The Rivieras: five Central High boys at the hinge of the chart

1962 — 1964 and after

The last hit before the Invasion: The Rivieras were formed in the fall of 1962 in South Bend by five South Bend Central High School students: Marty Fortson, vocals and rhythm guitar; Joe Pennell, lead guitar; Doug Gean, bass; Otto Nuss, organ; and Paul Dennert, drums. They first called themselves the Playmates, and renamed themselves for the new Buick Riviera. Their manager, Bill Dobslaw, aged twenty-one, booked one hour at Chicago's Columbia Recording Studios in 1963, and in that hour the band cut Henry Glover's "California Sun" — a song that had reached No. 89 for Joe Jones in 1961 — in three takes. The record was released in December 1963 on the band's own Riviera label (R-1401, with "H.B. Goose Step" on the flip), and Chicago's WLS broke it.

The Billboard record is exact: "California Sun" entered the Hot 100 on January 25, 1964, at No. 70, peaked at No. 5 on February 29, 1964, spent ten weeks on the chart, four of them in the top ten — the peak arriving in the weeks when the Beatles were taking the chart's top places for themselves. The record is widely described in the chart-book tradition — Wayne Jancik's Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders is the standing reference — as the last pure American rock-and-roll hit before the British Invasion; that description is printed here as the attributed characterization it is, not as a chart fact. The follow-ups are chart facts, and they are smaller: "Little Donna" reached No. 93 in May 1964; "Let's Have a Party" No. 99 the same month; "Rockin' Robin" reached the Hot 100's lower reaches in September 1964; the album Let's Have a Party peaked at No. 115 in June 1964 on USA Records.

Eight singles in all appeared on the band's own label. The "one-hit wonder" label the chart books apply is therefore accurate at the size the chart gives it — one top-ten record and a tail of low-charting follow-ups — and it is also the whole of this city's claim on the national rock-and-roll record of the era: a top-five national hit, made by five schoolboys from Central High, cut in one hour in Chicago, in the last season of the world that made it possible.

Sources:

1. Billboard Hot 100 chart data as compiled in the standard chart references (elpee.jp compilation of the Billboard record) — the "California Sun" run: entry January 25, 1964 (No. 70), peak No. 5 on February 29, 1964, ten weeks charted; "Little Donna" No. 93 and "Let's Have a Party" No. 99 (May 1964); the album Let's Have a Party at No. 115 (June 27, 1964).
2. Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, via the BlackCat Rivieras profile — the formation, the Playmates name, the Buick Riviera renaming, manager Bill Dobslaw, the 1963 Columbia Recording Studios session, the December 1963 Riviera R-1401 release, and the "last American rock-and-roll hit before the British Invasion" characterization.
3. Way Back Attack, Rivieras record — the Central High School membership (Fortson, Pennell, Gean, Nuss, Dennert) and the eight singles on the band's own label.