A Brooklyn street corner group formed in 1959, they originally
called themselves the Capris until they found out that friends of theirs
from Rockaway Beach in Long Island were already using that name. So
Lenny Cocco and company renamed themselves The Chimes. The original
Brooklyn quintet's lead singer Lenny Cocco, was into standards at an
early age since his father was a professional accordion player. Lenny's
father, Leonard, thought Tommy Dorsey's 1937 number one hit "Once
In Awhile" would work well in a vocal quintet arrangement, so the
group began practicing in a local pool hall that had a piano. By the
fall of 1960 "Once In Awhile", was hitting the Billboards
national charts. Lenny Coco who in a nearly 60 year career became a
doo-wop mainstay throughout the metropolitan New York area died May 8, 2013,
he was 78 years old.
This is a non-profit, informational web page, meant to be a
reminder of the music we listened to 50 years ago. Use of copyrighted
material is consistent with the "fair use" provisions contained in
section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976; the use of copyrighted material is
of a nonprofit, educational nature, intended for the sole purposes of
research and comment and does not significantly negatively affect "the
potential market for or value of the copyrighted work(s)."