Barbara Mason, The Whispers, The Chi-Lites, Trish Toledo, MC Magic, Amanda Perez, los yesterdays, and The Charities

The Whispers came together in 1964, in California, and they were made up of twin brothers Wallace and Walter Scott. Wallace Scott was the voice of the band and was the lead singer on the vast majority of their hits. The Whispers were officially hit makers with the height of their fame being the 1970s and 1980s. Their first breakthrough into Top 40 was the song “Rock Steady”, which made it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making it to number 7.

They are a band that originally started their career on a major label, but decided to downsize to a smaller label based in Los Angeles called Soul Clock. They were lead by Ron Carson, who became responsible for their huge hit, “Seem Like I Got To Do Wrong” in 1970. Moving again to a larger label called Janus, they decided to stick to working with Carson; however, during the height of their career the band was signed to SOLAR Records who were led by Dick Griffey. Much later in their career they started their own label called Satin Tie Productions, and released an album called “For Your Ears Only”.

They have been responsible for some very memorable performances indeed such as their performance of the National Anthem at the 1989 World Series.

It was in 2014, that The Whispers were inducted into The R&B Music Hall of Fame. The “And the Beat Goes On” singers still perform to this day.

Originally performing under the name Hi-Lites, the band released a few singles through local labels. With a departure from Johnson in 1964 and after discovering that the name Hi-Lites was already in existence, the band reworked their name to also pay homage to their home town Chicago, becoming known as The Chi-Lites. In 1969 they released their debut album “Give It Away” through Brunswick Records and charted in Billboard’s Top Soul LP’s at number 16. Featuring the title single as well as “Let Me Be the Man My Daddy Was” and “24 Hours of Sadness”, it also included three Mo-town covers.

The 1971 single “Have You Seen Her” marked the start of the band’s climb to success as it peaked at number three in the Billboard charts and was smashed the following year with their number one single “Oh Girl” from the album “A Lonely Man”, which became their highest charting album at number five and saw the band go global. After the release of the 1977 album “The Fantastic Chi-Lites”, communication broke down between members and consequently forced the band to go on a brief break.

Returning in 1980 full force with Record, Thompson, Lester and Jones in the line-up, they released the album “Heavenly Body” featuring the title track and the single “The Only One For Me (One in a Million)”. Subsequent years would bring a string of unfortunate events which would once again impact the final line-up leaving it with Marshall Thompson, his wife Tara and Fred Simpson to continue the Chi-Lites legacy. With a number of hit singles and a repertoire spanning over five decades has seen The Chi-Lites recognised not only through Grammy nominations but sworn into the R&B Hall of Fame in 2013.