Happy Women’s History Month!

I’m going to use this occasion to talk about one of my favorite things: Girl Groups. All month, I will be highlighting my favorite forgotten girl groups from across time and genres. Some of them you might know from a couple of hits and some of them might have completely slid under the radar. Either way, check back to this post all month for a a little bit of history a new bop or two.

Zhané 

Jean Norris and Renée Nefville met at Temple University and found they both were aspiring musicians. As they played talent shows around Philadelphia, they both separately caught the notice of DJ Jazzy Jeff, who signed them each to his management company. Jeff was working on Will Smith’s upcoming album at the time, and since Renée and Jean were around the studio, they eventually ran into Will’s manager Benny Medina.

Zhané became a duo because Benny Medina heard both of them in the studio and suggested they’d do well together.

Over the next year, they continued their classes during the week and took the train into Newark every weekend to work on their album. They’d return to Philly on Sunday nights, and none of their classmates knew they were recording a classic R&B album.

Their producer Kay Gee was working on Queen Latifah’s Roll Wit Tha Flavor compilation album and she did Kay a favor by adding “Hey Mr. DJ” to the project. And DJs responded.

When given the compilation, most chose to play that song over established artists like Queen Latfiah and Naughty by Nature. This caught the attention of Motown who signed them and rushed the album. Jean and Renée wrote most of it — sometimes at school in the piano hall and sometimes in the studio.

A string of R&B hits followed and their debut album went gold faster than any record in Motown history.

For their second album, Motown wanted to push Zhané in a different direction. Though still written by them, the album had a slicker feel and with a wider sonic palette. Lead single “Request Line” cracked the top 40 but the album didn’t live up to its predecessor.

By 1999, Jean wanted to go solo again and the two felt pressure by the label to keep changing their sound. Both are still active musicians with Jean and her husband earning four Grammy nominations over the years in jazz categories as The Baylor Project.

Fanny

Before Haim, The Bangles, or the Go-Gos, there was Fanny back in the 1970, the first female rock band to release an album on a major record label.

Sisters June and Jean Millington grew up in the Philippines and the family moved to California when the girls were in middle school. They had been playing the ukulele for fun and it got them noticed — the two Asian girls with the tiny guitars. They decided to start a band, with June picking up guitar and Jean picking up bass, and they recruited a couple of other girls.

There were lots of lineup changes as girls graduated, got married, or just left the band, and by 1969, they had decided to call it quits. They were only able to book gigs doing Motown covers and open mic nights because nobody took a female rock band seriously. They were playing their final show at an open mic night at the Troubadour Club in LA when they actually got discovered. Richard Perry, a music producer at Warner Bros who had worked with Fats Domino and Captain Beefheart, was looking for a female band and his secretary was at the show.

Richard got Warner to sign the group without an audition because, again, they still weren’t being taken seriously. WB signed them, sight unseen, as a novelty joke act. Still, the label put them up in a mansion off Sunset Boulevard while they worked on their album. While Perry was producing Fanny, he was also working on Barbra Streisand’s Stoney End, and Fanny worked as session musicians on that album and her follow-up.

Fanny’s debut album had a cover of Cream’s “Badge” that got some airplay, but it was the title track to their second album Charity Ball that cracked the top 40, making them the first female rock band with a certified hit. Anyone who actually heard them play became a fan and to this day you will rarely find a keyboard player in any rock band better than Nickey Barclay.

These were extremely talented women and multiple artists invited them on tour from Slade to Jethro Tull. David Bowie was a big fan, and in a 1999 interview he said:

They were one of the finest fucking rock bands of their time, in about 1973. They were extraordinary: they wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them. They’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time.

Lack of success was wearing on the band though. They released albums back to back, never quite becoming the stars they knew they should be, with most singles languishing down around the bottom of the Hot 100. Their final Top 40 hit was released in 1975 after the band had already split.

J.J. Fad

Pop quiz! What was the first album released on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records? If you’re picturing something hard and aggressive by NWA or Dr. Dre, that would be a fair assumption, but it was actually a trio of electro-pop rappers — J.J. Fad.

We know them now as J.J. Fad, Just Jammin Fresh And Def, but originally they were a quintet and the name came from everyone’s first initial: Juana, Juanita, Fatima, Anna, Dania. In 1987, Juana Burns started the group in her mom’s living room, holding auditions for female emcees in Southern California. Dania, a beatboxer originally from Louisiana, brought two of her friends with her. The three of them were a rapping dance crew who had done concerts and talent shows in the area. Juana brought her friend, a DJ, and the quintet’s first song they recorded was “Supersonic.” At the time, the backing track was just Dania beatboxing, but Juana was friends with (dating?) Arabian Prince and he took them into the studio to re-record it.

“Supersonic” was released as the B-side to “Another Ho,” a diss track aimed at artists of the day like Salt N Pepa and Roxanne Shante, but these girls next door from Rialto couldn’t pull it off. The single wasn’t moving and the girls weren’t making any money, so three of them left. By the time “Supersonic” started building buzz, only Juana and Dania were present for the bidding war between So Cal record labels to sign them.

Eazy E won, partly because he was also using Arabian Prince to produce his album and the first NWA project, so these nice suburban girls from San Bernadino County were signed as the first female act on Eazy’s gangsta rap label bankrolled by his time as a drug dealer.

A new femcee, Michelle, joined the group, and “Supersonic” was re-released after some additional production from Dr. Dre. The song and the album were a hit and one of the first true rap-to-pop crossovers buoyed by their friendly, youthful image (Dania was just 15 and the other two were 20). They were nominated for a Grammy and ready for their second album.

But then NWA took off. Even though J.J. Fad was the first album released by Ruthless Records, they became a footnote in its history as the image of the label solidified into how we remember it today. Their second album was plagued with delays and failed to make much noise when it was finally released. The group broke up after that.

It’s unfortunate that none of the men associated with Ruthless or NWA seem to remember it was J.J. Fad who put the label on the map. Without them, Eazy wouldn’t have been able to secure distribution for his label. It was the checks coming off of “Supersonic” that forced Eazy to open an actual bank account so he could cash them and funnel that money toward his and NWA’s albums that were set to be released after J.J. Fad’s. The girls spent an hour trekking in from Rialto to Compton, hanging out with the boys, sleeping on the floor of the studio, tossing around ideas for the other albums being worked on simultaneously, and they couldn’t even get a two-second mention in Straight Outta Compton.

Today, J.J. Fad keeps a low profile. The three of them have been active in other parts of the industry, but they still get together to perform occasionally. And they sound exactly the same as they did in 1988.

Wilson Phillips

In the general ecosystem of Musical Nepo Babies, Wilson Phillips lands somewhere near the top of the pack of actually talented and deserving of their success.

Carnie & Wendy Wilson, the daughters of Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) and Marilyn Rovell (The Honeys), grew up with Chynna Phillips, the daughter of John and Michelle Phillips (The Mamas & The Papas), in Los Angeles and the three girls spent their childhood harmonizing together. In 1989, they signed a deal with SBK Records and started working on their debut album.

Lead single “Hold On” went straight to number one and was the biggest single of 1990.

Second single “Release Me” went to number one as well.

Their third and fourth singles were both top ten hits and then their fifth single, “You’re In Love,” also hit number one.

