| Frankie Lymon (1942-1968) & the Teenagers were a New York doo-wop group consisting of Joe Negroni, Herman Santiago, Jimmy Merchant, and Sherman Garnes but centered around the extraordinary talents of their lead singer, thirteen-year-old Frankie Lymon. Lymon was credited with their first big hit, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (In the early-90s, a federal judge ruled after a lengthy trial that Lymon hadn't written "Why Do Folls Fall in Love" -- another member of the Teenagers had). His wise-beyond-his-years vocal and performing abilities not only made the Teenagers a group several notches above the competition but made Lymon the first Black teenage pop star. Though only together for a brief 18-month period, Lymon & the Teenagers exerted an enormous influence, spawning several "kid" vocal groups and providing initial inspiration to Berry Gordy to model his entire Motown production approach around Lymon's original vocal style. Inexplicably, the group split into two factions at the height of their success, and neither had a hit again. At 13, Lymon was on top, but by age 17 he was essentially finished, due in part to an ill-fated decision to break from the group. The rest of his life was desultory, marked by failed comebacks and multiple marriages, from which he never obtained legal divorces. In 1968, Lymon died at the age of 25, and his estate became the source of court fights that continued for the next 20 years among the surviving band members and the three women who claimed to be his wife. |