetello and Virginia Verga


By Sally Deering

Susan Murphy
Susan Murphy
When I think of girl groups that influenced my teen years, my mind goes straight to The Shangri-Las, four big-haired girls from Queens and their 1964 hit “Leader of the Pack.” That rocking tune about an ill-fated crush on a biker boy became the song for 60s teen-girl angst, inspiring us to iron our hair, slather our lips in Yardley pinks and Frug in white go-go boots.  
 
Before the Shangri-Las and girl groups of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond, there were girl doo- whop groups and one fondly remembered was The Carmelettes, a Jersey City trio of teen girls christened their girl-group name by their parish priest at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. In 1959, the girls Angela LaPrete, Vicky Cevetello and Virginia Verga recorded two songs, “My Foolish Heart” and “Promise Me a Rose,”  and in 1960 “Aching for You” and “Something Tells Me I’m in Love.”  They sang backup for Neil Sedaka’s hit “Oh Carol,” and Carole King’s hit “Oh Neil.” And when the group regrouped under the name “The Kittens,” (after Verga left for a solo career,) the LaPrete and Cevetello sang backup on several songs including the Top 40 hit “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” – which bombarded the airwaves during the summer of 1960. When the group disbanded in the 1961, the girls went on to start other careers and raise families. LaPrete married James Murphy (folks just know him as “Murphy”) and the couple raised their  daughter Susan, who went on to earn a BFA in Drama at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and become a singer in clubs and cabarets while performing in Off-Off Broadway plays. A drama teacher at Snyder High School, Susan Murphy continues to reinvent herself and her latest career turn is her new play, “Girl/Group:  A Daughter’s Tale” a personal piece about her mother’s life as a doo-whop singer and the affect it has had on Murphy’s life. (“Girl/Group: A Daughter’s Tale” features Murphy along with Tom Cappadona, Drew Citron, Alison Scaramella, and Jenna Smith and is directed by Mario Giacalone. It opens at LaMama’s The Club in New York City on June 17 and runs through June 26.)

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