In case you’re keeping score, that’s five Top Ten singles including three #1s from a debut album. The group was nominated for five Grammys, but lost all of them, and looking back from 2026, it feels like the album was just seen as “fluffy girl pop.” Reviews were decent, but with an undercurrent of “this music isn’t serious music,” because it was young, pretty, rich women singing about love and positivity. The Globe and Mail said it was “a pleasant but lightweight collection of ditties,” and The Calgary Herald said “slick production can’t mask [the] shallowness.”

For the record, Wilson Phillips actually wrote “Hold On” as a testament to Chynna overcoming her drug addiction.

On the second album, they wanted to take a more serious tone and talked about abuse and abandonment issues, but commercial reception was lukewarm and the group disbanded the year after its release.

Over the years they’ve reunited a few times. They’ve done two albums of cover songs, appeared in Bridesmaids, and reached the finals of The Masked Singer (the first group to do so) in 2022, but their last collection of new music was a 2010 Christmas album.

Mis-Teeq

If not for Carson Daly, we probably would’ve never heard of Mis-Teeq in the US.

Alesha Dixon and Sabrina Washington met at a dance studio and were signed to Louise Porter’s production company for two years before they found a third in Tina Barrett. Before any music got off the ground, Tina left to join S Club 7 and Louise found two other girls to replace her — Zena McNally and Su-Elise Nash. The four of them released their debut single “Why?” in 2000 which became the first of 7 consecutive Top 10 singles in the UK. McNally left the group after one song, and the group continued as a trio.

More hits and their debut album were released, but their second album brought international attention. Lead single, “Scandalous,” was a hit across Europe and that’s where Carson Daly first heard the song. The girls had no representation in the US to release it stateside, but he convinced Warner Records to sign them for distribution. “Scandalous” was a hit in America in summer 2004, thanks to some high profile placement in Catwoman and promo spots for America’s Next Top Model.

Their follow up single had already been recorded by another group. Blaque wrote and released “Can’t Get It Back” in 2001 as the lead single for their second album, Blaque Out. The song only reached #91 on the R&B chart and both the music video and the entire album were shelved. So, the song was given to Mis-Teeq. Alesha re-wrote the bridge and Trackmasters remixed the song for the follow-up single.

As they were promoting the new song and touring the US, Mis-Teeq’s record label, Telstar, went bankrupt. The press blamed Victoria Beckham, as she had been paid a huge advance that she couldn’t pay back when her album flopped, however, it wasn’t all Posh’s fault. Telstar gave most of their artists huge advances, but had few hits to show for it.

When the record label folded, the girls went their separate ways. Sabrina and Su-Elise haven’t found solo success, but Alesha did, with six Top 20 singles and countless television appearances. For years, she also held the record internationally as the dancer with the highest average score on any iteration of Dancing With The Stars / Strictly Come Dancing. As far as I can remember, Alesha is the most successful solo artist of a group where they weren’t the lead singer.

Rumors of a reunion pop up from time to time because the girls broke up on good terms but nothing concrete so far.

The Three Degrees

Philadelphia producer Richard Barrett put together a girl group in the early 60s scouting for talent at local high schools. The original lineup of Fayette, Shirley, and Linda found moderate success with a number of singles but never quite landed a hit. After a few lineup changes, the trio of Fayette, Helen, and Janet were releasing singles on Swan Records while Barrett was managing a solo singer, Sheila Ferguson. The Three Degrees sang backup for her and Sheila filled in on some of their performances when a member was unavailable.

Sheila Ferguson was the special sauce that was missing. In 1966, Helen left the group to start a family and Sheila joined Fayette and Janet. Janet also left, and the trio of Fayette, Sheila, and Valerie were the lineup to finally hit big, with Fayette remaining as lead singer for the next 20 years.

The three of them developed their harmonies and became a popular live act, but it took another few years for them to land their first hit. “Maybe” went to #4 on the R&B chart in 1970 with successive singles also making their way onto the chart. This gave the girls enough visibility to land themselves a cameo in The French Connection and catch the eye of Philly super-producers Gamble & Huff.

Gamble & Huff signed The Three Degrees to Philadelphia International Records and their first song, “The Sound of Philadelphia” backed by the label’s studio band, went straight to #1 on the Hot 100 and was used as the theme song for Soul Train.

Minor hits followed until the worldwide hit “When Will I See You Again” was released in 1974. It went to #2 in the US, but #1 in the UK for two weeks, the first time a girl group had lasted longer than a week in the top spot since The Supremes in 1964.

Around that same time, The Three Degrees hit their stride with the finest performances of their career. Worldwide, every performance of “If & When” is the kind of drama and stage presence you can’t teach.

The Three Degrees really took off in the UK after that, racking up 13 top 50 hits over the next decade. They were the favorite band of Charles, Prince of Wales, performed at his 30th birthday party, and were guests at his wedding party when he married Diana. They made a smooth transition from the Philly Soul Sound to disco, working with Giorgio Moroder of Donna Summers fame.

In 1986, lead-singer Sheila left the group to focus on her family and her decision to let the band know over the phone irreparably damaged their relationship. Future lineups of The Three Degrees had little contact with Sheila who became a celebrity in her own right in the UK, becoming the first Black woman to star in her own sitcom and appearing in theater and reality TV through 2018.

Today there are two lineups both performing under the same name, but the lineup of Sheila, Fayette, and Valerie will always be The Three Degrees to most fans.

Soluna

Girl groups never took off during the teen pop craze the way boybands did and Soluna was one such group in a line of competitors to be the successor to the Spice Girls.

In 1998, three girls in California who were working with the same producer individually were introduced to each other over the course of putting their own solo music together. Aurora Rodriguez, Jessica Castellanos, and America Olivo harmonized together beautifully but they wanted a fourth member to round out the sound, and since three of them were Latina, a fourth Latina singer would make the group stand out in the US market.

Christina “T” Lopez was an aspiring singer whose father owned a body shop. A music producer stopped at his shop to get his car serviced, saw T’s picture on the wall, and made a comment about how beautiful she was. The owner said his daughter could sing as well, called her on the phone, and she secured her spot in the group by singing “Amazing Grace” on the call.

Soluna refined their sound, tightened up their harmonies and worked on their album. When it was released in summer 2001, the girls had a producing credit on one song and co-writing credits on five, which was rare for a debut album during the teen pop era. Lead single “Bring It To Me” was a hit on MTV and reached the Top 20 of the dance cart.

Unfortunately, as with many pop albums released that summer, the country was not in the mood for bright and sunny pop music after September 11th. Further promotion on the album was scrapped and they changed tactics, releasing a ballad, “For All Time,” with “A Patriotic Medley” as the B-Side. “For All Time” was finally released to radio in February 2002 and a video was shot in June.

Even though the song was a moderate adult contemporary hit and Soluna went on tour with Enrique Iglesias and Marc Anthony, it was too late to improve upon sales of the album. And it’s a shame, because “Te Vengo A Decir” is one of my favorite a capella moments of the teen pop boom, just behind NSYNC’s “I Thought She Knew.”

Soluna started working on their second album toward the end of 2002, but the label was investing less money and the group couldn’t fully get it together. They released “Where Are You?” in 2004, but the album never followed and they quietly broke up.

But they broke up on good terms and released a surprise Christmas EP in 2016!

Sista

Missy Elliott had a tumultuous childhood full of poverty and abuse. She turned to her creativity and in 1988 she formed an R&B girl group called Fayze with some of her friends in high school. Missy was introduced to Timothy Mosely, an aspiring producer, by mutual friend Melvin Barcliff. Melvin convinced Tim to produce demos for the girls and before long, they were shopping their demo tape.

