It has been 50 years since four guys were discovered singing on Philadelphia street corners and soon catapulted to rock fame, but Danny & the Juniors are still recreating the good times.
The current ensemble — which features two original members, Joe Terry and Frank Maffei — will perform at an April 18 fund-raiser in Marian Hall at St. Dominic’s Church, 8512 Frankford Ave. Proceeds of the beef-and-beer benefit will aid St. Dominic World Youth Day.
There is one song, more than any other, that established the group’s legacy. At the Hop, a catchy rock ’n’ roll tune composed by the group, became a No. 1 hit on five continents in 1957 and still ranks today as the No. 23 all-time biggest record, according to the Billboard Magazine List of No. 1 Hits. The original quartet — Maffei, Terry (Joe Terranova during his street-corner days), Danny Rapp and Dave White — got their start while teenagers in the mid-1950s as the Juvenaires, performing at school dances and local clubs.
As rock became the music of choice among young people, record companies embarked on a quest to find budding singers who favored rock and doo-wop and had the potential to be the next sensation.
That’s when the Juvenaires got noticed, were groomed as Danny & the Juniors — Rapp handled lead vocals — and encountered good fortune with At the Hop. Terry, in a recent interview with Gary James for classicbands.com, a music Web site, recalled that the song originally was called Do the Bop. It was Dick Clark, whose Philadelphia-based American Bandstand was a national phenomenon, suggested that the title be changed to At the Hop. "Dick said, ‘The Bop . . . the kids are doing it on our show, but these dances come in and go quickly,’" Terry told James, recalling that Clark praised it as "a good little song" that could benefit from a reference to "the hop."
"‘Record hops,’" Terry said Clark told him, "‘are going to be around for a long, long time.’ So we went back, rewrote it, and the rest is history."
Terry also vividly remembered how the popularity of At the Hop brought significant changes to his life, along with the lives of his fellow crooners.
"We had some major decisions to make," Terry told classicbands.com.
"Myself, being that I was still in high school, I had to decide whether I was gonna come out of high school and forgo a college education and go into show business. So life changed drastically."
His ambition, he told James, was to attend Drexel University and become an architect. For all of them, the allure of a music career won out.
"We went into a world where we were working tours almost every night for at least a year and a half," Terry said.
"So you give up your teenage youth and become an entertainer. And that’s that happened."
The good times continued to roll for Danny & the Juniors.
Their next release, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay, similarly achieved hit status, and the subsequent Twistin’ USA and Pony Express became popular dance favorites — part of a string of 11 charted recordings for the vocal group.
Tours followed with some of the biggest artists of the era, including Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis, in addition to being part of the Alan Freed Big Beat Show.
But these also were changing times.
Dave White, the group’s primary songwriter, wearied of the demands of traveling and left Danny & the Juniors to focus on a songwriting and producing career.
And by the mid-’60s, as happened to so many groups of the era, the arrival of the Beatles did much to interrupt the vocal group’s happy days.
Terry explained that the group eventually experienced a revival in the early 1970s.
Movies that rooted their stories in the carefree ’50s typically included tunes by Danny & the Juniors on the soundtrack.
The film Grease ignited interest in the era, as did TV comedies like Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days, Terry told classicbands.com.
By 1980, he said, the group had resumed a busy tour schedule, doing up to 240 dates a year.
The Juniors also were without singer Danny Rapp, who’d ventured out during the lean times to start his own group.
In 1983, Rapp was found dead in an Arizona hotel room, an apparent suicide victim, and Terry recalled that his ex-partner had been struggling with difficult times.
Rapp’s marital problems, Terry told classicbands.com, were compounded by his troubles coping with those changing times and the Juniors’ push out of the spotlight.
Over the years, Terry and Maffei have kept Danny & the Juniors touring and performing, with the circuit including clubs, festivals and casinos.
This year marks their 50th in the music business.
For Terry, the tours introduce new fans to the legacy of Danny & the Juniors, while taking those older fans on a nostalgic trip down memory lane to those storied days of the ’50s. ••
Singin’ the night away . . .
Danny & the Juniors will perform Friday, April 18, during a beef-and-beer benefit at St. Dominic’s Marian Hall, 8512 Frankford Ave. It will be in progress from 8 p.m. to midnight. Admission is $35. Advance tickets are available at the rectory, 8504 Frankford Ave. Proceeds will benefit St. Dominic World Youth Day.