Frankie Lymon

Formed in New York as a doo wop ensemble, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers featured Joe Negroni, Herman Santiago, Jimmy Merchant, and Sherman Garnes, yet revolved primarily around the prodigious skills of their youthful frontman, Frankie Lymon, born in 1942 and only thirteen at the time. The group’s breakthrough arrived with the hit single “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” though a federal judge later determined after an extended trial in the early 1990s that another Teenager had actually composed the song. Lymon’s precocious vocal and stage presence lifted the Teenagers well beyond their peers while establishing him as the first Black teenage pop star. Despite lasting only eighteen months, the act left a deep mark by inspiring numerous subsequent “kid” vocal groups and supplying Berry Gordy with the initial blueprint for Motown’s vocal-oriented production approach. At the peak of their popularity the ensemble fractured into rival factions, after which neither lineup returned to the charts. Lymon died of a drug overdose in 1968 at age twenty-six. Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Len Barry, and especially Michael Jackson—whose earliest Jackson 5 recordings essentially recreate the youthful Lymon sound in updated form—each reflect the enduring impact of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers’ pioneering recordings.