Armed with their tape, Fayze went to a Jodeci concert and sang Jodeci songs acapella for DeVante Swing backstage. That impromptu audition and the tracks on the tape were enough to convince DeVante to sign them to Swing Mob, his imprint on Elektra Records. Fayze moved to NYC and Missy took Timothy and Melvin along with them to produce the record. DeVante renamed the duo Timbaland & Magoo, and Fayze was renamed Sista.

Swing Mob had a brownstone where around 20 artists lived and created together including future stars Tweet and Ginuwine. The collective worked on each other’s products and there’s a sonic similarity between all of their records released in the early 90s. Sista’s lead single, “Brand New,” was released in October 1994 and it was not a hit. Even today, the song is hard to get into on the first listen, so I can imagine the tough sell at radio.

Because of the song’s massive underperformance, their debut album was shelved until 2017 when Rhino Entertainment finally gave it an official release. Listening with today’s ears, it’s a nostalgic time capsule of 90s R&B with some heavy hitters contributing tracks: half of Jodeci, Darryl Pearson (who would hit big with Mya’s “It’s All About Me”), and one of Mary J. Blige’s first writing credits for another artist.

And a young Missy Elliott. She became known as a rapper, but half of her debut solo album is sung. Listening to Sista’s album with Missy taking lead duty for most of the tracks, Supa Dupa Fly makes even more sense as her first solo work.

When Swing Mob disbanded, Diddy tried to get Missy to sign with Bad Boy. She had made a name for herself writing for other artists, including Bad Boy’s Gina Thompson on “The Thing You Do.” Instead she went back to Elektra, the label that signed Sista, and convinced them to let her start her imprint on the label. Even though the album wasn’t a success, she had proven her creativity and work ethic, which is how Missy Elliott has released all of her solo work under her own label from the very beginning.

Wonder Girls

In the mid-90s, three South Korean entertainers founded three companies that would become the backbone of K-Pop and the Korean Wave for the next thirty years:

Lee Soo-man had been in the band April & May in the 70s, leaving to get his masters in the US during the rise of MTV and Michael Jackson in the 80s. When he returned to South Korea, he worked as a DJ before starting SM Entertainment in 1995.

Yang Hyun-suk was a member of Seo Taiji & Boys in the early 90s who were famous for bringing rap into Korean pop songs. He started YG Entertainment in 1996.

Park Jin-young had been in an R&B group, but became more widely known as a solo artist and founded JYP Entertainment in 1997 at the height of his fame.

All three were focused on male idols initially, but SM was the first to make a successful girl group, SES, and then really exploded with Girls Generation. YG currently has the top girl group with Blackpink, but before they took over the world, someone had to take a crack at the US market, and that’s what JYP did with Wonder Girls.

In early 2006, JYP announced the formation of a girl group, Wonder Girls. Each girl was introduced to the public over the course of four episodes of the TV show MTV Wonder Girls. Sunye had been discovered in 2001 while she was at Korea Arts High School and had been a trainee at JYP ever since. Ahn was also a trainee, having joined JYP in 2004. Sunmi was inspired by BoA and auditioned for JYP in 2006 just before the group was put together. Hyuna was chosen for the group after auditioning, but left the following year and signed with Cube to join 4Minute. Fifth member Yeeun was chosen during the TV show and they debuted their first single the following year.

Injuries and member changes kept the group from early success, but in 2008 they found their retro aesthetic and released “Nobody.”

The song quickly went to #1 in South Korea and also reached #76 on the Billboard Hot 100, making them the first Korean artists to appear on the chart. Their surprise success in the states led to a TV movie on Teen Nick and an opening spot on tour with the Jonas Brothers.

Unfortunately their long-rumored English album never came to fruition. Group turmoil led to continued lineup changes and the group finally disappeared in late 2012.

And then, in 2015, they came back out of nowhere playing instruments with an 80s vibe and new album called Reboot.

No longer strictly a dancing girl group singing whatever production gave them, Wonder Girls were now a band with each member contributing to the writing of the album. The album was a hit, landing at #2 on the Billboard World Albums chart and named the best K-Pop album of 2015 by multiple publications. After non-stop promotion for another couple of years, only two members renewed their contracts with JYP and the band broke up in 2017.

SHeDAISY

The Osborn sisters, Kassidy, Kelsi, and Kristyn, came from a big Mormon family in Utah to the Nashville country music scene in the 90s and almost gave The Dixie Chicks a run for their money.

Middle sister Kelsi won a competition in 1989 where kids were selected to host a programming block on Showtime. She moved to NYC with her father, but he brought along older sister Kristyn and younger sister Kassidy to introduce all three of them to showbusiness. Kristyn caught the performing bug and the whole family thought country music didn’t have many female groups or teen girls.

After signing with RCA Nashville in 1989 as The Osborn Sisters, they opted not to release their first album citing unhappiness with the material and not being ready for the music industry. The girls stayed in Nashville and got jobs at the mall instead, with Kristyn attending college to study music business management while they found their sound and shopped demos. Sister (not in the group) Karli’s husband returned from his mission trip with the Navajo and started calling the girls shedaisa, the Navajo word for “my little sister,” and The Osborn Sisters renamed themselves SHeDAISY.

They signed a deal in 1998 with Lyric Street Records, and imprint of Disney Music Group, and released their debut album in 1999. Lead Single “Little Good-Byes” was an immediate hit, reaching #3 on the Country Chart and #43 on the Hot 100.

Though country music critics said their sound was more pop than country, they notched a string of country hits before their second album.

The lead single from the second album didn’t sit well with conservative country audiences and “Get Over Yourself” was subsequently pulled from radio over its man-hating lyrics.

This was in the wake of 20 (out of 149) country music stations refusing to play “Goodbye, Earl” by the Dixie Chicks for the same reason, and the backlash against SHeDAISY was even stronger. Lyric Street tried to push an alternate lead single instead, but the damage was done, and the project was poorly received.

SHeDAISY came back stronger on their third album with a more traditional country sound and returned to commercial success. All three singles hit the top 20 of the country charts.

Their fourth album in 2006 went even further into roots country and garnered the strongest reviews of their career from country music critics with Sheryl Crow contributing to the songwriting and production.

The Osborns were starting families and having children by then, so when Lyric Street closed in 2010, there was no retirement announcement, but their website had no information about performances and band management couldn’t be reached.

The Braxtons

When Tamar Braxton was five, she was in the bathroom and it was out of toilet paper. She sang out, “Somebody bring me some toilet paper,” and her sisters started harmonizing with her. And so, Evelyn Braxton, former singer and sometimes choir director, decided to turn her girls into a singing group.

That’s the legend anyway, and I’m inclined to believe it because anyone who watched Braxton Family Values during its initial 7-season run watched those girls make up songs on the spot, all the time, complete with harmonies, about everything from Toni Braxton always being late, Mama Evelyn’s dog dying, and Towanda having sex with her ex-husband.

In 1989, a music exec heard Toni Braxton singing at the gas pump, and the five sisters signed a record deal with Arista, which produced one single, “Good Life.”

It flopped, and they were dropped from the label, but at the same time, LA Reid and Babyface were just starting LaFace Records, an imprint of Arista. They kept The Braxtons in mind, and they auditioned for LaFace in 1991. However, TLC had just been signed, and they didn’t really want another girl group, so they signed Toni as a solo artist.

