THE VOGUES: THEY'RE THE ONE

By Chuck Miller

It's the fall of 1965. For three of the most popular music groups of the 1960's, their creative output was unmatched. The Rolling Stones had just reached #1 with their song "Get Off My Cloud." The Supremes' "I Hear A Symphony" would reach #1 that season, as did the Beatles' "Yesterday."

But among those phenomenal recordings was another disc - a debut 45 by four men from Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, a small Rust Belt town near Pittsburgh. Their recording was a cover of a Petula Clark album track, a song Clark skipped over for single release in favor of "I Know A Place" (which also went to #1 in 1965). A new group - on a tiny label - with a Petula Clark track as their first song - peaked at #4, holding its own against the mighty Beatles and Supremes.

This was the start of the Vogues, a quartet whose tight vocal harmonies were reminiscent of street-corner doo-wop; a group whose music later evolved into million-selling easy listening traditional pop. Between 1965 and 1969, the Vogues had 14 hits, four of which hit the Top 10.

But the Vogues were more than just a hitmaking group. They were also four men with family values, who cared as much about their wives and children as they did their performing careers. In the end, it was the choice between family and career that brought an end to the Vogues. But their music lives on - from "music of your life" radio stations to sound clips on popular TV shows.

The nucleus of the Vogues began in 1958 at Turtle Creek High School. There were at least four different vocal harmony groups in school, whose members would sing at assemblies or on the street corner. "In those days, you stood under the street light and sang," said lead baritone Bill Burkette. "Today they called it doo-wop, but for us it was a cappella. We had no band back then, and if any one of the guys were flat back then, certainly we could tell it. We drew together with two groups, and joined forces - three fellows came from one group, two fellows from the other group. And then there were five of us."

From one group came Burkette, first tenor Hugh Geyer and bass vocal Don Miller. The other group consisted of second tenor Chuck Blasko and another vocalist, Neil Foster. After rehearsing and getting their vocal harmonies to meld properly, they named themselves the Val-Aires and impressed a local producer, Elmer Willett, who later became their manager. Willett produced the Val-Aires' first release, "Which One Will It Be / Laurie My Love" (Willett 114), and it sold enough copies in Allegheny County that in Coral Records picked it up for national distribution (Coral 62177).

"'Which One Will It Be,' was the worst song you ever would want to hear," said Hugh Geyer, "but it was something that we enjoyed doing. It's kind of overwhelming when you're still a high school kid and you've got a recording contract and you're going into a recording studio and making what you feel at the time was good music. It was kind of exciting, it really was. Turtle Creek's a very small town, but it didn't change anything as far as our relationship with our classmates. It wasn't a big deal. It was exciting for us, but we didn't go flaunting ourselves as recording artists. We were glad to be singing, we were glad that we had a record out. It was a song that we wrote, and our producer at the time had written the other side, 'Laurie My Love.' We thought if we wrote this song, it's got to be worthwhile. So they pushed that as the A side. Actually, the records now are collector's items. There's some places in Pittsburgh, where 'Which One Will It Be' on the original label sells for $300. It's not worth that because it's a good song - it's worth that because these five guys who made 'Which One Will It Be,' four of them went on and became the Vogues."

The Val-Aires then picked up a supporter when the top rock and roll DJ in Pittsburgh, Porky Chedwick, added the group to the rock and roll shows and record hops that his station promoted.

"'Which One Will It Be' was just a regional hit for us," said Chuck Blasko, "but it's how we got started with Porky Chedwick and Clark Grace, who had a powerful dance show at KDKA. After high school, a couple of the guys got drafted and went into the service, then came out of the service and we got back together again. We did shows with the Drifters, the Platters, the Dells, groups like that when they came into town. Porky would bring in those acts. It was quite a thrill for us."

Before the Val-Aires could have another hit, Hugh Geyer and Don Miller joined the Army, while the other band members went to college or found jobs in the factories surrounding Turtle Creek. A few years later, the five friends decided to record again. "Everybody was bored," said Burkette, "and I said listen, why don't we pitch together $100 apiece and make some demo tapes."

Burkette, Miller, Blasko and Geyer raised $100 apiece. Neil Foster, on the other hand, decided to pass the offer up and left the group. "We messed around in the studio, just doing some demo work, putting in our own money to record them," said Blasko. "We were in a studio in Pittsburgh, Gateway Studios, and the producer, Nick Cenci, was mixing Lou Christie at that point. He heard our group, didn't like the material we were doing, but he liked the sound of the group and got us material."

