The Serendipity Singers were a 1960s American folk group, similar to The New Christy Minstrels. Their debut single "Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)" was a Top Ten hit and received the group's only Grammy nomination in 1965. The majority of the group's recording sales took place in a two-year period of 1964 and 1965. The group's name was sold in the 1970s resulting in entirely new lineups of group members performing under the name The Serendipity Singers into the early 21st Century.
History
As The Newport Singers
This nine-member folk-oriented group started at the University of Colorado with seven original members of a group called the Newport Singers. The members - Bryan Sennett (14 March 1940 - 7 September 2011), Brooks Hatch, Mike Brovsky, John Madden, Jon Arbenz (1 June 1940 - 1 February 2012), Bob Young (12 March 1939 - 16 September 2006) and Lynne Weintraub - had, with the exception of Weintraub, all previously worked together in various trios before coming together to form the Newport Singers.
In 1963, after working extensively in the Rocky Mountain Denver-Boulder Front Range region, the Newport Singers moved to New York City based on a telegram offering a record contract from a William Morris agent. Fred Weintraub (no relation to Lynne), then-owner of the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, agreed to manage the group. Weintraub, also at the time the talent co-coordinator for the popular ABC Hootenanny television series, felt the group needed two more people to round out the sound. He invited Tom Tiemann and Diane Decker, two University of Texas students whom he had heard, to New York for an audition.
As The Serendipity Singers
Fred Weintraub proposed the name change from the Newport Singers to Serendipity in part because there was another performing act using the Newport name. After some considerable discussion, a compromise was reached, and they became the Serendipity Singers. After several months of rehearsal and work with Bob Bowers who became the group’s musical director, the Serendipity Singers opened at Weintraub's Bitter End café. They played in Greenwich Village with 90% original songs and were signed to six appearances on the weekly Hootenanny show during the fall of 1963. The success of the television exposure helped the band land its first record contract.
The Philips Records years (1964–1966) Philips Records signed them in 1964 and released their debut album to considerable sales success. Entering the Hot 100 at #90 on February 29, 1964, the debut single "Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)" climbed to #6 on 2–9 May 1964 and also hit #2 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart, right in the middle of Beatlemania. The song was nominated for a Grammy at the 7th Grammy Awards (their only Grammy nomination) in 1965 for Best Performance by a Chorus though losing to The Swingle Singers who won for "Going Baroque." The follow-up, "Beans in My Ears", hit #30 on the Hot 100 and #5 on the AC chart a few months later. "Beans in My Ears" was banned in Boston, by Pittsburgh's KDKA radio station, and "some television shows asked us to do something different. Understandably so--it was dangerous," according to Bryan Sennett. "Obviously, (the song) was a statement about adults not listening to children." The singers were told not to perform the song on their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, December 27, 1964; they performed "Every Time I Hear the Spirit." The group also released a French language extended play record entitled, "Chantent en Français," that included a French version of the Beatles song, "And I Love Her".