The Persuasions
| The Persuasions | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | a cappella , soul |
| founding | 1962 |
| Founding members | |
| Jerry Lawson († 2019) | |
| Jayotis Washington | |
Tenor singing |
Joe Russell |
| Herbert Rhoad (until † 1988) | |
| Jimmy Hayes († 2017) | |
| Current occupation | |
Lead vocals |
Jerry Lawson († 2019) |
Tenor singing |
Jayotis Washington |
Tenor singing |
Joe Russell |
Bass vocals |
Jimmy Hayes († 2017) |
| former members | |
Tenor singing |
Willie C. Daniels (197?) |
The Persuasions are a well-known a cappella band.
history
The roots of the Persuasions are in New York City in the early 1960s , where 30 to 40 people from the neighborhood met on a basketball field every day , played for a while and then all sang together. One evening in the spring of 1962, Jimmy "Bro" Hayes noticed that some of the men were actually singing in harmony and came up with the idea of starting a singing group. So he invited the whole group to his apartment. Only four of them came: Jerry Lawson, Joe "Jesse" Russell, Jayotis Washington, and Herbert "Tubo" Rhoad.
The five singers had been singing together in garages, subway stations and similar environments for a number of years when they recorded one of these sessions as a demo. Producer David Dashev overheard the recording and sent it to Frank Zappa . He was enthusiastic and invited the band to come to California to make professional recordings. You accepted and signed with Zappas Straight Records in 1968 .
In the same year, the debut album Spread the Word was released , on which both new studio and old live recordings can be heard. In the early 1970s, the band then moved to Capitol Records , where they recorded three albums and also sang the background vocals on recordings by other artists , such as on Phoebe Snow's debut LP. Street Corner Symphony from this period would become the band's best-selling album. In the mid-70s, two albums with instrumental accompaniment were released on A&M . On Chirpin ' , which appeared on Elektra in 1977 , the Persuasions are singing a cappella again. In between, Washington had briefly left the band and was replaced by Willie C. Daniels.
They accompanied Joni Mitchell in 1979 and Ned Sublette in 1993 .
Then at the end of 1988 Rhoad died. The rest of the band stayed and continued to release albums regularly into the 21st century. Jimmy Hayes died in May 2017, and Jerry Lawson died in July 2019.
Discography
- Acappella (1970)
- Street Corner Symphony (1971)
- We Came To Play (1971)
- Spread The Word (1972)
- We Still Ain't Got No Band (1973)
- I Just Want To Sing With My Friends (1974)
- More Than Before (1974)
- Chirpin '(1977)
- Comin 'At Ya (1979)
- No Frills (1984)
- Good News (1988)
- Live In The Whispering Gallery (1993)
- Toubo's Song (1993)
- Right Around The Corner (1994)
- Stardust (1994)
- Sincerely (1996)
- You're All I Want For Christmas (1997)
- Man, Oh Man: The Power of The Persuasions (1997)
- On The Good Ship Lollipop (1999)
- Frankly A Cappella: The Persuasions Sing Zappa (2000)
- Might As Well ... The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead (2000)
- Sunday Morning Soul (2000)
- The Persuasions Sing The Beatles (2002)
- A Cappella Dreams (2003)
- The Persuasions Sing U2 (2005)
- Knockin 'On Bob's Door (2010)