Opens Feb. 7^th at the Loewâ€s Jersey City

February 7th  show is sold out -a second show is being added at a later date

JERSEY GIRLS 

 By Sally Deering

Before Beyoncé, and Madonna, Mariah, Aretha and the all-girl groups of the 1960s, there was The Carmelettes, a trio of teen Jersey girls from the Marion section of Jersey City who sang original pop tunes in tight harmonies. It was 1959, and the girls Angela LaPrete, Vicky Cevetello and Virginia Verga recorded two songs, “My Foolish Heart” and “Promise Me a Rose.” A year later, they cut two more records, “Aching for You” and “Something Tells Me Iâ€m in Love.” 

 Itâ€s a Jersey City tale that would be long forgotten if not for Susan Murphy, Angela LaPreteâ€s daughter, a professional singer herself who wrote a play with music about her motherâ€s experience in “GIRL GROUP: A Daughterâ€s Tale” to be presented at the Loewâ€s Jersey City in Journal Square – just blocks from where The Carmelettes were born – on Sat, Feb. 7 at 7 pm. (Tix $20 at www.brownpapertickets.com). A reception follows.

The piece features Murphy along with Tom Cappadona, Elisabeth Ness, Alison Scaramella, and Jenna Sofia. Itâ€s directed by Mario Giacalone with vocal direction by Diane Garisto of Brooklyn. The show is produced by Steven Minichiello, Murphyâ€s close friend who also grew up in Jersey Cityâ€s Marion section. Murphy originally produced the musical in 2011 at LaMaMa in Manhattan.

“I always felt like the show had more life in it,” Murphy says. “Sometimes you do those shows, and itâ€s like great, did it, done. This show is different. The audience loved it. We loved working on it. It has something.”

Murphy describes the piece as, a performance memoir about doo-wop and dreams deferred. Itâ€s a play with music about mothers and daughters, uncelebrated lives and the extraordinary talents that lie hidden within them. The main character played by Murphy is a singer who goes back 50 years to her motherâ€s life as a member of a successful girl group. Murphy calls the piece an “Alice-through-the-looking-glass” adventure where the singer reclaims her motherâ€s legacy and, in doing so, creates her own.

“When I was 15, I started writing my own material,” Murphy says, “and somehow I knew I was going to come to this story at some point in my life.”

THREE GIRLS WITH A VOICE

The songs are recreations of what The Carmelettes recorded. Some of the music was by Beatrice Verde, the older sister of one of the girls and the driving force behind the group, Murphy says.

“She didnâ€t sing but she wrote, arranged and played,” Murphy says.

Beatrice Verde had tremendous ambition and went on to write for Motown. Murphy describes her as the Svengali of the group.

“I think of that time, 1957-196, girls just didnâ€t do that” Murphy says. “Itâ€s before the Ronettes, the Supremes. It pre-dates the girl groups. We had a rehearsal the other day that was so good, it made me realize how good these girls really were. They started the group when they were 14. Here we are professionals struggling as we pick apart the harmonies. These girls were only 14 and they were singing it.”

To get the girl group sound just right, Murphy asked her good friend Diane Garisto to be vocal director. Garisto sings professionally and has been a back-up singer for superstars like Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Laura Nyro, Steely Dan and Neil Sedaka. Having worked as a backup singer, Garisto knows how important it is to get the singers playing The Carmelettes to harmonize perfectly.

“Street corner doo-wop is what all these songs are about,” Garisto says. “Iâ€m sort of keeper of the harmony. Itâ€s my job. Thereâ€s something about being a singer in a group. Thereâ€s a skill to singing that, these songs, these girls really blended in harmony. Thatâ€s why Susan called me. Itâ€s different from being a lead singer.”

THE PLAYâ€S THE THING

Because the Loewâ€s is so big, Murphy has decided to present the show with the audience seated onstage instead of in the auditorium. This helps create an intimacy between the audience and the actors. She also has a band performing the music.

“Itâ€s the only way for this show to be in this type of space,” Murphy says. “The show is an intimate, gritty, viscerally close show. Itâ€s about regular people and relationships. Iâ€m thrilled to be at the Loewâ€s. Itâ€s a beautiful venue with all the memories that are there. Thatâ€s part of the show. Thatâ€s one of the themes of the show.”

The staging is bare-bones, Murphy says. Concert-staging with production elements to a minimum so that the story can be told in a clear and simple way.

 “Iâ€m into giving people an experience, carrying them on a journey,” Murphy says. “Maybe itâ€s my background in experimental theater. If I canâ€t give them an experience, it doesnâ€t matter what venue itâ€s in. Part of me would like to do this show in pop-up form, like at a bowling alley or a church hall or somebodyâ€s living room. “

THE BEAT GOES ON

The Broadway musical about Carole King, “Beautiful” is set in the same time period as The Carmelettes. Murphy took her mother to see the show last year for her birthday and afterwards, they were invited backstage to meet the cast – thanks to Murphyâ€s producer Steven Minichiello.

“They welcomed my mother like she was royalty,” Murphy says.

