Search - Silhouettes :: Get a Job

ONE HIT WONDERS!!!!!!!

Ken Rogers | Easley, SC USA | 03/16/1999

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This group of Philadelphia "doo woppers' made it big in January of 1958 with a rock'n roll classic called "Get A Job". This cd contains the original recording and several other attempts at hitsville but as you can tell by listening, they didn't have it together for some reason. The follow-up to "Get A Job" was a song called "Headin' For The Poor House", that title sort of tells you what happened to the group. The only person to make any money from the hit "Get A Job" was the producer. The song was a "fluke" and the group never had a chance. So Sad!!!!"

One-Hit Wonders All Right ... But With A Qualifier

08/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the all-time opening bars of any R&R song has to be "Sha-na-na-na, Sha na-na-na-na naaah." It even spawned a 1970s group calling themselves Sha Na Na.



Yes, The Silhouettes usually lead the list whenever someone speaks to the phenomenon known as "the one-hit wonder." But I think, to be fair, such lists have to be divided into two categories. Those who could only manage one hit while under contract to a large label able to spend on promotion and influence airplay, and those whose careers were spent struggling with small labels barely able to pay the rent.



Such was the case with The Silhouettes. Earl Beal, Billy Horton, Richard Lewis, and Raymond Edwards had started out as The Four Gospel Tornados in 1955 in their native Philadelphia, and when signed to a contract with the tiny Junior label in 1956 cut the ear-catching Get A Job b/w I Am Lonely. However Junior, owned by disc jockey Kae Williams, didn't have the funds to push it and so leased the rights to the marginally larger Ember.



When they turned it loose in January 1958 it fairly rocketed to # 1 Billboard Top 100 AND R&B (and stayed there for two (Top 100) and six (R&B) weeks in February. Spending a total of 26 combined weeks on the charts, it outdistanced a cover put out by the venerable Mills Brothers on Dot (# 21 Top 100), selling one million copies within three weeks (not long after the fledging Miracles would cut an "answer" song - Got A Job - that failed to chart).



Yes, if you're only looking for The Silhouettes' Get A Job it's obviously available on umpteen compilations, and it would be silly to buy an entire CD of their stuff to get one song. But wait. You have to think that if they, like a lot of other black groups back then, had had the backing of a giant label like RCA Victor or Columbia they would have had a few more charters.



Certainly they do more than just a credible job on things like I Sold My Heart To The Junkman (a hit for The Blue Belles in 1962) and should be accorded a little more respect."