MEBLAST FROM THE PAST
The doo-wop groups of the fifties are bigger
than ever By DAVID HINCKLEY
Daily News Feature Writer
artists like Earl Lewis, lead singer of
The Channels and a legend for his breathtaking vocals on classics like
The Closer You Are and ;My Love Will Never Die
money is only part of it.Respect matters, too. A lot.
We laid down the foundation for
everything that came after us, he says. The Temptations, The
Supremes, Boyz II Men, all of it. But somehow, and I have never figured
out why, we've always been bypassed. We've been on the bottom rung of
the ladder, like what we did wasn't serious music .
You see commercials on TV that are using
our sound, what we created. But they aren't crediting us and they aren't
using us. It's been frustrating.""This is a great time for us," he
says. "We're so fortunate. We never thought there would be a
resurgence like this." He says he has even been approached about
Off-Broadway projects
Lewis, who recently retired from the post
office, says this is ;the best time yet. We're working around the
world ; He grew up listening to groups like The Orioles & Flamingos
. He was writing songs when he was 10 and singing them
when he was 15. The Channels' soaring sound was ;an accident in the
studio he says, and he admits he wasn't all that fond of it at
first. But fans loved it, then and now.But the music also has younger fans, says
Lewis, thanks to exposure from parents, remakes, commercials and movies.