Meanwhile, the Vogues and their manager, Elmer Willette, had found a track they liked, a Petula Clark European hit called "You're The One." The Vogues released "You're The One" on their own label (Blue Star 229), and it started to take off. "Nick Cenci and Co and Ce Records owned a distributing company, and they started distributing the record," said Blasko. "Then they came up with Co and Ce Records, and they took over our contract. We weren't a nationally distributed record company, but Co and Ce was."

Distributed nationally, "You're The One" (Co and Ce 229) became a breakout hit. As 1965 ended, the Vogues had their first Top 5 pop hit - and a visit from an old friend. "And as this was playing as a hit," remembered Burkette, "Neil called me and he says, 'Hey Bill, I'm going to have a party and I'm going to have all you guys down, and we'll have some beer and so forth.' I said, 'Neil, you're not buying in for $100 after we have a hit record.' We remained good friends, but I told Neil many times, he was just too cheap to come up with a lousy $100. And in those days, I guess $100 was a lot of money to come up with, but we took a chance and he didn't."

"'You're The One' was written by Petula Clark and Tony Hatch," recalled Blasko. "It was on her album at the time, and that's how we learned the song. Surprisingly enough, she had a hit with it in England, and we were climbing up the charts with it here in the States. They asked her if they wanted to cover the Vogues' record in the States, and she said, 'By all means not. I wrote it, and these guys have a hit record with it. Good luck to them.'"

"I met Pet," said Burkette, "and I thanked her for the hit and gave her a big kiss. She never brought the hit out to the States, because she knew it was going to be a giant in the States the way we did it. We lost it in England, of course, because of Pet's version. If she had brought that song out in the States, she would have killed us."

Even as "You're The One" was rising up the charts, the Vogues knew another hit was needed - and fast. They knew the story of harmony groups with one major hit who took too long to get back in the studio for a follow-up. "Having a hit record was exciting, it was just a great feeling," said Blasko. "But we still had our day jobs, working in Westinghouse and the mills here in Pittsburgh. You hear so many times of the one-hit wonders, so we never really quit our jobs. We would do record promotions on the weekend, we'd go to Detroit and Cleveland and Windsor, any place we could go and promote the record. But we still had jobs, we'd go up on the weekend, and come home on Sunday night. The song hit #4 on the charts, and we still had our jobs."

Two months after the release of "You're The One," Nick Cenci brought them back into the studio for a follow-up, "Five O'Clock World" (Co and Ce 232). "'Five O'Clock World' went like hotcakes," said Blasko. "It went up the charts really fast. The tracks came from Nashville, Tennessee - Allen Reynolds, who has a publishing company in Nashville, wrote the song, they did the tracks down in Nashville and sent the tracks up to Pittsburgh, and we did the vocals in Pittsburgh. Although we believed in the song - we fell in love when we first heard it - we weren't sure if the public would like it. But they did, it took off like wildfire, and it hit the Top 5 also."

"I was working at Westinghouse Air Brakes, running a lathe," said Burkette. "And 'You're The One' was a hit. And all my buddies had their radios near their machinery, and they're looking at me, and they're saying, 'are you out of your mind, when are you leaving?' I said, 'When I get the second hit.' I had heard in those days of so many people having one hit and missing all the rest of them and it didn't mean anything. I was married at the time, in those days you married young, and I was not about to give up that security of that little job that I had. So I said when I get the second hit - and when 'Five O' Clock World' came out - and it was about a factory, and at Five O'clock people wanted to get out there. And I clicked my heels when I walked out."

"That's why we continued to work and go out on weekends to promote the record," said Geyer. "We went as far as we could to get away from the Pittsburgh area and still have time so we could get back to work Monday morning. If "You're The One" would be the only hit we had, if we quit our day jobs now and the next song doesn't happen, and we try to record another song, and that one doesn't happen, then we've sacrificed two years of our lives and our families, and now we've got to go back to our day jobs. We didn't want to be a one hit wonder, that's why we waited until we were quite sure that 'Five O'Clock World' was on its way up the charts and did as well as it did before we decided to take the next step and make singing our full-time job."

And after their third Top 40 hit, a Jay and the Americans-influenced ballad called "Magic Town" (Co and Ce 234), the Vogues finally quit their day jobs and became full-time entertainers and performers. No longer limited by a weekend drive through the Rust Belt, the Vogues were now part of package tours and showcase performances.

