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Main Event ... Join Us!

Press Play to Listen to Background Information about My Friendship with Jack Carlson and Our Early Days

See Forum for more information on our Special Concert.

See "Roomates, At the Hop with SaddleBrookeTimes" YouTube Photo Video or

 

Watch Our Extended Tribute to Jack Carlson and The Roomates!

Note: Steve Webb of the british Roomates recently commented (May '09) to me ... "great photos and great group, never got the credit they deserved. The Roomates on their own had one of the most distinctive group sounds of the era , you could tell a Roomates' recording from a mile away."

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The Roomates aka The Roommates (Queens, New York)


Personnel :

Steve Susskind (Lead)

Jack Carlson (First Tenor and Falsetto)

Felix Alvarez (Second Tenor)

Bob Minsky (Bass)


Discography :

The Roomates

1960 - I Want A Little Girl / Making Believe (Promo 2211)
1961 - Glory Of Love / Never Knew (Valmor 008)
1961 - Band Of Gold / O Baby Love (Valmor 010)
1961 - My Foolish Heart / My Kisses For Your Thoughts (Valmor 013)
1961 - Gee / One Summer Night / Never Knew / Glory Of Love / Come Go With Me / To The Aisle (Valmor LP 789)
1963 - Answer Me, My Love / Gee (Philips 40105)
1963 - The Nearness Of You / Please Don't Cheat On Me (Philips 40153)
N/A - Yes My Love (Relic LP 5041)
N/A - The Only Girl For Me (Relic LP 5041)
N/A - Song Of The Dreamer (Relic LP 5041)
N/A - To The Aisle (Relic LP 5041)
N/A - Come Go With Me (Valmor)
N/A - One Summer Night (Valmor)

1984 - Please Don't Cheat On Me / My Heart Belongs To Only You / Band Of Gold / Sunday Kind Of Love / Answer Me My Love / Gee / My Foolish Heart / My Heart / Making Believe / Glory Of Love / The Nearness Of You / Yes My Love / A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening / To The Aisle / I Want A Little Girl / Song Of The Dreamer / Oh Baby Love / The Only Girl For Me (Relic LP 5041)

The Roomates
1960 - My Heart / Just For Tonight (Canadian American 166)
1962 - Sunday Kind Of Love / A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening (Cameo 233)

Background: Much of the information, photos and music was collected from the Internet. However, Old Friend "Jack Carlson" provided lots more. Click on the player to hear some of Jack's comments.

Jack Said ...

Biography :

From Kew Gardens, Queens New York, the Roomates were fifteen year old Steve Susskind and Bob Minsky of Russell Sage Junior High.

The Roomates had been formed in school by two friends, Steve Susskind and Bob Minsky. Bob had been the lead singer for a group called the Sparklers, and Steve joined as backup vocalist. After several attempts at getting a recording contract to no avail, Steve and Bob felt some changes were needed. Steve, who was having trouble singing the bass parts in the backup vocals, took over as lead singer, and the group changed names.

The new vocal group was to be called the Roomates, since Steve and Bob had been in the same home room in junior high school.

After several personnel changes, they recruited Jack Carlson and Felix Alvarez to join them.

In 1959, the group placed second in a talent contest at Forest Hills High School, having the misfortune to be in the same contest as a duo called Tom & Jerry, who won the contest (and later became Simon & Garfunkel).

Preview "Hey School Girl" (1957)

Preview "Baby Talk" (1959)

The 1960 members included Steve Susskind (lead), Jack Carlson (first tenor and falsetto), Felix Alvarez (second tenor) and Bob Minsky (bass). Three of the Roomates were from Kew Gardens (Bob, Jack and Felix) and one was from Forest Hills (Steve).

The group practiced after school and began writing songs. Realizing the songs weren't good enough they began going through their 45s to find workable material coming up with "One Summer Night" and "The Glory of Love." The group often sang in the lobby of the Forest Hills apartment building where Jody Malis lived. Malis was the record librarian at WMGM radio, which had one of the nation's first top 40 formats. Along with her husband Gene she signed them to a management contract.

Demo of "Glory of Love" Demo of "I Want a Little Girl"

The Roomates didn't have much luck peddling their demo to Brill Building companies, and one of their friends' fathers suggested they see a couple they knew in the music business, Gene and Jody Malis. The group came over to the Malis' apartment several times, and by the third time had polished their act enough that Jody placed the Roomates' first record with the Promo label (this was before Valmor was born). Promo was hot on the heels of their Jimmy Charles hit, "A Million to One." The Roomates' Promo 45 [Promo 2211, released 1960] was a remake of Kitty Wells' 1955 country hit "Making Believe," backed with a new recording of their demo original, "I Want a Little Girl." The single didn't sell very well, but they did do some regional tours with Jimmy Charles. Perhaps it was the mild success that the Roomates enjoyed that prompted Gene and Jody to take another try at running their own record label. In any case, they founded Valmor about this time.