The girls were close, and Mommy ruled with an iron fist, so she “lightly” forced Toni to include her sisters in everything in the hopes they could sign their own deal one day. They sang backup for Toni, went on tour with her, and appeared in music videos, and then finally, in 1993, LaFace had had enough success for exec Bryant Reid to sign the other four sisters as a group. Reid Left LaFace for Atlantic before any music was produced, and he was able to take the girls with him. Unfortunately, Traci had gotten pregnant in the interim, and the label wouldn’t sign her, which was common in those days. Tamika Scott of Xscape famously hid her pregnancy during their first album in 1992, which was easier because the image of Xscape was baggy men’s clothes. Reid wanted The Braxtons to be sexy and sophisticated, so he signed the other three sisters instead.

Though they were talented and the songs were (and still are!) good, the album didn’t take off.

Plus, Tamar was hard to work with, and she was secretly shopping for a solo deal. Towanda heard about her baby sister’s solo deal from industry folks, instead of from Tamar, laying the foundation for the next few decades of animosity between Tamar and the rest of her sisters. Tamar went solo before the second album, and the group effectively disbanded.

In 2011, all five sisters signed on to do a reality show, Tamar became the breakout star, and all of the Braxtons were able to jumpstart their careers in different areas. Watch some of these clips if you want to join me in my eternal depression of never getting a full discography from these girls as a group.

Finally, in 2015, Mommy Evelyn got her wish and all five sisters made a holiday album together which is on constant rotation in my home.

BOND

In the mid-1990s, the UK’s Vanessa-Mae was the world’s best selling classical musician. Her 1995 debut album, The Violin Player, was a fusion of classical music and synth-pop, with singles like “Toccata and Fugue” reaching the top 20 of the UK charts. As she rose to success after success (including one of my favorite tracks on Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope), her producer and her manager, Mike Batt and Mel Bush, thought they could use that pop/classical formula again, but this time, with a girl group.

They held auditions in London to form a string quartet of beautiful women and found their lineup:

First violin – Haylie Ecker
Second violin – Eos Counsell
Viola – Tania Davis
Cello – Gay-Yee Westerhoff

With a mix of pop-infused classics plus some original arrangements, their debut album was a much bigger success than expected. Lead single “Victory” charted across the world and their album went to #1 in 21 countries.

In the UK, the album initially led the Classical charts before being removed for being “too pop.” It still rose to #16 on the main chart and went gold both there and in Australia (where both Tania and Haylie were from). The album went largely unnoticed in the US, but their follow-up debuted at #61 over here while also improving on the performance of their first album by going gold in six countries.

Their third album, Classified, saw the girls reach their highest level of visibility. Lead single “Explosive” was picked as the Australian theme for the 2004 Athens Olympics and is still played in Madison Square Garden as intermission music during Rangers ice hockey games.

After the success of that album, Haylie left the group to focus on starting a family. Tania took over as First Violin and Elspeth Hanson was picked to replace her on Viola, but other than one new album in 2011, they’ve mostly performed together for high profile gigs and were last seen in 2024 in Hanoi. With over 5 million albums sold, they’re the most successful string quartet of all time.

The Jones Girls

A strict, gospel-singing choir director with talented daughters molds her girls into a singing group in 1960s Detroit sounds like the legendary Clark Sisters, but the Jones Girls have the exact same background.

Brenda, Valorie, and Shirley Jones were taught to sing and harmonize by their mother who was the choir director at their local church in Detroit. Unlike the Clark Sisters though, when The Jones Girls decided on a singing career, they went straight to R&B. The signed a record deal in the early 70s, releasing a string of singles that never charted — not even on the R&B charts. It did give them enough buzz to be noticed by Diana Ross though.

Diana had left the Supremes in 1970 and by 1975, she had found success in music and movies. Fresh off the release of Mahogany, Diana Ross heard The Jones Girls and though their tight harmonies and sweet sophistication were a match for her touring and stage shows. They became her backup singers for the next four years and this raised their profile even more. They booked background singing gigs for a variety of artists from Aretha Franklin to Marvin Gaye. The Jones Girls then caught the ear of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, a production duo credited with developing the Philadelphia Sound that became popular in soul music of the late 70s. They signed the girls to a record deal and finally, after years of trying to break out, they hit it big with their very first single on their new label: “You’re Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else.”

The B-side to that single was “Who Can I Run To?” later made famous by Xscape in the 90s.

In 1981, as disco was winding down and R&B was finding its new direction, they released “Nights Over Egypt,” said by many to be their finest song. Radio didn’t know what to do with it and it didn’t fit in with the landscape of the day, but it continues to be heavily sampled in current music.

Philadelphia International Records was meant to compete with Motown and they launched some massive classics as Motown struggled. Unfortunately, Gamble & Huff followed the money, and the Jones Girls weren’t making hits big enough to bring in the big bucks. The released a string of unsuccessful albums with songs that were moderate hits on the R&B charts, but they could never quite rise to the level of other acts on the label. In the 80s, PIR released them from their contract and the girls stopped recording in the early 90s.

The Saturdays

Despite being the more talented group of vocalists of the two, The Saturdays were always in the shadow of Girls Aloud as an imitation of the original. Which, is fair, because they were an imitation of the original.

Girls Aloud were formed in 2002 through a competition show called Popstars (the same franchise that resulted in Eden’s Crush in the US the year before). Five years later, they had an unbroken string of 14 consecutive Top-10 singles in the UK and had far surpassed expectations with three hit albums under the belt. Their record label, Fasciation by way of Polydor, decided to do it again, but without the television show aspect. They held auditions in 2007 and The Saturdays were born.

Mollie King had been a champion skier (one of the youngest to compete for Great Britain) before auditioning and winning a spot in the group. Vanessa White, the Beyonce of the group, had been a performer from a young age, appearing in West End productions of The Lion King and The King and I before The Saturdays. Una Healy had already been in the music business in Ireland for years. She set aside swimming (also a champion athlete) for guitar and put out indie/country for years, but never quite broke through. She went to London for more exposure, and heard about the audition — it was her first for a major label. Rochelle and Frankie went to the same high school and were both members of S Club 8, the junior group put together to mimic S Club 7. When that group ended, Frankie went to America to pursue a career, but turned down a deal with Hollywood Records. Rochelle had been a TV producer before joining another girl group just before the Saturdays audition.

The girls went on tour as the opening act for Girls Aloud before their album was ever complete. When they finally started releasing singles, they were hits! Sixteen top ten singles are nothing to scoff at, but it did still put them behind Girls Aloud at 22. The Saturdays were ahead, in my book, for two reasons though: 1, they were not dependent on a single production house and 2, they didn’t employ gang vocals.

Whereas Girls Aloud were muses for Xenomania to experiment with pop music, The Saturdays worked a wide rang of production houses, because it was about the girls, not the voices. And The Saturdays could harmonize. Girls Aloud sang most songs in unison, but The Saturdays are all vocalists (except one) and they could outsing any other group of the day.

They’re not together anymore, but it wasn’t a big blowup. They’ve all moved on with their families and entertainment careers solo (Una has some of the best pop country on the market) but the door is always open a crack for a reunion because they don’t hate each other.

International Sweethearts of Rhythm

During Jim Crow, it was actually illegal in many places for white people to voluntarily fraternize with Black people. If you were a white person caught crossing the racial lines, you could be fined or jailed (or lynched). This is why the white girls in the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were told to tell policemen in the South that they had a white mom and a Black father and they wore dark makeup to appear mixed.

