Queens is also notable for its' progeny. When the doo-wop bands battled, the rivalry included
 Shep and The Limelights |
- The Capris
- The Devotions
- and The Toys
When The Shangri-Las sang about The Leader Of The Pack, they sounded as if they knew of what they were singing. (Maybe they did, but the words and music came from a Brooklyn-to-Bethpage boy, George "Shadow" Morton.)
The Shangri-Las
Queens was home to jazz. Queens was home to Louis Armstrong. A public school is named for him and his home is a local shrine. A surfer named Elliot informed us that "jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke lived in Sunnyside Gardens in the late 1920's or early 1930's before his untimely death from alcoholism. At one point, during the late 40's to mid 50's, Queens was stomping ground to many notable jazz figures. Some took up residence in an apartment building on 82nd Street. Les Paul worked on his "electric log" there.
Looking for a way to circulate the groove coming from the nightly jam session held in the basement, Les invented "carrier-current radio broadcasting" allowing tenants to tune their radios to a frequency carried through the electric curcuit of the building. St. Albans was also a hotbed of leading jazz and pop figures and the clubs they inhabited. And, of course, Astoria is the home town of America's coolest jazz singer, Tony Bennett.
