THE INK SPOTS

The Ink Spots helped establish the Black vocal group-harmony style that later fueled the doo-wop surge of the 1950s. Bill Kenny’s quavering high tenor anticipated the many street-corner leads that would follow, while the polished backing harmonies of Charlie Fuqua, Deek Watson, and bass Hoppy Jones—who passed away in 1944—supported him without flaw.

Kenny’s precise enunciation and Jones’s resonant drawl stood out on the group’s breakthrough Decca release from 1939, the sentimental ballad “If I Didn’t Care.” Between that success and 1951 the quartet rarely left the pop charts, reaching the top with “We Three (My Echo, My Shadow, and Me)” in 1940, both “I’m Making Believe” and “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall” in 1944, and the pair “The Gypsy” and “To Each His Own” in 1946.

Watson later departed to launch the Brown Dots and performed in numerous low-budget film musicals, while Kenny pursued a solo path that produced the uplifting 1951 hit “It Is No Secret.” Since the 1950s, countless ensembles performing under the Ink Spots name have flourished throughout the country.