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a brief history
John Medora was
born in Philadelphia on May 28, 1936. During his teen
years, Rock and Roll was beginning to take shape. When
John was 17 years old, he took singing lessons with vocal
coach, Artie Singer. Artie had a song he had written
called "Be My Girl." They recorded it, and
it made the National charts top 100. By that time John
had changed his name to Johnny Madara. Following
"Be My Girl" John recorded a song written by Dave
White and himself called "Do The Bop" with backup
singers Dave White, Danny Rapp, Frank Maffi and Joe Teranova,
who would later become "Danny and The Juniors."
Capitol Records, who Johnny had a contract with, passed on
"Do The Bop," and at the suggestion of Dick Clark,
the title and lyrics were changed to "At The Hop."
Danny and The Juniors recorded the song for Artie Singer's
label, Singular Records, and later the master was sold to
ABC Paramount. By christmas of 1957, "At The Hop"
reached the top of the charts worldwide, was #1 on the charts
for an astounting 7 weeks (the first record to reach that
success), and remained in the Top 100 for 21 weeks.
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John's memories
I
really loved singing, performing and travelling, and of course,
being 20 years old, there were always attractive girls hanging
around. I was really shy back then so my adventures
were pretty tame. I loved meeting and working with tons
of stars like Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley,
The Beach Boys and my good friends, Billy Paul, Bunny Sigler,
Leon Huff, Kenny Gamble and Thom Bell.
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what happened
next?
John
recorded several other records, including Heavenly and Vacation
Time, which hit the charts, but Johnny Madara's singing
career would be put on the back burner following the huge
success of "At The Hop." Dave and John's subsequent
success as producers and writing partners, with such hits
as "The Fly," "You Don't Own Me," and
"1-2-3," made it difficult to resurrect John's singing
career. It would be several years later that John would
record one final time with a group he formed called The Spokesmen.
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