If the Roomates were off to mild success in the summer of 1960, Cathy Jean Giordano was another matter. Barely fifteen years old in the fall of 1960, she had dreams of becoming an opera singer. The problem was, she couldn't sing. Jody Malis was aware of this, but looked for the right material for a possible one-hit gamble. She tried an experiment, and had Cathy record "Canadian Sunset" in an unusual way. Instead of lyrics, she sang the melody by using wordless "woos" and "oohs," resulting in a sort of instrumental, with one of the instruments being her voice. Unexceptional, but pleasant enough for a "B" side. Malis also dropped Cathy's last name, sticking with just Cathy Jean.

Jody had liked the song "Please Love Me Forever," which had been performed by an obscure R&B group, the Sedates [MRB 171], when she had heard it come in to WMGM about a year earlier. She gave it a try with Cathy Jean. If "Canadian Sunset" had been passable, "Please Love Me Forever" was a definite problem. Cathy Jean's voice grated against the stark instrumentation of a guitar, piano, and drums. Noting that two other similar singers of the time (Kathy Young and the Innocents and Rosie & the Originals) used backup groups to soften the lead singer's impact, she recruited the Roomates to overdub background vocals.

The group disliked the song, and disliked the idea of being a backup group on someone else's record. When they heard the playbacks, they disliked their performance even more. They disliked it so much that they offered to pay for the overdub session out of their own pockets if Valmor would not release it! But Jody wasn't having any of that; in fact, she did know a hit when she heard one. As a bonus, having both Cathy Jean and the Roomates on a hit record allowed her to promote both.

"Please Love Me Forever" by Cathy Jean and the Roomates, backed with "Canadian Sunset" by Cathy Jean, was the first single on the Malis' new Valmor label [Valmor #007, released September, 1960]. By February, 1961, it was up to #2 on WMGM's Your Hits of the Week program, where it stayed for several weeks. It peaked nationally a couple of months later, and sold over a quarter of a million copies. It even resurrected interest in the original version by the Sedates, which was reissued by 20th Century after the Valmor version hit [20th Century had picked up the original MRB record in 1959 and reissued it as 20th Century 1011. In 1961, they reissued it as 20th Century 1212].

The Roomates, even though they got half the royalties for the hit, never felt it was "theirs." In fact, although they appeared in person and on other records with Cathy Jean (and got along well with her, personally), they never recorded with her at the same session, always being brought in for overdub sessions. The record "Please Love Me Forever" became a local smash hit in New York and sold 253,000 copies.

Near the end of 1961 the group recorded the background for "Make Me Smile Again" with Cathy Jean. It was at this time that the first Lp of Cathy and The Roomates was cut entitled At The Hop with The Roomates songs on side one and Cathy songs on side two and perfomed "I Only Want You", "Please Love Me Forever" with the boys (among others). The next record of Cathy & The Roomates was "Please Tell Me" a cover of a Youngtones tune and this was to be Cathy's last recording with the group. This song was recorded in 1962 for Valmor Records.

Cathy Jean Girodano with The Roomates L to R. Bob Minski, Cathy, Mr. Blues (Dee Jay), Steve Susskind and Jack Carlson.

"Please Love Me Forever" won Murray the K's Boss record of the Week on WINS in New York City in late 1960.

On February 27th it entered the Billboard Hot 100 and by April it was at number twelve, reaching number two in New York. None of Cathy's follow-ups sold many copies.

Preview "Please Love Me Forever"

As a reward for their part in "Please Love Me Forever" The Malises gave the Roomates a free session at the Regent Sound Studio. On November 25, 1960, the Roomates recorded five songs of their own at Regent Sound Studio, including "Band of Gold," "Glory of Love," "The Only Girl For Me," "O Baby Love," and "Never Knew." The group had been wanting to record their favorite song, "Glory of Love," for some time. The session was recorded in stereo, although the two-track tapes have not been released with the exception of a very tightly-mixed "Glory of Love." On that song, according to Steve Susskind's recall (to Paul Heller), he started with the other members of the group at one microphone for the harmony beginning of the song, then tiptoed over to the other microphone in his stocking feet to sing lead. Even though Steve sang the wrong lyrics, Gene Malis came running in yelling "It's a take! It's a take!" It was issued as Valmor's second single [Valmor #008], backed with "Never Knew." Although it only made it to the middle of the top 100 nationally, it was a New York hit, as was their next single, "Band of Gold" [Valmor 10].

Jack recently commented ...

"One of the biggest regrets I have about those days is that I never thought to buy and USE a camera. It seems that we lived in the moment and never considered saving the memories.

Steve is the only one who took any pictures and that was a rare afterthought. Most of the time he didn't take the camera with us.
Now I think about all the great photos we COULD HAVE had !  All the famous people we met and did shows with like: Neal Sedaka, Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker, Tokens, Jive Five, Dion, Capris, Jay & Americans, Brenda Lee, Little Anthony, Chimes, Shep & Limelights, Santo & Johnny, just to name a few. 