In July 1966, they performed "Magic Town" and a follow-up Top 40 hit, "Land of Milk and Honey," on American Bandstand. "I remember feeling the excitement of actually being on the TV show that I used to come home from school and watch every day of the week," remembered Geyer. "The dancers became personalities in their own right, but to actually be on that show and be there with Dick Clark and look out into the dancers who you watched on TV, and now you're a part of this whole thing too, it's a pretty incredible feeling."

But after "Land of Milk and Honey" hit the charts, the Vogues' releases were few and far-between. Their long tours kept them away from the studio, and the material they did receive just didn't have the same pizzazz that their earlier hits had. "After 'Five O'Clock World' and 'Magic Town' started going up the charts," said Blasko, "we sat down as a group and said, maybe it's time to think about going on the road and trying to do this full-time, which we did. Consequently, that knocked us out of plentiful studio time. And we weren't getting the good material like we should have. We were constantly on the road at that point, so it was difficult to sit down and listen to new material, plus trying to get into the studio and trying to make a living off the road. It was scary."

The Vogues released four more singles on Co and Ce, including a remake of Johnnie Ray's "Please Mr. Sun," and a peace-and-love song inspired by the motto of the Communist newspaperPravda, "Lovers Of The World Unite" (which during its release shifted from Co and Ce to their distributor, MGM).

Other groups might have considered giving up going home, confident that they made at least an impression in the musical world. For the Vogues, it meant changing record companies, signing a new deal in 1967 with Reprise. Reprise gave the group a three-single deal - if none of the singles charted, they would be released from their contract. The first song, "I've Got You On My Mind," stiffed on the charts.

Meanwhile, the Vogues took a recording engagement in the Catskills, oblivious to the fact that their second Reprise single was slowly climbing the charts.

In 1961, Glen Campbell had a minor chart single with a Jerry Capehart song called "Turn Around, Look At Me." The Lettermen, who like the Vogues came from western Pennsylvania, redid the song as a harmony ballad. By 1968, the Vogues took the Lettermen interpretation and fleshed it out into a full-fledged Phil Spectorish production. Initial reaction to "Turn Around, Look At Me" was lukewarm at best, and the Vogues thought they might be down to their last chance with Reprise. "Even at that point, 'Turn Around' took a long time to really break the charts," said Blasko. "KIM Radio in Denver, Colorado was playing it for a good month before anybody picked up on it. Then WLS in Chicago picked up on it, and after that it went up the charts. I think it was a matter of two months or three months that it became a million seller."

"It was an unusual feeling," said Geyer. "We're up there in the Catskills performing on our previous hits, 'You're the One' and 'Five O'Clock World' and 'Magic Town.' We were up there, working - we had quit our factory jobs, so this is now our profession - and then to hear how well a song that you recorded is doing, it's exciting, you want to get back home and you want to share that excitement with everybody. What's really surprised me about this - to have the hit records we had, nobody really knew who the Vogues were. They knew us because of our small-town upbringing, but we were never stars, we were never recognized anywhere. I can remember going to a college, and prior to our concert, sitting on the bleachers in the gymnasium where the concert was to be held, and talking to a couple of students saying, 'The Vogues are going to be here tonight,' and they didn't even know that I was one of them. The anonymity of all this really surprised me. The public just didn't recognize who we were on a personal level like they do with the artists today."

And after performing "Turn Around, Look At Me" on Red Skelton's variety television show, Skelton presented the Vogues with the ultimate symbol of musical recognition - their own gold record, commemorating a million-selling single. "You take four guys out of a small town, and now you're in the major leagues," said Blasko. "The thought of making a mistake or doing something wrong or whatever, but it all worked out fine. If it would have been up to Red Skelton, he wanted us actually to come onto his show as regulars every week, he really liked the group. But we lived in Pittsburgh, and his show was in California - but with the hit, 'Turn Around,' our bookings just skyrocketed again. That became our college concert era. We were flooded with college concerts."

The Vogues also found that they had found a new musical niche - mellow, contemporary re-interpretations of classic doo-wop and four-part harmony classics from the 1950's, songs like "My Special Angel" and "No, Not Much," performed in new arrangements with strings and horns and their own vocal wall of sound. "We were able to work nightclubs after 'Turn Around,' said Burkette. "It got us into the Ed Sullivan Show, the Johnny Carson show, and it became a standard. And surprisingly enough, 'My Special Angel,' our follow-up, is more of a standard than 'Turn Around,' being played more over the country."

"Because of where we grew up, listening to music from the Four Lads and the Four Aces and the Four Freshmen and the Hi-Los, we just liked that kind of material," said Blasko. "We took the full sound that we had with Warner Bros. and added the orchestration. We used to do 'Over The Rainbow' a capella when we were still in high school. When we went with Warners, we said let's do this with a big orchestra, which we did. We thought it was great, we thought it came out really nice."

