The Exciters

The Exciters injected a direct and savvy edge into pop that ignited the golden age of girl groups through their indelible 1962 release "Tell Him." Four seventeen-year-old classmates from Queens, New York—Brenda Reid, Carol Johnson, Lillian Walker, and Sylvia Wilbur—launched the act in 1961. First called the Masterettes, they served as the female counterpart to the Masters, a five-piece local doo-wop ensemble that had already placed the single "A Man Is Not Supposed to Cry" on End Records. Once the Masters landed a deal with Le Sage, they secured studio time for the Masterettes, yielding the debut single "Follow the Leader" in early 1962.

Wilbur soon exited, replaced by Penny Carter; the group then auditioned for the celebrated writing and production team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Carter’s involvement ended quickly after creative clashes, at which point Masters member Herb Rooney joined the lineup ahead of the Masterettes’ initial United Artists session. Driven by Reid’s forceful lead, "Tell Him"—now credited to the Exciters, a name supplied by Leiber and Stoller—reached listeners in fall 1962 and climbed into the Top Five on Billboard’s pop and R&B charts by the start of 1963. Departing from the coy, innocent tone of prior girl-group records, the track’s raw intensity signaled a shift in the depiction of femininity within mainstream music and cleared a path for assertive, sensual acts such as the Shangri-Las and the Ronettes.

The Exciters returned in spring 1963 with "He's Got the Power." Though equal or superior in impact to their breakthrough, the single stalled at number 57 on the Billboard chart, foreshadowing ongoing commercial obstacles despite consistent artistic strength. Their third outing, "Get Him," reached number 76—two positions higher than the follow-up "Do Wah Diddy," penned by Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. British Invasion outfit Manfred Mann nevertheless adopted the song and scored an international number-one hit with their version months later. After issuing one final United Artists single, "Havin' My Fun," in 1965, the Exciters moved to Roulette Records to reinterpret Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers’ "I Want You to Be My Boy."

Early the next year they notched one last minor success with a cover of the Jarmels’ "A Little Bit of Soap," yet their peak commercial period had passed. The Exciters nevertheless continued to record throughout the decade for Bang, Shout, and RCA Victor. Reid and Rooney, who married in 1964, kept steering the group after Johnson and Walker departed. Under the name Brenda & Herb they later cut several disco-era sides before stepping away from the business. The couple separated in the mid-1980s; Rooney subsequently started a cosmetics company while Reid formed a new Exciters lineup drawn from her own family. Lillian Walker died on February 5, 2023, at age 78 while receiving treatment for angiosarcoma.