A slightly belated tribute to Ralph Tavares who died last week (8 Dec)
two days before his 80h birthday. Heaven Is no longer missing an angel!
Ralph is in centre
Tavares were a very successful group in the 70s and consisted of various
combinations over the years of seven of ten brothers from Rhode Island,
Providence, John, Ralph, Arthur (Pooch), Antone (Chubby), Victor, Feliciano
Jr. (Butch) and Perry Lee (Tiny).
When most of us think of
Tavares, their 70s hits spring immediately to mind, tunes like "Heaven Must
Be Missing An Angel", "Don't Take Away The Music", "It Only Takes A Minute"
in particular and possibly "More Than A Woman" which featured in the
Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. However this family group of brothers goes
back much earlier than that. The four older brothers Ralph, Antone (Chubby),
Arthur (Pooch) and their cousin, Peter 'Boo' Nicholaus were in a group The
Del Tios formed by eldest brother John in the late 50s (around 1959). They
often backed a singer called Linda Steele and it was during one of these
shows that they were spotted by the owner of Sue Records Juggy Murray Jones
who signed them to his Crackerjack subsidiary where they recorded just
one single "Come On, Let Me Try" / "I Don't Want To Be Loved (Not By Him)"
as Linda & The Del Rios before disbanding.
Boo left to pursue a solo career, and John and Ralph left and later Ralph
joined the Army.
Chubby (Antone), Pooch (Arthur) and Butch (Feliciano Jr.) formed a new
group called Chubby & The Realities. When Ralph was discharged from the Army in 1964 he joined them. After
gigging for several years they secured a recording contract with Capitol
Records in 1967 and were advised by the label to change their name, as they
thought The Realities was too old fashioned, which they dutifully did to
Chubby & The Turnpikes.
Their first single under the new name "I Know The Inside Story" / "I Didn't
Try" was released in 1967 followed by "Cast A Spell" / "Nothing but
Promises" in 1968 with the addition of another brother Victor to the line-up
and another change of name to simply The Turnpikes. The singles did well locally but not well enough nationally and they were
dropped by the label.
They spent the next few years performing as a show band until 1972 when
they sent some demos to Capitol records. One was a cover of The Friends Of
Distinction B side to "I Need You" single from 1969, "Check It
Out", and another "The Judgement Day" was chosen for their first single
as Tavares and released in 1973. It went to #5 R&B and #35 Billboard Hot
100 and, as they say, the rest is history as nine of their first eleven
singles were all top 10 R&B hits (three were #1)
with the other two just outside at #11 and #14.
Victor left the group after "Check It Out" to pursuer a solo career.
Based on the success of the single they recorded their debut album with the
same title in 1974 produced by Johnny Bristol.
They never achieved a Top 10 pop hit in the US but had four in the UK
between 1976-78 with the three tracks from the introduction above and also
"Whodunit" in 1977 but the hits in the UK dried up by 1978 except for two
reissues/remixes of "Heaven" and "Minute" in 1986.
Their first #1 was in 1974 with a cover of Hall & Oates "She's
Gone" which Hall & Oates re-issued (they originally
released it in 1973 from the their second album, "Abandoned Luncheonette")
after Tavares success and finally had a hit with it themselves
Much of the information above was culled from this very in depth article on
Ripomusic which Ralph Tavares contributed to.
Below I've cherry picked some of their best tracks from what is available
on Spotify including their first release as Linda & The Del Rios and
Chubby & The Turnpikes / The Turnpikes for historical purposes. I've
also included The Friends Of Distinction's original version of "Check It
Out". I also found very good quality footage of The Turrnpikes performing
"Nothing But Promises", Ralph is on the left.
Album Discography
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