UPDATED: 9-6-2002
KATHY YOUNG & THE INNOCENTS

Kathy Young was born in Santa Ana, California, on October 21, 1945. When she was fifteen years old, she and her mother happened to be attending The Wink Martindale Show, a daily dance program in Los Angeles. As luck would have it, a local trio called The Innocents was performing their current hit, "Honest I Do," on the show. Afterward, when Kathy approached the group to congratulate them, she mentioned that she was a singer. Jim Lee, the Innocents' manager, as well as the owner of their record label, took one look at the photogenic teenager and invited her to come to his studio the following week for an audition.

When Kathy showed up with her mother at Lee's Indigo Records office at 3330 Barham Boulevard in Hollywood (near Burbank), she sang one of her favorite songs, "A Thousand Stars," which had originally been written and recorded six years earlier by The Rivileers, a black vocal group from Queens, New York. Kathy gave a rousing performance, but Jim Lee thought something was missing. She needed a background group to fill out her sound. And he had one: The Innocents.

The Innocents, who would eventually sing under their own name or behind someone else on almost a third of the 50 Indigo singles that Jim Lee released from 1960 to late 1962, were Al Candelaria, guitarist Darron Stankey and Jim West, three young guys from the San Fernando Valley. They had an unusual blend of three voices harmonizing slightly off-key, backed by a reverb-heavy guitar. They had begun as a quartet, The Echoes, for the Andex label, but after the company folded in 1960, one of the members quit and the remaining trio renamed themselves after their car club, The Innocents. They recorded "Honest I Do" for producers Gary Paxton and Kim Fowley, who then sold the masters to Jim Lee at Indigo.

"Honest I Do" and its follow-up, "Gee Whiz," became national sellers (both creeping into the Top 40), but these singles were mere blips compared to the huge success of "A Thousand Stars," with Kathy Young. The song rocketed to #3, followed by two more chart records, "Happy Birthday Blues" and "Magic Is The Night.".But the demands of heavy record sales had a way of sinking tiny, undercapitalized labels, and by 1962 Indigo folded. Kathy eventually went to Monogram Records, where her voice was overdubbed onto a Chris Montez tape from three years earlier. It turned out to be a minor hit, "All You Had To Do (Was Tell Me)." She later married John Maus of the singing Walker Brothers ("Make It Easy on Yourself") and left show business. The Innocents continued to record, first with Warner Bros./Reprise and then with Decca, but they disbanded in 1964.

Following a Kathy Young & The Innocents' reunion thirty-seven years later, in October 2001, for PBS-TV's nationally televised Rock, Rhythm & Doo-Wop concert, they headlined, both together and separately, at DWS Show #39 on March 23, 2002.



The Innocents' Official Website:
www.theinnocentsmusic.com

Kathy Young's Official Website:
KathyYoung.com




Discography

Singles
Kathy Young & The Innocents
Indigo 108* "A Thousand Stars"/"Eddie My Darling" 1960
Indigo 115** "Happy Birthday Blues"/"Someone to Love" 1961
Indigo 121 "Our Parents Talked It Over"/"Just As" 1961
Indigo 125 "Magic Is the Night"/"Du Du'nt Du" 1961
Indigo 137 "Baby Oh Baby"/"Great Pretender" 1961
Indigo 146 "Lonely Blue Nights"/"I'll Hang My Letters Out to Dry" 1962
Indigo 147 "Dream Awhile"/"Send Her Away" 1962
Kathy Young
Monogram 506 "Dream Boy"/"I'll Love That Man" 1962
Chris & Kathy (duet with Chris Montez)
Monogram 517*** "All You Had to Do (Was Tell Me)"/"Love Me" 1964
The Echoes
Andex 22101 "Time"/"Dee Dee Di Oh" 1959
The Innocents
Trans World 7001 "Tick Tock"/"The Rat" (instrumental) 1960
Indigo 105+ "Honest I Do"/"My Baby Hully Gullys" 1960
Indigo 111++ "Gee Whiz"/"Please Mr. Sun" 1960
Indigo 116 "Kathy"/"In the Beginning" 1961
Indigo 124 "Beware"/"Because I Love You So" 1961
Indigo 128 "Donna"/"You Got Me Goin'" 1961
Indigo 132 "Pains in My Heart"/"When I Become a Man" 1961
Indigo 141 "Time"/"Dee Dee Di Oh" 1962
Reprise 20112 "Oh How I Miss My Baby"/"Be Mine" 1962
Reprise 201125 "Oh How I Miss My Baby"/"You're Never Satisfied" 1963
Decca 31519 "Come On Lover"/"Don't Cry" 1963
Albums
The Innocents
Indigo 503+++ Innocently Yours 1961
Kathy Young
Indigo 504++++ The Sound of Kathy Young 1961
CD
Ace 374 The Innocents: The Complete Indigo Recordings 1992
* #3 pop
** #30 pop
*** overdub and remix of Chris Montez's 1961 single
+ #28 pop
++ #28 pop
+++ Mono only. Contains several non-single songs, including "Chiquita," "Walkng Along," "Once in a While," "Girl of My Dreams," "Hog for You," "It Was a Tear" and "I Believe in You."
++++ Mono only. Contains several non-single songs, including "Angel Baby," "Angel on My Shoulder," "Please Love Me Forever," "Gee Whiz (Look at His Eyes)," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" and "Sparkle and Shine."


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