DAVE LEWIS - LOS ORGAN ~ Sealed Lp ~ Piccadilly PIC-3355 {The Five Checks}

Description: Artist/Band &Title: DAVE LEWIS - LOS ORGAN Format: 12" 33.3rpm Vinyl Lp Record Genre: R&B/JAZZ/INSTR Notes: FORMERLY OF THE FIVE CHECKS' DOO WOP GROUP {HAS PUNCH HOLE, SEE PIC}The Texas-born Lewis came to the with his family during . There was music in his background: his father, David Lewis, Sr., was an accomplished amateur guitarist, and his mother Bertha Lewis was similarly talented on piano. The family moved first to seek work in the navy town of , across from Seattle, where they settled in the Sinclair Heights housing projects. One of their neighbors was the young , who took some music lessons from David Sr.The Lewis and Jones families both eventually moved to Seattle, where they lived about five blocks apart from one another in the , the center of African American life in Seattle at the time. His father worked as a fabricator at and also pulled shifts in a barber shop. Lewis tried both guitar and piano, but definitely gravitated toward the latter, especially after hearing , who was launching his performing career in Seattle in the late 1940s.Lewis's first performing group was a vocal group called the Five Checks, formed to enter a talent show held at Edmond Meany Jr. High School (now ). They went on to perform at schools around Seattle, often for audiences who had never heard anything of the sort, at least not in live performance.As a student at Seattle's Lewis formed the combo that would bring him to local prominence. George Griffin from his doo-wop group played drums; Barney Hilliard and J. B. Allen both played saxophone; Jack Grey played upright bass, and Al Aquino rounded out the group on guitar. Starting off at teenage and house parties, they soon graduated to being an opening act for touring R&B acts when they played Seattle's downtown Palomar Theater (then at the corner of Third and University, now replaced by a multi-story parking garage). The Dave Lewis Combo opened for, among others , , , and .In the summer of 1956, Lewis still had one more year to complete at Seattle's , but his combo was the hottest item in the region. They toured the Pacific Northwest as the opening act for a leg of a tour. This led to similar opportunities with , , , , , , , and .In summer 1957, Lewis and his combo settled in for a long tenure as the house band at the leading Seattle club, Birdland (22nd and Madison), where they popularized the song , which would become strongly associated with the region. By this time, Al Aquino and Jack Grey had left the band, replaced by Bud Brown on guitar and Chuck Whittaker on electric bass (replacing Grey's upright acoustic). On several occasions the teenaged —then "Jimmy" Hendrix—sat in on there, but Lewis's audience found him undanceable.Later members of the Combo were Jerry Allen (guitar) and Carlos Ward (saxophone).

Price: 20 USD

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

End Time: 2024-09-15T04:15:31.000Z

Shipping Cost: 0 USD