Piney Woods Country Life School was a Mississippi school for poor Black children and many of them were orphans. Helen Jones (who was very light and had previously been in a white orphanage) was adopted by the principal, Laurence C. Jones, and he noticed she had a knack for music. She was fascinated by the motion of the trombone, which became her chosen instrument for the rest of her life. Inspired by other big band jazz ensembles of the day, Laurence started an all-female jazz band at Piney Woods in 1938, including his adopted daughter. Laurence actually started a number of different instrumental and vocal ensembles at Piney Woods, and the bookings of those groups around the Southeast served as fundraising efforts for his big jazz band.

In 1941, the Sweethearts went professional and moved away from Mississippi to Arlington, Virginia. Attracting talent from across the country, the girls aged 14-19 were a mix of all races, but they were mostly booked in Black venues due to legalized segregation. Even still, they were good enough to attract the attention of national talents like Anna Mae Winburn from Nebraska who left her position as the (female!) bandleader of the Cotton Club Boys to lead the Sweethearts instead. They set a record at the Howard Theater, booking 35,000 tickets in one week, and clips of the band were used as short film “fillers” at movie theaters.

Unfortunately, segregation did prove to be a major stumbling block, with the girls forced to sleep and rehearse on the bus in the South since there was no integrated lodging. White saxophonist Roz Cron was arrested and jailed in Texas after cops searched her wallet and found a picture of two white parents after she had told the cops she was mixed, and this was an ever-present threat.

Today, the Sweethearts are mostly remembered by music historians. The girls in the band realized they could make more money — with less danger — by playing in other ensembles that weren’t marketed as all-female and multi-racial, so they started to leave in the mid-40s. But they will always hold their place as the first multi-racial female ensemble in the US.

FannyPack

Picture it. Brooklyn. 2002.

You’re a high school girl yelling at your friends on Fulton Mall. Some hipster white dude comes up to you and says “omg have you thought about doing music?” You think he sounds pretty legit, but he wants to meet with your mom first once he finds out you’re a minor. Mom says, “go for it,” and then you’re in the studio working on what will become your debut album with Fannypack.

Matt & Fancy were two DJs going out and about in NYC and never quite finding the right parties for their sound. They came across an aspiring DJ, 21-year-old Cat Hartwell, and the three of them had good musical chemistry. The trio were working on music for awhile when Matt heard 17-year-old Jessibel Suthiwong yelling on Fulton Street and brought her to the studio.

Watching Jessibel and Cat hit it off, Matt & Fancy thought they might have something special here and moved away from the idea of Cat and Jessibel working solo. Instead, put them together! Jessibel mentioned a girl from her high school who rapped, and Belinda Lovell rounded out the new hip-hop, electroclash group Fannypack.

To be clear, Fannypack never had a hit. One of their songs ended up on the Gap store soundtrack when I was assistant manager and every once in awhile I’ll hear them pop up in a commercial, but by typical standards, they weren’t a success. They did however put out a two cult classics that should be required listening for every generation of teen girls, with both of their albums rating higher than a 7 on Pitchfork. Backed by Matt & Fancy’s knack for catchy production, the three girls are unfiltered, unbothered, and unconcerned with how they might be perceived by anyone. From the pep rally of “Keep It Up” to the hilariously offkilter “Cameltoe,” there’s a spirit of youthful city life that is so hard to capture on a record.

Today, none of them are in music. Oddly enough, two are in healthcare (Belinda in psychiatry and Cat is a researcher with the Nature Health Alliance at U of WA) and Jessibel works for a court reporting company in central Florida.

A far cry from Cameltoes.

Seduction

A lot of people think Milli Vanilli were unique in their lip-synching treachery. However! They were not the only group put together by producers who had a great song but looking for sexier people to present the music.

Seduction, with Michelle Visage of Drag Race fame, was put together for precisely the same reason.

Robert Clivillés and David Cole (who later became C+C Music Factory) put together a little studio project making dance music. The first song they released, “Seduction,” sung by Carol Cooper wasn’t much of a hit, but the second song had Martha Wash on the track. “(You’re My One And Only) True Love” was released to the club scene and shot up to the Top 20 on the dance charts. C+C thought they could find some sexy girls to be the image of the music and build a project around them. After auditions, they picked Idalis DeLeon, April Harris, and Michelle Lynn Shupack.

Michelle had moved to NYC after high school and, carrying a fake ID from her mom, worked the club scene to make connections so she could become an actress. Her mother died young, and the ball scene of the 80s took her in. She was one of the few white girls vogueing and walking the face category, for which she was nicknamed Cara, Spanish for “face.” She switched to Visage, French for “face,” because people were pronouncing “cara” incorrectly. Newly minted Michelle Visage actually met RuPaul at a Susanne Bartsch party before auditioned for Seduction in 1989.

Luckily, C+C had the foresight to audition girls who could actually hold a tune. C+C re-released “Seduction” as “Seduction’s Theme” and then they had the girls contribute background vocals to “True Love” as the second single.

The song went to #23, but Martha Wash sued them for retaining her lead vocal without permission and settled out of court.

Seduction quickly recorded the rest of the album themselves, and their next three singles were all Top 20 smashes, with “Two to Make It Right” landing at #2.

Internal trouble led to DeLeon leaving the group soon after the album was released and the whole project was disbanded in 1991. April, who owns the name, got two new girls for Seduction in 2005, but the project didn’t garner much buzz.

Still, Seduction holds a special place in history as the female Almost-Vanilli who probably would have suffered a similar fate if Martha Wash hadn’t sued them for using her voice.

Brownstone

Today’s Jeopardy Answer: The first act signed to Michael Jackson’s record label back in 1994.

Question: Who is Brownstone?

Brownstone could have flopped hard with zero hits and they would still hold the legacy of being handpicked and mentored by Michael Jackson himself.

In 1994, three girls were running around LA and recognizing each other at auditions. Nicci, Maxee, and Mimi started singing together and the instant chemistry led them to form a girl group. From the beginning, Nicci told fans and the press that they had a strong foundation as friends and operated as a unit, so there was no friction.

Terrible foreshadowing.

Their debut album was released in 1995 with the timeless classic “If You Love Me” reaching #8 on the charts.

Follow-up singles were big R&B radio hits, the album went platinum, and the group scored a Grammy nomination. A

fter countless appearances and a world tour, Mimi developed bronchitis and had to leave the group…which…even at the time didn’t make any sense because people recover from bronchitis all the time so why couldn’t she just take a little break since they hadn’t started recording the second album anyway?

She was replaced by Kina Cosper and Brownstone released their second album featuring “5 Miles to Empty.”

The sophomore curse struck hard and the album sold poorly. After touring with Keith Sweat, Kina left the group citing personal problems and a big fight with Nicci.

Interesting.

Kina went on to a short solo career, releasing “Girl From the Gutter” a few years later.

Nearly a decade of silence followed until Maxee and Nicci added Teisha to the group in 2007, but they never released an album. In 2012, Nicci went on R&B Divas and showed her entire nasty personality and then it all made sense. To this day, I don’t think I have seen many reads as vicious as the one Syleena Johnson laid on her when she had had enough of Nicci’s attitude.

Mimi came clean to the press and said she had also left the group because of Nicci, and Nicci was dropped from the show in 2014. Then in 2015, tragedy struck. Maxee suffered a freak accident, falling down while holding a wine glass which broke and injured her neck. She was 46 years old.

In 2016, Mimi rejoined the group with Teisha and Nicci, now named The Brownstone Experience with a new fourth member, but as of yet, no new music has been released.

The Sequence

Until Angie Stone passed, I hadn’t realized the R&B songstress had already retired a whole previous career as a groundbreaking femcee with The Sequence.

