Voices / Brothers And Sisters / Extentions / Cindy And The Playmates Interview

[boba]

Hi. Today on my radio show I interviewed members of the South Side Chicago group female group the Voices. The Voices were originally formed by record producer Richard Pegue to add additional background vocals on his tracks and advertisements; they originally sang backup on Pegue's track "I'm not ready to settle town" by Little Ben and the Cheers. Member Margaret Norfleet was a sister of the Cheers (and had a background in gospel as her uncles were the Norfleet singers). Member Cynthia Redd also had a background singing in church; her brothers were members of the legendary Chicago doowop group the Debonairs. Member Dale Myrick also had a gospel background but had sung in different R&B girl groups in high school. The group originally did not even have a name and were just session vocalists working for Pegue.

Pegue eventually decided to record the group on their own, coming up with the name "The Voices". Pegue initially released "Fall in love again" (with an instrumental flip) on his Penny label in 1967; the track got some play in Chicago. Pegue released a follow up "Forever is a long long time" in 1968. He didn't release any more records on the group but continued to use them for backing vocals and on advertisements.

In the late 60s the group began doing session work for Bill Meeks' Al-Teen record label. The group sang backup for many artists on the label, most notably on Sunday Williams' hit "Ain't got no problems." On the label the group also backed Johnny McCall and Earl Duff.

In the late 60s, Margaret Norfleet joined a studio group that Pegue created called the Brothers and Sisters. The group consisted of Margaret, Pat James (Pegue's wife at the time), and two members of the Norvells, Claude Wyatt and William Smith. The group recorded several socially conscious, "uplift", style records, most notably, "I am somebody", based on Jesse Jackson's famous speech. The records were done in the style of old spirituals. The other members of the Voices added extra backup to the records. Pegue decided to form a new studio group out of exactly the same members, called the Extentions, recording under a new, psychedelic, female-led style (similar to the Rotary Connection). The Extentions released two records -- "This love of mine" and "Your heart belongs to me" (a cover of the Supremes hit).

In the early 70s Pegue sent Dale Myrick and Cynthia Redd to help producer Jim Porter tutor a young female group he was trying to develop. Margaret was unavailable as she was touring with her brothers the Cheers. At the time Porter was trying to produce several kiddie, bubblegum sounding groups. At a recording session, one of the members of the female group didn't show up and Porter asked Cynthia and Dale to sing. They didn't click with the remaining members and Porter ended up forming a whole new group with two members of Cynthia's church group. Porter called the group "Cindy and the Playmates". Porter released a record "What are we gonna do (now that school is through)" on the group. Although the group members were older and even had kids that were in school, the track had a strong Jackson 5 bubblegum, kiddie sound. Porter heavily promoted the record and even had the original female group tour as Cindy and the Playmates, lip-syncing to the record. The record got play in Chicago and did get distributed to other cities.

A follow up record, "Don't stop this train", was intended to be used as a theme for the local Channel 26 Soul Train show but was really only played on the show a few times. The record was pressed twice; one of the pressings had a nice flip side called "A portrait of god's love" (which was also done by the Eight Minutes on their LP, as "I love you"). The group did some more unreleased recordings for Porter, and did some additional backing vocals for other Porter recordings, but did not release any more material.

All three women have continued to be involved with singing in their respective churches. You can listen to the interview on my interviews page at:

https://www.sittingin...interviews.html

thanks,

Bob