The Jive Five

The Jive Five were an American doo-wop group. They are best known for their 1961 hit single "My True Story" and their work on ID jingles for the Nickelodeon network in the late 1980s, which would be reused until 1992.Their classic doo-wop recordings of "My True Story" (1961) and "Beggin' You Please" (1962) were among the best (and last) of the modern doo-wop era, which lasted roughly from 1954 to 1962. The doo-wop era, including the so called "girl groups", was preempted by the British Invasion, which began in early 1964.The group formed in Brooklyn, New York, in 1954 as "The Genies", with Eugene Pitt, Jerome Hanna, Richard Harris, Thurmond Prophet (also known as Billy Prophet), and Norman Johnson. The group, by then renamed "The Jive Five", found chart success in 1961 with "My True Story" on Bel-Tone Records, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B Singles chart for three weeks.The group reorganized following the death of Hanna in 1962, with Pitt, Johnson, Hanna's replacement Andre Coles, Casey Spencer, and Beatrice Best. They recorded "What Time is It", "Never, Never", and "These Golden Rings" for Bel-Tone, before switching to United Artists Records, where they had a hit with "I'm a Happy Man". In 1970, the group moved to Decca Records and recorded as "The Jyve Fyve", with Pitt, Spencer, Richard Fisher, and Richard Harris's brother Webster. They had a minor hit with this name, "I Want You to Be My Baby", on Decca.The group was constantly active on the oldies circuit. In 1983, Eugene hired his brothers, Frank and Herbert Pitt, and in 1985 Casey Spencer rejoined the touring act. They performed along with Beatrice Best. In the '90s, Maurice Unthank performed as keyboard player.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.