LITTLE JOEY & THE FLIPS - by Al Kelly

I was raised in Upper Darby, Pa, grade school, high school and
married there too, so any group that comes from my home town is always
special.  The Essentials, who sang with Billy, Farrell & the Flames,
Jack Strong & the Contenders and the late Jim Croce are a few, I knew
some of them too while growing up. The Flips began singing in '59 by
doing acappella singing at dances and the famous 69th Terminal, it was
the train and bus terminal from Upper Darby & Philly and all groups hung
there to sing because of the low hollow sound the walls gave them. You'd
walk thru the terminal and see four different groups singing somewhere
in the area. Go over to the nearby Hot Shoppe, which was a drive-in
resturant, park, and a waitress brought your order to the car, well at
least 5 cars or more on a friday night would contain groups fighting to
out duel each other in a singing storm. Sorry, we got lost there but the
group got to be really good. Sy Kaplan was passing thru the Terminal and
heard the group and asked them if they needed a manager. The group
signed up with Kaplan and his record collector buddy, Barry Rich and
soon after were making demo records. Kaplan felt their present lead
singer was not strong enough so they signed Joey Hall, a 5 ft. frail
black singer to front these four white kids.  The group wrote the song
"Bongo Stomp" because in Philly, any dance tune that you could stomp to
was an instant hit. It was unreal at dances, DJs would play 4-5
straight Stomp tunes and the kids would rock the joint with their
stomping.  The two managers brought the song to Eddie Joy of Joy Records, 
Joy loved it and released it but when it came out Kaplan and Rich was
listed as writers of the tune. Life in the record business!!!! The group
went on an East Coast tour promoting the record. The song was a hit
record and kept the group busy doing Rock Tour Shows. Their followup
record was a bomb and Joy dropped the group. Eddie Joy was sued by the
group, the managers and never to this day ever paid a penny to either
the group or the managers. The group did make a record for local Cameo
label which caused some local action called the "Beachcomber" in '64.
After this group in fighting split the group but Joey remained recording
as just plain Joey and had releases on Cameo & Joy labels. He died in
'74, he was a diabetic, of insulin shock .