Rhino Factoids: Drifters Redux

58 years ago today, the members of The Drifters discovered that they weren’t nearly as irreplaceable as they might’ve thought they were.

George Treadwell started his music career as a jazz trumpeter, playing in the bands of such noted musicians as Ace Harris, Cootie Williams, and J.C. Heard, and in addition to accompanying Sarah Vaughn when she sang for Heard’s band, he also served as her husband from 1946 to 1958. Whether by coincidence or not, 1958 is also the year that Treadwell – having set his trumpet aside in favor of serving as the manager to The Drifters – pulled a move on the famed singing group that’s still a little startling even almost six decades later.

The membership of The Drifters already had a tendency to fluctuate due to the amount of work involved in being in the group and the comparatively low pay, but attempts to secure raises rarely ended well, as best proven by the abrupt firing of Bill Pinkney, whose departure came about as a result of asking for more money. Still, one can only imagine how frustrated Treadwell must have been the night that one of the members got into a fight after an appearance at the famed Apollo Theater: his reaction was to literally fire everyone in the group. Unfortunately, he already had a year’s worth of bookings for The Drifters at the Apollo, but since he owned the rights to the group’s name, he just went ahead and hired a whole new group. Indeed, he actually hired an existing group: the Five Crowns, fronted by a young man named Ben E. King, whose dulcet tones would soon go down in music history.

Kids, here’s the moral to this story: sometimes when a manager says that he wishes he could just fire everyone in the band and start fresh, he’s not joking.