(Jesse Belvin of The Gassers - a brief stay)
Before we had the lush dreamy ballads associated with later Doo-Wop, we had out and out rock n' roll love songs like this one from the short lived but highly talented aggregation known as The Gassers. The Gassers were a group, who recorded for Cash Records, one of the legendary Dolphins of Hollywood labels. They consisted of Jesse Belvin and several other Dolphins artists including (although not substantiated) Eugene Church, Alex and Gaynel Hodge. Of the several numbers they cut during this session, Hum-De-Hum is the track we're playing tonight. Belvin was an incredible talent in his own right. Not only as a songwriter but as a singer, who would later work with Jazz greats Marty Paich, Art Pepper and Shorty Rogers on a breakthrough album for RCA just before his tragic death at 27 in 1960 in a car accident at what was the threshold of a brilliant career.
In many circles, 1956 is considered the Golden Age of Doo-Wop, and The Gassers fit right in.
