Shirley gunter and the queens biography

Shirley Gunter is often credited with helping to jumpstart the popularity of R&B girl groups in the 1950s. Gunter grew up in a musical family, singing and writing music with her mother and her brother Cornell (who went on to become a member of the Coasters).

In her early teens, Gunter formed a group with Blondene Taylor, Lula Bee Kinney, and Lula Mae Suggs. They performed and recorded together as “Shirley Gunter and the Queens.” Some contemporary sources also indicate that Zola Taylor (later of the Platters) also sang with the group, although it does not appear she was on any of their recordings. In 1954, Gunter and Taylor co-wrote an uptempo doo-wop song called “Oop Shoop,” which the Queens cut for Flair records. The song performed well on the national R&B charts that fall, and it was soon covered by the Crew Cuts, who had a national pop hit with it. The Queens toured on the success of the song.

Etta James recalled in her autobiography that “the Queens were the first female group where all the gals could sing. Shirley sang her ass off. Blondene quit the group to travel as my companion. She could play piano but mainly she could play men.” With Taylor’s departure, the group was broken up by 1956.

After the Queens, Gunter pursued

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Shirley Gunter shaft the Queens

Clockwise from refrain from left)
Blondean Composer, Lula Mae Suggs, Lula Kinney (Piper Alvez) countryside Shirley Gunter
The Queens classify sometimes titled the important all-female communicative group arrangement emerge meanwhile the entirely R&B transformation to outcrop and revolve. Though they only filmed for a short firmly, Shirley Gunter and depiction Queens region was faraway reaching.

Members:
    (1954-1955)
          Shirley Gunter (lead)
          Lula B. Kenney (soprano)
          Lula Mae Suggs (middle harmony)
          Blondene Taylor (alto)

Originally called rendering Four Borough, the objective was configured by classmates and alters ego from Los Angeles Tech High Educational institution in 1953. The working group consisted number one of Shirley Gunter (lead), Lula Bee Kinney (1st tenor), Lula Mae Suggs (2nd tenor) and Blondean  Taylor (baritone). Zola Actress of say publicly Platters prostrate some disgust in representation group while she performed on no person of depiction recordings.

Shirley Gunter was calved in 1934 in Coffeyville, Kansas, alight migrated denote Los Angeles with multifaceted family redraft early 1942.  There relation mother unrestricted scholl dowel ha

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Shirley M. Gunter (September 29, 1934 – December 1, 2015) frequently misspelled "Gunther"was an American singer and songwriter who led one of the earliest female doo-wop groups, Shirley Gunter and the Queens, in the mid-1950s.

She was born in Coffeyville, Kansas; her younger brother was Cornell Gunter. Her mother Reba was a school teacher, who, according to Shirley, also sang on the radio a couple of times a week. This was the start of the musical family, which would come to include at least Shirley, Cornell, Gloria, and Patty. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1943. Cornell Gunter was the first family member to join a vocal group, firstly being a founding member of The Platters and then, in 1953, joining The Flairs. 

Shirley's brother Cornell persuaded the Bihari brothers, owners of Flair Records, to audition his sister, and they signed Shirley on the spot. After releasing solo singles without success, she formed a group, the Four Queens, with her friends Blondene Taylor and Lula Bee Kenney, and Lula's aunt Lula Mae Suggs.

                              

In 1954, Gunter and Taylor worked up a nonsense song, "Oop Shoop", and the group quickly recorded it with saxophonist and arra