Angela Brown (Angie Stone), Gwendolyn Chisolm, and Cheryl Cook grew up in public housing in Columbia, South Carolina and went to high school together. In 1979, Gwendolyn’s manager gifted the three of them tickets to see The Sugarhill Gang, but no tickets existed when they got to the venue. Angie Stone flirted with the Gang’s manager who then let the girls come in backstage. They met Sylvia Robinson, the CEO of Sugar Hill Records, and auditioned on the spot. And that’s how they became the first girl group on the label.

Their debut single, “Funk You Up,” was the first commercial release by a female rap group and the second song released by Sugar Hill Records after The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” It’s also one of the first rap songs released without any sampling, and it has gone on to be sampled by countless others from Dr. Dre to En Vogue.

“Funk You Up” went all the way to #15 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles chart (today’s R&B/Hip-Hop) chart and spent sixteen weeks on the Cashbox Top 100 Singles chart (Billboard’s main competitor at the time). The Sequence went on tour with The Sugarhill Gang and released their debut album to positive reviews.

Two more albums and two more charting singles followed until the group broke up in 1985 over failed contract negotiations and royalties disputes with Sylvia Robinson and the label. The Sequence had been writing and performing backup for other acts on Sugar Hill Records without being fairly compensated. Angie Stone in particular put her foot down and refused to record without more money, and the trio went their separate ways.

In 2008, Angie and Cheryl reunited at Essence Fest. A few years later, Cheryl and Gwen released a single together, and in 2019, the three of them performed “Funk You Up” for the first time in 35 years.

Though overshadowed by other groups who came later (Salt N Pepa was credited as the first female rap group at the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors in 2016), the timeline doesn’t lie. The Sequence was here at the tail end of disco paving the way for all the other women to come after.

M2M

During the manufactured teen pop boom of the late 90s/early00s, two best friends from Norway snuck into the American market playing their own instruments and writing their own songs.

Marion Raven and Marit Larsen met on a playground outside of Oslo when they were five years old and immediately became best friends. Once they found out they had similar interests in music, they started a little duo called Hubba Bubba after their favorite bubble gum at the time. Both of them independently had started music lessons (Marion on piano and Marit on guitar) and incorporated it into their music. When they were 11 they recorded an album of children’s songs that was nominated for a Spellermannprisen award (Norway’s Grammy). After that success, they decided to start writing their own songs and sent a demo tape to different record companies.

Atlantic Records bet big on the newly named M&M, signing them to a worldwide deal and putting millions into the development and promotion of their debut album. After learning M&Ms are a candy in the US, they renamed themselves M2M.

Their first single, “Don’t Say You Love Me,” was featured in the closing credits of the first Pokemon movie and Atlantic saturated the market with these two young songwriters to compete against the flood of Britney Spears and her imitators.

That single along with second single, “Mirror Mirror,” both went Gold in the US, M2M appeared on multiple US TV shows, and they went on tour with Hanson.

Unfortunately, this didn’t translate into record sales and Shades of Purple only sold about 1.5 million copies, just enough to recoup the massive marketing budget Atlantic shelled out.

Because the first album underperformed, Atlantic put almost no promotion behind the second. They went on tour with Jewel, but halfway through, the album had only sold 100K copies, so Atlantic pulled them off as the opening act and the girls went back to Norway. The childhood best friends were growing apart as adults anyway. By this time Marion wanted to go Rock and Marion wanted to go Folk, and the duo had agreed in the beginning that they would quit when it was no longer fun. So they did. Both of them pursued solo careers with moderate success in Norway.

And then, in 2024 out of nowhere, they got back together after 22 years, released an EP, and went on a World Tour.

Sometimes childhood best friends find their way back to each other as adults, and sometimes those best friends were teen pop trailblazers.

Electrik Red

Two best friends from NYC and two best friends from Toronto put together a girl group on their own terms with their own vibe and released one of the most underrated R&B albums of the 2000s.

Binkie Reevey and Lesley Lewis met as students at LaGuardia in NYC and they hit the industry together as professional dancers. Here’s Lesley on the left and Binkie on the right during Aaliyah’s last video shoot.

Sarah Rosete and Noami Allen met as students at the Claude Watson School for the Arts in Toronto and they too hit the industry as backup dancers. Here’s Sarah with Beyonce and Naomi in a video for the Ying Yang Twins.

Binkie and Lesley met Sarah while the three of them were dancers on Usher’s The Truth Tour and the NYC girls asked Sarah if she wanted to start a girl group. She said yes, but they should meet her best friend Naomi too.

The four of them hit it off as a group, moved to LA, and shopped for a record deal. Darkchild scooped them up first, but after six months, he realized he didn’t have the time to give the group the attention they deserved, so he released them from their contract and gave them all of their recordings for free. They used those songs as a demo tape which landed them in front of Shakir Stewart, executive Vice President at Def Jam. He went crazy over for their vibe and gave them their pick of producers, signing them to the label in February 2008. Shakir was all in on Electrik Red.

With The-Dream and Tricky Stewart (super-producer, unrelated to Shakir), Electrik Red composed their debut album. Lead single “Drink In My Cup” wouldn’t have been my first choice, but the label released it in November 2008.

The following month, Shakir Stewart, Electrik Red’s biggest champion at Def Jam, committed suicide and promotion for the project lost its guiding hand. Follow-up singles “So Good” and “Friend Lover” were a hit with those who had already discovered the group, but the label didn’t push the songs to radio and the girls were self-promoting their album with handmade signs in West Hollywood without support of Def Jam.

Electrik Red was a standard formula with a lead singer (Naomi Allen doing her best Kelis-meets-Diana Ross) and three backup singers, but modern R&B hadn’t seen many groups work well in that format. Other than SWV and 702, most groups had multiple lead singers and Electrik Red didn’t have the kind of lead vocalist that R&B radio was used to. Naomi was a vibe, not a belter.

Def Jam didn’t know what to do with the group and they were released from their contract. Because the group was two sets of friends, there’s always a possibility they will put something else out. In an interview from 2024, Binkie said, “We were in an industry that was very tumultuous. There’s like one out of 10 people that get the shot and opportunity that we had — and we did it. I think that’s amazing. I look at my sisters, and I smile…Eventually, we can maybe do a Volume 2.”

I’ll drink to that.

Luscious Jackson

The story of Luscious Jackson goes all the way back to the Beastie Boys.

Kate Schellenbach had been playing drums since she was 13 and was out and about going to shows when she met John Berry, the original guitarist for the Beastie Boys. He introduced her to Adam and Mike, and they became a punk band called The Young Aborigines in 1979. With hip-hop trickling down from the Bronx into Manhattan bars and clubs, the band renamed themselves the Beastie Boys in 1981 and started to incorporate more rap sensibilities. After they had a local hit with “Cooky Puss,” they kicked Kate out of the band in 1984 because she didn’t fit their new, harder, rap image.

Fast forward five years, and the Beastie Boys had blown up and started a record label. Enter Jill Cunniff and Gabby Glaser who had scraped together their money waiting tables to produce a demo tape showcasing their alt-rock blend of hip-hop, pop, and spoken word. The tape had enough buzz to land them as an opener for the Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill, and after the show, the Beastie Boys asked them to be the first act on their new record label. To fill out their sound, they recruited a classically trained pianist, Vivian Trimble, and a drummer: Kate Schellenbach.

