THE ROOTS OF CODA
by John Volz (Written April, 2004)
A young couple came up to me last week and said they heard that I was instrumental
in helping to start CODA. They were contemplating joining the club. Their parents had apparently loved the “Oldies”
and they were raised listening to this kind of music. They had a very nostalgic feeling when they happened to stop by last
Sunday at Jim & Jack’s and heard us singing acappella. They had also said they had never heard acappella “doowop”
live and in person. They felt so good afterward that they just had to come back. The odd thing was they were in
their early twenties and the age for most CODA members is from mid forties to early sixties. We do have one family that
are members and the youngest is 17 and the oldest, her grandmother, is 83, but that is a rarity. They probably were
influenced by relatives that were already club members. This young couple just came out of nowhere and wanted some information
about CODA, how it was started and what were the goals of the club. I explained that CODA is an acronym for Cincinnati
Oldies & Doowop Association. It took about a half hour to answer their questions. When I explained to them
that most of the core members have been friends for forty to fifty years, they were amazed, and wanted to know everything
about CODA. So I began at the very beginning, the mid 1950’s.
Most of us were fortunate to be young
teenagers in an area called “Downtown”. That was a very broad term but that’s what everyone called
it and we were very proud to be from that neighborhood. Today that area is referred to as Over the Rhine, the Main Street
district, Liberty Hill, the Pendleton district, and Inwood Park. Those of us from the Over the Rhine referred to anything
above McMicken as upper Vine. In those days it was a hard working, blue collar community that was bounded by Central
Parkway on the south and west, as the Parkway turns sharply northward, by McMillian on the north and Reading Road on the east.
One of our pastimes was either singing or listening to groups sing on the corner, an activity that in Cincinnati was
indigenous to “Downtown”. In the evening we would sing under the street lamps on our favorite corner and
at times there would be forty to fifty people standing around listening and dancing. Every couple of blocks had their
own singing groups and loyal fans. Periodically, the singing groups would compete against each other. While most
of the city was listening to one kind of music, we were singing something else. In those days it was referred to as
“race music” or black rhythm and blues. We were singing songs by the Flamingos, Moonglows, Spaniels, Teenagers,
the Diablos, Clovers, Harptones, the Eldorados and on and on. We were white kids singing black oriented music. We
were also singing what is now termed “doo wop”.
This term “doowop” was coined the early
to mid ‘80s. In Cincinnati, “doo wop” started in and around Washington Park. The teens in that
area were influenced by local black groups such as the Students, Luther Bond and the Emeralds and the Isley Brothers. Soon
four and five piece singing groups were springing up all over downtown. In Over the Rhine there were vocal groups like
Mac Brown and the Legends, the Capris, that later became the Casinos, they Styles, the Visions and the Fashions. In
the Main Street district, we had the Essex, the Del Rios and the Gladiators that sang in Ziegler Park, which is across the
street from what is now The School for Creative and Performing Arts. On Liberty Hill around Milton Street were the Globes,
the Del Tones, and the Notations. If you have the Notations’ record and it is in mint condition, it is worth about
$800. Later on in the 60’s, Inwood Park had a female group called the Teardrops that had a lot of success. These
are all groups that performed on stage. For every group that did appear in clubs there were probably half a dozen groups
that didn’t get beyond practicing in someone’s living room, basement, or the street corner. As we began
our own families, we moved away from the old neighborhood. A lot of the guys became lead singers for their own bands,
and as the music changed, so did the style of the bands. Now after all these years, we’re all back to singing
the songs we started with. I can’t begin to calculate how many bands in Cincinnati can be traced back to those
singing groups of the mid to later 50’s. There is a song called “Looking for an Echo” that says, “We
were singing oldies, but they were ‘newies’ then and today when I play my old 45’s I remember when …”.
In 1986, John Javna wrote in the Doowop Songbook, “Singing is one of the nicest things in life that you can
do with people. If you’ve ever harmonized you know the magic feeling when you hear your voice mix with someone
else’s. You also know how much fun it is just to try.” That says a lot about CODA. What is extraordinary
is that many of those singers are still performing for CODA, a club that was formed in February, 2002 by a couple dozen long
time friends, but the roots go back much father than that. CODA began in a small watering hole in Camp Washington called
the Taft Field Tavern. But, the T.F.T. only seats about 40 people so we have relocated to a larger gathering place,
Jim & Jack’s on River Road, a club that seats about 300. We are a non-profit organization created to promote,
preserve, perform and play the music of our youth. It’s great to see young people interested in helping us to
achieve that goal.
In March’04, we had a best of Cincinnati Oldies groups’ night at Jim & Jack’s
called “The Big Show”. It was so successful, that we did it again in May. On the third Sunday of every
month we have our doowops at Jim & Jack’s from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The CODA Sunday in May we had a teenage choral
group, MACxima, who performed doowop for us. In addition to our dances, our picnics and doowop socials, CODA is fulfilling
another goal. In August’ 04, a nationally famous group appeared in Cincinnati. CODA hosted The Skyliners
of “Since I Don’t Have You”, and “This I Swear” fame.
A lot of things can
be accomplished by friendship, persistence and working together, even if it does take 40 or 50 years. Today CODA has
well over 200 members from Greater Cincinnati. We also have members from as far away as San Francisco, CA, Grants, NM,
Pittsburgh, PA, Bloomington, IN, Morehead and Louisville, KY and we are growing every month. Maybe someday one of those
two young people will be a board member or an officer of CODA and perhaps one day they will talk about how they joined the
club 40 years ago.
CODA HALL OF FAME by Rudy Tassini
One day I was thinking
about the Group Harmony Hall of Fame in Sharron, Pennsylvania, a town just north of Pittsburgh, my hometown. I knew
about the many groups and individual artists from Pittsburgh like the Marcels, Del-Vikings, and the Skyliners that have been
honored in Sharron. I realized that nothing has ever been done for the great groups and individual artists from Cincinnati.
I really didn’t know the groups from Cincinnati that well, so I needed some help. I brought my idea of starting
a hall of fame here to the Coda board of directors. This was three years ago. We talked about it and everyone though
it was a great idea. We voted on it and it passed and the Coda Hall of Fame became a reality. I needed some help
so we formed a committee to select our first group. I went to people like John Volz, Bernie Vaske, and Carlos Campbell
for ideas on the history of groups and individual artists of doowop from the 50’s and 60’s who made Cincinnati
famous. Some of the criteria were that they had to have a hit record and we would honor the groups in chronological
order.
The first inductee into the CODA Hall of Fame was Otis Williams and the Charms in July, 2005. Luther
Bond and the Emeralds were inducted in April, 2006. The Students (Ralph Byrd, Roy Ford, Richard Johnson, Wilbur Longmeier
and Dorsey Porter) were inducted in at the Flamingos concerts in October, 2006. We will try to keep this going until
all our great groups are all honored.
