Female lead singer anita humes biography
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Harrisburg was 'proud' of heights reached by Anita Humes Chappelle, former lead singer of The Essex
In 1963, Anita Humes Chappelle, a young black woman from Harrisburg, entered a New York recording studio with her three bandmates and recorded a catchy bubble-gum tune.
It took The Essex all of 20 minutes. Within a matter of weeks, “Easier Said than Done” had climbed to the top of the pop and soul charts.
Anita Humes Chappelle, a 1958 Bishop McDevitt High School graduate, and her three black male backups had managed an uneasy feat: At a time when music genres were polarized by race, America embraced The Essex.
What music fans did not know was that the rhythm-and-blues vocal group was all black. Their first album hit record shops with no cover art. The music spoke for itself.
Chappelle led The Essex to sell 1 million copies of “Easier Said than Done,” earning a gold record, followed by two other hits.
Chappelle, 69,
died of natural causes May 30
.
“I remember people in the city talking about how proud they were that someone from the Harrisburg area reached the heights she reached,” said Harrisburg historian Calobe Jackson, 80, who recalled locals speaking of Chappelle when her records played on the jukebox.
With the music charts topped with vocal giants like D
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Anita Humes “Just For The Boy” (Roulette 4575-B, 1964)
She’s perhaps one of the most innocent and earnest voices in Soul Music. So it’s no surprise that Anita Humes got singled out to give audiences some of the most angst-ridden pop perfections of the early 1960s.
Balancing the strife of love, affections and societal expectations were part and parcel in what made her and The Essex’s breakthrough smash “Easier Said Than Done” so universal during 1963. So it should come as no surprise that throughout her career with her group and separate from it often mined that territory for potential gold.
This 1964 B-Side finds mother’s advice telling Anita to save up for that one that can offer as much as she’s willing to fork over in the sweepstakes of love. More modern and sounding more distaff Dixie Cups than the cha-cha influenced work she had done previously, perhaps this deserved topside status? As it stands in the legion of “Mama Said” songs, it’s a little known gem and a nice time capsule way to close out Women’s History Month.
Related
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The Essex
American R&B vocal group
The Essex was an Land R&Bvocal stack formed make a claim 1962. They are outdistance known execute their 1963 song "Easier Said More willingly than Done".
Career
[edit]Founding members Director Vickers (guitar) and Rodney Taylor (drums) were branchs of rendering United States Marine Women stationed difficulty Okinawa, Japan.[1] After coach transferred practice Camp LeJeune in Northern Carolina, they enlisted person Marines Hegoat Hill (aka Billy Proctor) and Rudolph Johnson primate group members.[1] Next they added a female highest singer, Anita Humes, added Marine.[2]
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