By the early 1970's, the Vogues were a trio, as Hugh Geyer retired from the group to spend more time with his wife and children. "It was New Years' Eve of 1972," said Geyer, "and I had told the guys six months before then that I was leaving. I would work with the new guy who would replace me, I would help audition people. I had just gotten to a point where traveling and being away from home - I had three young children at the time, and I said enough's enough and I was going to hang it up. They tried very hard to convince me to stay, but I had already made my decision. They did not replace me, they went out as a trio. They may not have wanted to bring a stranger into the group, but I honestly believe that if they did, the sound would have been affected unless the guy who replaced me sang exactly as I did, which was pretty hard to do in a four-part harmony situation."

Geyer later entered the world of architectural drafting, working for an engineering firm in Pittsburgh. "I did that probably for twelve years, and then I got into some of the big architectural firms in the Pittsburgh area, doing drafting for them. Today, I do estimations for construction projects."

The other members were still recording, but touring was becoming less and less of an important part of their lives. "When we went with 20^th Century Fox Records, we were down to three guys. Hughie had left - the high tenor. He was married, he had children. I credit it to the upbringing we had, family values. The Vogues stopped performing at around 1972. We were still together, but we didn't tour that much. We returned to the Pittsburgh area and settled down."

By 1974, the Vogues entered into a new management contract. At this point, things get muddy. Even as their third single for 20^th Century, a remake of the 1941 song "As Time Goes By," was in the pressing plants, both their recording contracts and management contracts were sold - according to Blasko, without their understanding - to a third party.

"We were with 20^th Century at the time, and the record company sold the management contract and the record contract to a fellow that promised the moon - they all do - and in 1974, he trademarked the Vogues' name. Then he offered to sell it to us!"

Blasko, Miller and Burkette were in a quandry. They were the ones that did all the promotion and the singing and the hard work, performing up and down the Rust Belt at record hops and nightclubs and running home to make the Monday shift at the factory. And now somebody else was going to reap the fruits of their labor?

Copyright law is a double-edged sword in the music industry. It protects writers and performers from losing their royalties from plagiarists and copycats and the like. But sometimes that copyright can be purchased or sold like a Mets catcher. Bands break up, and the former members fight over who can continue to perform under the old band's name. The record company claims the band's name in exchange for a fatter royalty payment, then fires the band and replaces them with anonymous studio musicians. A popular group records under the name "Starship" because one of their former members owned the rights to the name "Jefferson." A quintet of talented brothers leave a record label, leaving their copyrighted name "Jackson Five" behind.

In the Vogues' case, it meant that even though they weren't touring any more, a new group of Vogues were. One could almost borrow the tagline from the Broadway play "Beatlemania!" - "Not the Vogues ... but an authentic re-creation..."

"The guy who bought our name," said Blasko," was a fellow out of Oil City, Pennsylvania - he trademarked it, and after we had a falling out, he sold the trademark to another guy. And he has the group out today that are running around the country claiming to be the original Vogues."

And Blasko kept an eye on this new Vogues - and he winced every time he heard the lead singer telling the crowd, "Here's a hit record that we did." And he grimaced every time the group credited Petula Clark with writing a song for them in the opening patter to "You're The One." "It's not only that," said Blasko. "I can't foresee even somebody saying that they're the Vogues. Because they're not. They may own the trademark - and by law, they're allowed to say they're the Vogues, but I can't possibly see how somebody could do that."

The original trio continued to tour, but by 1975, Bill Burkette was ready to leave. He had promised his wife that if she gave up ten years for his performing career, he would give her the rest of his years. And the tenth year - 1975 - had arrived. "I put about 10 years solid into the Vogues, from 1966 to 1976, 10 years on the road, away from my family. I had a couple of kids, and a matter of fact I missed some of them growing up at that stage in life. I told my wife, give me ten years of your life, and after the tenth year I'm out of show business. It was New Years' Eve, in the Holiday House in Pittsburgh, when I quit traveling throughout the world. And that was it. I later got into sales, which I'm still in, and I'm currently in the window business, custom window installation."

