1954
SH - BOOM * THE CHORDS * CAT 104 * USA
Leaving aside the Mills Brothers and The Ink Spots, who were seen very much as a popular act, the Chords are cited as the first Black R&B Group to reach the top ten on the Pop charts. Sh-Boom was originally issued as an unimportant novelty B side to the more determined effort on the part of Atlantic - Cat's parent company - to get into the Pop market with a copy of Patti Page's Cross Over The Bridge. The throwaway side - an original composition by the group: Carl and Claude Feaster, Jimmy Keyes, Floyd 'Buddy' McRae and Ricky Edwards - was the side the buyers were after though, so after the records initial release in April 1954 Atlantic reissued the disc in June with Little Maiden, taken from the first session, as the B side. Although the group enjoyed great success with this terrific recording they never had another even remotely as successful, which was due in part from having to change their name shortly after their second release because of another obscure group who had been recording under that name since 1953, and what seems like a lack of decent material.