One weekend, I was busy admiring the sound of Frankie Avalon, the guy who sang “Beauty School Dropout” from The original Grease movie. I saw footage of him performing at the Saturday Night Beech-Nut show on November 28, 1959, on Youtube. The girls in the audience went wild as he was just in his early twenties, and was indeed eye-candy at that age. I then found related footage of a certain Frankie Lyman performing at the same show, and, every time the camera cut to the audience, you saw the same type of white girls, except they weren’t as cheerful, in fact, the audience looked disappointed and reluctantly clapped to the beat as Frankie Lymon, seemingly indifferent, just danced and sang “Little Bitty Pretty One” to the beat of the audiences’ applause that did not match their unenthusiastic expressions on their faces. This aired on August 13, 1960. The faces of the white audience were in confusion as to how to react to a talented black young man singing with his irresistible passion and hopeful, dimpled smile. I had just found out about him, and I would not stop listening to him after that. I would also find out later, that eight years after that performance, Frankie would be found dead in his apartment.
Frankie Lymon achieved fame at age of 14, in a group called the Teenagers, making hit singles such as “Why Do Fools Fall In Love?”, and “Goody Goody”, leading the name to be changed into Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.
Lymon had to grow up very soon. At the age of eleven, he worked at the corner grocery store in Harlem, New York, helping his family make ends meet, with his father being a truck driver, his mother a domestic in white people’s homes.
Just two years later, Lymon would become a pop idol with the group Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, with “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” topping the Billboard R&B singles chart for about five weeks in 1956.
Later, “Goody Goody” would be released, becoming a number 20 pop hit on the Billboard Chart. His song titled “I Want You to Be My Girl” was a hit as well and managed to impress the public. It reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Fate did not stand by Lymon for too long. Soon after the split from The Teenagers in early 1957, Lymon was unable to bring back the power in his solo pieces, and his fame went into a steady decline. He started developing drug habits that would have lead to his eventual death on February 27, 1968.
Lymon was not the perfect individual, but his story is still quite remarkable. A young black teenage boy was able to wow the largely white audience through his mellifluous voice and shining confidence in 1960s America. Even if they masked their admiration for his music at the Beech-Nut Show, the charts tell the truth that music really can make people move past even the most strongly held prejudices, at least somewhat.