By 1975, the original Vogues sued the new Vogues in Federal Court. In the judge's decision, he gave the original members the right to perform under the name "The Vogues" - but limited their performing territory to 14 counties in Western Pennsylvania. Anywhere else, the Vogues name was off limits to them and belonged to the copyright holder, Terry Brightbill. "Outside of Western Pennsylvania, we have to perform as Chuck Blasko and the Five O'Clock World Tour," said Blasko. "You work all your life as a Vogue, and you build the product from 1965 to 1972, seven years and you bust your hump doing what you're doing, and still even when the time is right, where you should be making your money, you can't do it. They can't take away my history - as far as being one of the Vogues, formerly Chuck Blasko of the Vogues - that's true. That is in the history books."

Even though he had left the group, Hugh Geyer was sickened as well by the purchase of the name of the group he performed with for 12 years. "I'm angry from one standpoint because what they've done is they've limited Chuck, who is the only member who has a Vogues group also - they have restricted an original member from 1964 from having the area to perform because of the legalities of the situation, Terry Brightbill and his bogus group can appear anywhere they want to, and Chuck Blasko, who is an original from 1964, can only perform in so many counties in Pennsylvania. But on the other hand, in addition to my anger, I feel frustrated because I don't understand why somebody would want to do that. Why would I want to go out and put together a group and say I'm Jimmy Beaumont of the Skyliners? What personal satisfaction do I get out of that? Every time I would step on stage, I would be a fraud, because I would be trying to convince people that's who I am, all for the sake of money. And that's wrong."

Because of what happened, and to prevent future artists from getting shafted out of their name, Blasko and other former musicians and performers have been lobbying Congress for laws protecting artists from copyright exploitation. "One of my things going into the hearings is the way they're advertising - I already have newspaper clippings that say that, a couple from Maryland that says 'The 1960's recording artists, "The Vogues," will be in concert tonight.' Carl Gardner of the Coasters has gone through this for years and years. Charlie Thomas from the Drifters, Herb Reed of the Platters. These guys have spent thousands and thousands of dollars in court fighting over something that they made. These trademark promoters and the trademark owners and that, they look at these guys like you're nothing today - and they were the ones that created it. The trademark laws are good - but for this situation, something's got to be done. It's definitely wrong."

Blasko has, however, found a positive outlet for his creative energy. He works with the newly-built Vocal Group Hall of Fame in Sharon, Pennsylvania, a museum of great vocal trios and quartets and quintets, doo-wop artists and gospel choirs, groups who used their vocal cords to create vocal chords. "All the groups we performed with have displays in the Vocal Group Hall of Fame - the Lettermen, the Coasters, the Platters, the Drifters, the Marcels, the Skyliners, the Mills Brothers. We toured with them years ago, and it's great to see them all here in this hall of fame today."

And even if it means limiting his touring schedule to the Western Pennsylvania Rust Belt, Blasko continues to perform, this time leading his own "Vogues" at shows and concerts. And under their original name, the Vogues were on the bill at the Porky Chedwick 50^th anniversary concert, "Porkstock," in Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium. "I never quit performing. I still sing, and that's what I do for a living. I'm the only original Vogue left. I think there's enough fans out there that enjoy the Vogues, and maybe we'd have another hit again. Being in the business for as long as I have, this is my 33^rd year coming up, and I still get material. There are some stuff that people have sent me that are just wonderful. But I can't bring it out under the Vogues' name - but maybe I'll recorded it as 'Chuck Blasko and the Five O'Clock World Tour.'"

Although the Vogues have not performed together since the mid-1970's, they still remain good friends and keep in touch with each other. The four members got back together in 1999, at Don Miller's daughter's wedding. As the four friends and performers got together and swapped stories about family members and life on the road, somebody asked if the four Vogues would pose for a picture. Expecting maybe one or two snapshots, the quartet agreed - only to be pleasantly greeted by dozens of camera flashes from family members who were proud of the group's musical heritage.

And the memories will always be there for the Vogues. "What I have done recently," said Geyer, "is our den, which is a small room where we watch TV, I have recently found a place where I can buy frames which are specifically for vinyl albums, and I have framed all our albums, and I have the actual vinyl records inside the cover in the frame. And I started putting those up, and the gold record, and some other certificates and plaques. I'm just in the process now of going through some photographs that I have of the Vogues with different celebrities. I have the front cover of aCashbox magazine with the Vogues' pictures on the front which I'm getting framed. I'm so grateful for the success that we had, and I tell people all the time this industry requires so much luck. I always believed that the Vogues were a good bunch of guys, good people who sang well together. If the other three members would walk in the door right now, we could start singing immediately and everybody would know their own part and where they were supposed to be. That's what made the Vogues a success too, was the tightness that we had as friends - and our families were friends, and we grew up in a small town and we didn't have big heads, and we tried to keep everything on an even keel. That's what made the group successful, too."