Like Murphy, producer Steven Minichiello of Over the Top Productions grew up in Jersey Cityâ€s Marion section and attended the same parish elementary school. He and Murphy once belonged to a local theater troupe, and have since remained close friends.

“Iâ€m so enamored by Susanâ€s momâ€s story,” Minichiello says, “and I love what Susan is doing. Sheâ€s not only paying tribute to her motherâ€s accomplishments, itâ€s a story about the love of a daughter for her mother. Iâ€m so honored to be part of it, and add any little touch I can. Itâ€s a wonderful story and it should be told.”

Murphyâ€s hoping the performance at the Loewâ€s will be even more magical than the show they did at LaMama a few years back. Closing night of the LaMama run all three Carmelettes were in the audience, Murphy says, and at the after-party they sang together for the first time in 50 years.

“Something special happened that night,” Murphy says. “It wrapped something up that had not been wrapped up before.”

If you go:

Sat, Feb. 7 at 7 pm

GIRL GROUP: A Daughterâ€s Tale

Loewâ€s Jersey City

Journal Square

JC

Tix: $20

For tix: www.brownpapertickets.com

The post Susan Murphy’s “GIRL GROUP: A Daughter’s Tale” A Jersey City Story about The Carmelettes All-Girl Singing Group first appeared on River View Observer.

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

 

“When I was 15, I started writing my own material,” Murphy says, “and somehow I knew I was going to come to this story at some point in my life.”

Murphy’s full-length play about her mother’s experience as a doo-whop singer began 20 years ago, she says, when she was invited to perform a 10-minute monologue on her story of choice and she chose to talk about her mother’s singing career. Ten years later, she started thinking of that monologue and the play began to take shape.

“I always had my mother’s records and they were always fascinating to me,” Murphy says. “It was family history and even more, it was my voice that I heard on those records. When I would research songs for the kind of music that I perform, I always came back around to my mother’s music and that’s when I decided that I needed to tell this story. And the more I worked on this play, the more I began to think about all the other uncelebrated people in this world. We live in an ‘American Idol’ society and there are people sitting behind desks, teaching school, who have amazing gifts and you just don’t know about them. That’s become very interesting to me.”

Growing up, Murphy wanted to be a rock star, she says. And because of her experience as an undergrad in the experimental theater division of NYU’S Tisch School of the Arts, Murphy’s career path turned into a search for belonging that included singing in New York’s cabaret rooms like the Eighty Eights and doing theater and music gigs that didn’t fit one particular genre.

“I was never a cabaret performer, per se,” Murphy says. “I would sing in cabarets and end up doing a U2 song. Then I would sing Standards in rock clubs. My tastes were eclectic.”

During all that time, Murphy says, the stories of her mother’s life as a doo-whop singer would always come back to her. Even though the play is called “Girl/Group…” her mother’s trio, The Carmelettes was really a pre-girl group. pre-Supremes, pre-Shirelles and pre-Shangri-Las.

In the mid-1950s, The Carmelettes received their name from their parish priest at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel church where they sang in the choir. They signed with Alpine, a subsidiary of Epic Records and recorded their first songs. That’s when Neil Sedaka chose them to sing back up for his song “Oh Carol,” a tune he wrote about singer/songwriter Carole King.  Although not much is written about The Carmelettes, according to Angela LaPrete Murphy, “We sang backup on ‘Oh Carol’ and then were asked to duplicate the sound on ‘Oh, Neil.’ At that time, Virginia had already left the group. Vicky and I did a great deal of backup with Carole King for other artists.”

Beatrice Verdi, Virginia Verga’s sister wrote songs for them, arranged the vocals, and went on to become a successful songwriter, Susan Murphy says: “She was unbelievable. She was writing four-chord doo-wop stuff, the harmonies were insane and these little girls did them. One of their records is now up on eBay for 50 bucks.”

The Carmelettes continued to do back up and record their own songs. When they recorded “Promise Me a Rose” at Columbia Studios in New York, singer Anita Bryant recorded the same song and the DJ pulled The Carmelettes version off the air. Similar to most girl groups like the Shangri-Las, The Carmelettes/Kittens disbanded and moved on with their lives.

“It’s because of The Carmelettes that I discovered a personal love for all types of music,” Murphy says, “and a deep respect for the path my mother paved all those years ago so that other girl groups could follow.”

And although her career as a doo-whop singer became a treasure trove of memories in a box of 45s, Angela LaPrete Murphy made sure the music never stopped playing in the Murphy household.

“I always knew doo-wop because it was always playing in our house,” Murphy says. “And my mother always sang. In fact, everybody always sang in my house. Even though we weren’t music professionals – except for my mom – we would bust out in songs.”

Girl/Group: A Daughter’s Tale

June 17-26,

Fri & Sat 10 pm; Sun 5:30 pm

Tickets $18

LaMama’s The Club

74A East 4^th Street

(Btw Bowery & 2^nd Ave)

New York City

212-475-7710

Tickets can be purchased online at www.lamama.org/theclub

 

To view a short video about the show on YouTube, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJfqW2Toh9A

 

 

 

 

           

 

The post Golden Girls of Doo-Wop- The Carmelettes inspire new play first appeared on River View Observer.