Luscious Jackson’s name comes from NBA player Lucious Jackson, whose name they heard mispronounced on ESPN once and thought it’d make a good band name. With their new record deal, they released two EPs before their debut album in 1994. It wasn’t a blockbuster, but the band got airtime on college radio and MTV. Plus, one song “Here” made it onto the Clueless soundtrack.

The band built up their following and their profile afterward, landing guest spots on a wide variety of shows from SNL to The Adventures of Pete & Pete and joining Lollapalooza. The second album pushed Luscious Jackson into the mainstream, scoring a Top 40 hit with “Naked Eye.”

Vivian left the band after promoting the album, citing her dislike of touring. The remaining trio split in 2000 to spend time with their families. Kate notably went into TV production, winning an Emmy as a segment producer on Ellen’s talk show.

In 2011, Jill, Gabby, and Kate got back together and released a new album in 2013 to pretty decent reviews. They still get together to perform and write new music occasionally.

Allure

Allure had four lead singers, a record deal with Mariah Carey’s label, and a Top 5 single, but timing was not on their side.

Alia, Akissa, and Lalisha formed a girl group while they were students at LaGuardia in NYC. They added a fourth member, Linnie, from another high school and honed their vocal chops practicing at community centers in the Bronx. The girls hit the streets looking for management and connections when Poke from Trackmasters signed them to a development deal. A quick audition for LA Reid and the girls had their first record deal with LaFace Records.

Trackmasters were mixing records from Allure’s LaFace sessions at Sony Studios where Mariah Carey overheard the tracks, asked who they were, and then convinced LA Reid to release them from LaFace so she could sign them as the first group on her new label, Crave.

Mariah molded the group in her own image right down to the breathy whispery vocals she became fond of during her Butterfly era. She even appears on the background vocals for their first single, “Head Over Heels,” and her presence makes it impossible to figure out what Allure actually sounds like.

Another single was released with LL Cool J before they hit it big with a “All Cried Out.” That song went to number 4 on the chart and the album was a moderate success.

Unfortunately, Crave had been kind of a gift from Tommy Mottola to Mariah as their marriage was crumbling, one of their last ditch efforts to make the relationship work. When Mariah and Tommy divorced the year after Allure signed to Crave, the group was dissolved right along with the label. Allure shopped for labels and landed at MCA, releasing my favorite of their tracks, “Enjoy Yourself,” as the lead single for their second album.

MCA didn’t know how to market a girl group with four lead singers and the album tanked. Allure left MCA, Linnie left Allure, and the three remaining members (the original childhood friends) signed with Ron Artest’s new label. Ron Artest then quickly became industry poison after the Pistons vs Pacers NBA Playoffs brawl and everything associated with him, including Allure’s third album, was shoved into a corner.

So, they started their own label and released two independent albums between 2008 and 2010. In 2011, they signed with MC Shan’s label, Bridgeworks Records, but a full project never materialized.

Since then, aside from beefing with Mariah over being left out of Mimi’s memoir, Allure has just kept it up for the love of the game, playing small shows and playing festivals here and there.

Girlicious

Robin Antin thought she could keep the Pussycat Dolls relevant by having a talent search for a new Doll on the CW. That first season flopped, because the winner refused the contract, so the second season sought to make a totally separate girl group. And Girlicious was born.

Nichole had been singing since the age of four, and what she lacked in natural ability, she made up for it in effort and musical references (her favorite singers are Jill Scott and Beyonce, which is outside the norm for a white girl with a small voice). She was also a trained ballet dancer/teacher and never placed in the bottom.

Tiffanie was in the group from the very first episode, and also never placed in the bottom. The group’s sound was built on her as the “main” vocalist.

Chrystina had a bumpier competition but she was undeniably pretty and she had stage presence. A casting director had heard her studio recordings and convinced her to apply for the show, and in the end, she was chosen for the final lineup.

Natalie could not, and never learned to, sing at all. With JLo as her main reference, Natalie thought dancing and being pretty was enough, and it really was enough for Robin Antin. Natalie was chosen because she was hot and had a whoreish whisper.

The show as another hit for the CW, but the album flopped immediately.

The public did not connect to them. Unlike PCD, they decided not to have a lead singer, which only works if everyone is a lead singer and everyone has a personality. The vocals were there, but they weren’t marketed in such a way that you could connect to any of them as individuals. They were slighly more successful in Canada where their debut album hit Number Two, but Geffen dropped them from the label.

Before the second album, Tiffanie was kicked out of the group because, in her words, “they were looking for the group to not be urban any longer.” Without the resident Black Girl, the second album was focused in a pop direction.

Ten days after the lead single was released, Natalie was arrested with 13 bags of cocaine in her purse, so the writing was on the wall. Even though she pled guilty and got a deferred judgement, the tension in the group was high because Chrystina and Nichole did not vibe with Natalie’s hard partying. They split soon after the second album.

Natalie tried a couple of other groups, but she can’t sing, and neither could they, so she’s no longer in the industry.

Nichole was tapped by Robin for a new PCD, but it didn’t come together. Then she auditioned for X Factor with another group, but they didn’t make it to the show, so she’s no longer in the industry.

Chrystina is a Bonafide Brainwashed Bible Beating Bimbo, so she’s no longer in the industry.

Tiffanie, who was kicked out of the group for being too Black, is the only success story, with a massive following for her visual art.

So a Girlicious reunion is definitely not in the future for these girls.

The Bobbettes

This has been one of my Top Ten scenes from The Cosby Show for as long as I could remember.

I had no idea it was a real song until I started looking into girl groups.

The Bobbettes were the first girl group to have a #1 R&B song cross over to the Top 10 of the Pop charts.

The Pought Sisters and three of their friends grew up in Spanish Harlem and learned to sing and harmonize with each other in the hallways of the housing projects where they lived. They were performing at Amateur Night at the Apollo and caught the eye of an executive from Atlantic Records, James Dailey, who signed them to a deal and set up recording sessions.

Unusual for the time, Atlantic let the girls write their own music and “Mr. Lee” is credited to the five of them. They wrote it about a high school teacher they weren’t that fond of, but the record label made them change it into a love song, and that’s how we got a song by five teenaged girls singing about having a crush on their teacher. (There was a lyric where they called him “the ugliest teacher” and it was changed to “handsomest sweetie.”)

Atlantic released “Mr. Lee” in 1957, and the song hit number 6 on the pop charts while spending four weeks at number 1 on the R&B charts. In some ways, every girl group after them owes a bit of their success to these girls from East Harlem.

After a few more singles that didn’t meet the same level of success, The Bobbettes wrote “I Shot Mr. Lee” as a sequel. Atlantic wouldn’t release the song, so they took it to a smaller record label who agreed to put it out.

The sequel rose up the charts quickly, but Atlantic filed suit, stopped the original, and released their own version of the song.

The Bobbettes had a few more successes here and there, mostly covers of established songs like “Teach Me Tonight” and “Have Mercy Baby” in 1960.

Unfortunately, they never made it back up to the top ten again. In 1974 they broke up for good, but they’ll always be remembered for “Mr. Lee.”

Exposé

Between 1965 and 1967, The Supremes notched nine consecutive Top 10 singles, a record they will most likely hold forever given the difficulty of pushing singles to the top of the chart consistently in the streaming era. The Supremes being the top girl group in that category isn’t surprising, but Exposé being number two (seven consecutive Top 10 singles between 1985 and 1988) shocked me a bit given how little we talk about them today.

