Recommendations of the Editorial team
Over the years, The Drifters have been a whole handful of different groups. And it may have been this constant change of personnel who ensured that the chain of hits itself never demolished over such a long period of time.
We were fans before we wrote songs for The Drifters and later produced them. The great singers in the band had a long tradition: Clyde McPhaatter, Johnny Moore, Ben E. King, Rudy Lewis. But despite all its fantastic plates, personnel fluctuation was enormous. Ultimately, it was the management that hired the members after discretion and fired again.
Our first attempt for The Drifters was “Ruby Baby” from 1955. We were thrilled what they made out of the song. In 1958 the managers had the staff rotated once more – and the hour of the Great Ben E. King came. Most plates that are associated with the Drifters – such as “There’s Goes My Baby” – date from this phase.
We wrote songs for the drifts ourselves, but we also knocked on the best songwriters in the world
Ben E. King was still a young singer who was just making a name for himself, but he was still astonishingly mature and genuinely mature. It was said that “thereoes my baby” was so influential because it made it possible for the “Wall of Sound” and Motown.
We won’t want to contradict this. But it was also the fantastic arrangement of Stan Applebaum that showed us the way how to get rock’n’roll and stringer under one hat. When King got out, we continued to work with him as a soloist while the drifts continued to produce hits, initially with Rudy Lewis as a new lead singer, after his death again with Johnny Moore.
We wrote songs for the drifts ourselves, but we also knocked on the best songwriters in the world. Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman delivered wonderful songs such as “This Magic Moment” and “Save the Last Dance for Me”, Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote “Up on the Roof”. We also brought the group together with Burt Bacharach.
Regardless of the line -up: the drifts stood for this exquisite melange great voices – warm and round and full of melting chocolate.