We didn't even get copies of our TV appearences on Dick Clark's & Clay Cole's shows. Now they are not available."

 

""Glory of Love" entered the charts and rose to #49. "Band of Gold," made it into the top twenty in New York, but failed to chart nationally for a technical reason.

Preview "Glory of Love" Preview "Band of Gold"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The

 

 

The Roomates did lots of local shows in and around the NYC Metropolitan area, as well as Philadelphia, PA (Dick Clark's American Bandstand) to promote their records and the At the Hop album.

American Bandstand, Alan Freed, Clay Cole, Murray the K and lots more!

Tony Orlando and Jack ... Having Fun!

Listen to Our Collection of Roomates Music

(Click on Album Cover to Purchase)

By March '62, the Roomates were already an "established Success". See Long Island Post newspaper article.

Before Valmor Records closed down in 1962 a Cathy and the Roomates album was issued. (LP-789 - At the Hop - Cathy Jean & Roomates [1961] The original issue of this album has a picture of Cathy Jean on the left side and the Roomates on the right side. The titles are listed at the bottom on a yellow strip. The back cover has extensive liner notes about Cathy Jean and the Roomates and Jody Cameron. Side one features Cathy Jean backed by the Roomates, while side two is the Roomates without Cathy. Cathy Jean & Roomates: I Only Want You/Please Love Me Forever/Turn Me Loose/Make Me Smile Again/Sugar Cake/There Goes My Heart//Roomates: Gee/One Summer Night/Never New/Glory Of Love/Come Go With Me/To The Aisle)

Preview "One Summer Night" Preview "Come Go With Me"

Preview "To The Isle" Preview "Gee"

George Rodriguez was added to the Roomates. Versions of "Gee" and "A Sunday Kind of Love" were recorded, but no one was buying. In the spring of 1965 the Roommates disbanded. We didn't really break up ..... it was more like we stopped our part time (weekend) career singing & doing a few record hops, to get on with our lives. We all got married & had real jobs & futures to get on with. We always said ......  "You don't see too many 45 year old Rock & Roll singers".  In those days you didn't!  So we just kinda faded into the background.  After all it was alot of records since our 3 hits on Valmor in 1961 & 1962.  Sure was great fun !!  No money but how many guys can say they had a hit record OR two! I guess the British invasion had alot to do with the general direction of top 40 radio. We didn't fit into that future as did all the Doowop groups.

Preview Sunday Kind of Love

We did some background vocals on a couple of other records. 

One we did for Sunny Gale  "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" in 1964.  Another was a real thrill for us & me in particular.  Mary Ann Mobly (Miss. America 1959) recorded a song I wrote & we did the backup.  I still remember very well going down to the studio to meet & sing with MISS. AMERICA !!!  It got some NY airplay , but never did much (Except for our egos)  This was the song that we recorded with Felix doing the lead. It was never released.  Another group called The Intimates recorded it too.

The only Girl (Boy) for me & I Want A Little Girl are the only songs I (Jack) wrote that were recorded. 

Preview "The Only Girl for Me" Lead by Felix (not released)

Preview "The Only Boy for Me" Mary Ann Moble version

Preview "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" Sunny Gale

Cathy Jean later got married and quit the business. With her children grown Cathy is back. As Cathy Jean Ruiz she sings with a new version of the Roomates and has hosted a Saturday morning talk show on WNYG in Long Island, NY.

Jack and Felix met Cathy Jean at her concert, and even performed Please Love Me Forever with her at her concert in May of 2000!

We had all lost touch with Felix ... Felix surprised Cathy! Sweet Memories

Cathy Jean and The Roomates remained friends over the years.

Jack Remembers His Friend Tony Orlando over the years too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack and Tony Orlando remained friends through the years ... 2002 (40 Years Later).

Jack Said ...

The Roomates get together for a last reunion .... California, May '04

The Roomates held a reunion in California in May '04 ... Here the guys are having fun reviewing Cash Box and Story Untold from the good old days back then!

Our Last Rock & Roll Show on May 24, 2004 (Wish You could hear the music ... Listen to our Jukebox for The Roomates' music)

We're All Gonna Miss You ...

Preview "Never Knew" Preview "My Foolish Heart"

Jack Said ...

Steve Susskind ("Steve Susskind, 62; Actor, Announcer and Voice-Over Specialist") enjoyed success from 1982 until 2005 as a character actor, appearing in 50+ movies and shows including Friday the 13th: 3D, and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier -- he was killed in an automobile accident on January 21, 2005.

After battling lung cancer, Bob Minsky died on August 25, 2006.

Jack Carlson lives in the midwest today, and Felix Alverez remained in the East.

Some Online Video Performances:

 

 

Please Love Me Forever ...

 

I Only Want You ...

The Roomates, At the Hop with SaddleBrookeTimes (Our Production)

 

Tribute to the Roomates, Extended Edition (Our Production)

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