Miami DJ Lewis Martineé had an idea for a girl group in 1984 and worked with talent scouts to find three girls to fulfill that vision. They recorded a #1 Dance Hit, “Point of No Return,” but all three of them left the group (or were fired? no one knows today) during the recording sessions for the first album. They were replaced by Jeanette Jurado, Gioia Bruno, and Ann Curless, and a new lead single was released.

“Come Go With Me” hit number five and then the group re-released “Point of No Return” with Jeanette on lead vocals. The new version also hit #5.

Every successive single was a success, right through their second album. They were the torchbearers for a a genre of music called “freestyle” that was big in Miami and Latin communities in the northeast (mostly NY and NJ), but Exposé helped to make it national. They won awards, went on tour, and performed on every TV show from Showtime at the Apollo to American Bandstand. Interestingly enough, the group had no Black members and was still nominated for Best New Artist at the Soul Train Awards.

Before their third album, Bruno left the group due to throat problems and she was replaced by Kelly Moneymaker.

The group never captured the success of their first two albums, and even though their final album was produced by Clive Davis, it underperformed and Arista dropped them from the label.

Jurado and Curless went on to retire from performing while Moneymaker married Peter Reckell (Bo on Days of Our Lives) and did a lot of music work for television shows.

In 2006, Bruno came back out of retirement and rejoined Exposé. Moneymaker was still an honorary member, but the complete foursome didn’t perform together for the first time until 2009 at Los Angeles Pride when Kelly came out as a surprise guest.

The group hasn’t released a new album since 1992 and they seem to be content performing and touring. Whether they release new music or not though, their legacy is cemented by a historic run in the mid-80s and, according to Billboard, they’re still the 8th most successful girl group of all time.

Les Nubians

How did two sisters from France conquer the American Grown Adult R&B Market in the late 90s? Luck, and college kids latching onto “Makeda.”

Helene and Celia Faussart were born in France, spent some of their childhood in West Africa, and then moved back to France as teenagers. To handle the loneliness (and racism) of being African in a small French town, the sisters turned to music. French R&B was mostly American R&B translated into French, and the girls wanted to create something that was authentically from France, but with the same vibe. They looked to artists in the UK for inspiration, artists like Sade and Des’ree who were influenced by American R&B, but did it their own, European, way. After developing their sound acapella (no bands wanted to work with them because they were untrained), they caught the eye of producer Lee Hamblin from England. The resulting album was released in 1998….and flopped. They were trying to tap into the Francophone market, since it was a French album, but their sound hadn’t caught on.

Enter WHUR in Washington DC. Program Director Hector Hannibal played “Makeda” in 1999, and before the song ended, listeners were calling in to ask who that was. Les Nubians quickly caught on at college stations in New Orleans and Philadelphia and across the country, and then they really spilled over into the Adult R&B space.

And that’s when I first heard “Makeda,” coming home from the bowling alley late one night with my parents listening to V 101.9 out of Charlotte, NC. My dad bought the album soon after, and I fell in love with the sound.

This was an era of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu. Even though most of the listeners didn’t understand French, they caught the vibe. For those who did know French, the Foussart sisters were singing about teenage abortion (“Si Je T’Avais Ecoute”), liberation of oppressed people (“Demain”), uniting the diaspora (“Voyager”), and slavery (“Sugarcane”) — this wasn’t your typical R&B album.

Time Magazine said:

If Sade were cloned twice and the resulting twin sisters were reared in France by members of the Fugees, the women might sound something like the French singing team Les Nubians. Sisters Helene and Celia Faussart have a warm, engaging sound that blends smooth jazz, soft pop and warm R. and B. with a dash of danceable hip-hop. There are an emotional generosity and a spiritual depth on this album that come through on every track.

Princesses Nubiennes quickly became one of the most successful French-language albums ever released in the US. They were nominated for a Grammy, won a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award for Best New Artist (the only foreign act to do so), and their album went Gold in the US. After their US success, the album took off in France and other French-speaking countries, and though they haven’t recaptured their English-language success, they still pop up here and there in the Francosphere.

Not bad for two girls who were just using music as an escape from xenophobia.

Dream

The girls from Dream were barely in high school when their debut music video dropped. “He Loves U Not” was a surprise pop hit for Bad Boy Records, going all the way to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Back in 1998, a talent scout by the name of Debbie Fontaine put together four girls under the name First Warning. She shopped them around for a label and they were signed by Diddy in 1999. He replaced one of the girls, and the final lineup of Holly, Melissa, Ashley, and Diana was solidified. They started work on their album and it was released in January of 2001 while the girls were 15 and 16 years old. After “This Is Me” was released as the second single, they went on the TRL Tour with other young acts like 3LW, Destiny’s Child, and Jessica Simpson, but 9/11 put a pause on additional promotion for that album.

They did find time to shoot a remix though. Warning: It’s Diddy dancing with 16-year-old white girls so you can skip it if you need to. In hindsight, I hate that anyone had their children this close to Sean Combs.

Sales for the debut album dropped off quickly, so Dream went back into the studio. Melissa left the group to pursue acting and Diddy replaced her with 15-year-old Kasey in 2002. He wanted a sexier image for the girls, which none of them wanted, and the tension between the group and Bad Boy was evident throughout the recording process. One terrible single was released (“Crazy)” and it did not capture the spark of their debut.

Bad Boy then delayed the album and then finally decided not to release it at all. It eventually popped up for digital download on the French Virgin Megastore website, but that’s the last we saw of Dream until a short-lived reunion in 2015 when they got back together and opened for 98 Degrees on the My2K Tour.

And now, as far as I can tell, they’re back in the suburbs chillin.

RichGirl

RichGirl popped up on the scene back in 2007 with one of the absolute loudest debut singles of all time. One of my friends called it “screaming pussy music” and I don’t disagree! It’s like four Beyonces on a chaotic Rich Harrison beat.

And Rich Harrison put the group together. Rich was everywhere after the success of “Crazy in Love” and he had enough juice to get RCA to partner with his label, Richcraft, to produce a girl group. Lyndriette (who later joined June’s Diary — a group put together by Kelly Rowland) was the youngest and Rich had met her when she was 15. Brave was actually signed to Rich’s label as a solo artist. Sevyn Streeter (the only one who is still famous) had previously been discovered by Chris Stokes (the abuser behind B2K) for a girl group he put together years before.

Bonus Girl Group video! How many of y’all remember TG4 and that awful “Virginity” song?

TG4 broke up before their album was released, and Rich found Sevyn on Myspace. Fourth member Audra had moved to LA to be a solo artist and was added to the group after a round of auditions. You can see from their early shows that they weren’t super polished, but all of the ingredients were there to make a superstar group.

The girls co-wrote most of their songs and worked with not only Rich Harrison but other super-producers of the time like Bryan-Michael Cox and Dre & Vidal. They landed a spot opening for Beyonce on her I Am… Tour and anticipation was high for their debut album.

So what happened? Well. No one knows really. None of their singles between 2009 and 2010 made much of a dent on the charts. After three flops, the label stopped investing in them and they eventually released a free mixtape on Valentine’s Day 2011.

And such was the stunningly brief career of a top tier collection of talented women. Audra completely left the industry and has been running a K9 rescue in the Turks & Caicos for at least ten years now. Brave turned up on R&B Divas Los Angeles a few years after the breakup and has been acting in small roles consistently since then. Lyndriette is back to pursuing a solo career after the disbandment of her most recent group, June’s Diary. Sevyn Streeter has had the most success and is still in demand as a hit songwriter.

And that’s the story of RichGirl.