Among their big hits in the early 1960s, The Drifters charted three songs with prepositions beginning the titles: "Up on the Roof," "On Broadway," and "Under the Boardwalk." The group itself was extremely unstable, with lead and backup singers coming and going at frequent intervals. Both Clyde McPhatter and Ben E. King were Drifters' lead singers before going on to successful solo careers, although neither sang lead on the "prepositional" songs featured in this post. The name for the group was owned by their manager George Treadwell, a former jazz trumpeter and once the husband of Sarah Vaughn. Treadwell cycled over 60 vocalists under The Drifters' name, paying most of them poorly, in a lineage often described as "Treadwell's Drifters." Early members of the group sometimes competed under other names, including "The Original Drifters," led by early member Bill Pinckney, who obtained the rights to the variant name in binding arbitration with Treadwell.
"Up on the Roof" was written by Gerry Goffin and Carol King and released in 1962 with Rudy Lewis singing lead (Clyde McPhatter and Ben E. King having already left). Goffin, the lyricist, said it was his favorite of all their songs. It reached number 4 on the Hot 100.
There are clips of "On Broadway" and "Under the Boardwalk" after the jump, with some additional covers of the Drifters' songs.
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