Doo Wop Music

Dion and the Belmonts had a top ten hit with the song “Where Or When.” It was released in 1959 and rose up to #3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The song comes from the 1937 Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart musical Babes In Arms, a story about a boy who puts on a show with his friends rather than go to a work farm.

The list goes on and on of those who covered this wonderful standard from the American songbook . The first performances were by Ray Heatherton and Mitzi Green, and soon recorded thereafter by Hal Kemp. The many artists with versions of the song include Julie Andrews, Ray Anthony, Count Basie, The Beach Boys, Nat “King” Cole, Judy Collins, Perry Como, Ray Conniff, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington, Percy Faith, Ella Fitzgerald, The Flamingos, The Four Lads, Stan Getzy, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Al Hibbler, Lena Horne, Harry James, Etta Jones, Peggy Lee, The Lettermen, Dean Martin, Patti Page, Kenny Rogers, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Kay Starr, The Supremes, and Andy Williams, just to mention a few (really).

Dion and The Belmonts consisted of Dion DiMucci, Carlo Mastrangelo, Fred Milano, and Angelo D’Aleo. The name Belmonts came from Belmont Avenue in the Bronx. The members had lived either on or near that street.

Here are the lyrics to “Where or When” by Dion and the Belmonts:

“It seems we stood and talked like this before
We looked at each other in the same way then
But I can’t remember where or when

The clothes you’re wearing are the clothes you wore
The smile you are smiling you were smiling then
But I can’t remember where or when

Some things that happen for the first time
Seem to be happening again
And so it seems that we have met before
And laughed before and loved before
But who knows where or when”

For more songs by Dion and the Belmonts: “I Wonder Why” and “A Teenager in Love.”

For More Golden Oldies Music                                

The Daily Doo Wop Rec Room has daily featured doo wop, rock and roll, R&B, or rockabilly songs that were hits during the first era of rock and roll (that is, from about 1952 until the British invasion in 1964). After a song is featured, it then goes into the juke box. You are welcome to listen to any of the 40+ selections there. Every weekend, there is a Golden Oldies Juke Box Saturday Night, and the juke box is full of song requests from the 1950s and 1960s.

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