See the pyramids along the Nile…or keep it here in Red Bank, when The Duprees appear as part of a Holiday Doo Wop fest on the Count Basie stage.
It’s a concert event as big as the famous Count Basie stage — and as intimate as a streetcorner in the old neighborhood, especially given the shout-outs to local candy stores, and other landmarks of long-ago Brooklyn, North Jersey and the Bronx. Substitute the corner lamppost with a candy-striped North Pole and you’ve got the Holiday Doo Wop edition of the popular oldies package-show series, coming to station stop Red Bank on Saturday, December 6.
In this latest presentation from promoter LAR Enterprises, a jukebox worth of 1950s (and early 60s) chart-toppers are chased with some period-perfect arrangements of seasonal standards, on a bill headlined by two of the era’s genuine hitmaking machines — Jersey City’s own Duprees (“My Own True Love,” “Have You Heard” and the sublime “You Belong to Me”), and Herb Reed’s 2014 edition of The Platters (“Only You,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “The Great Pretender”).
There’s more in store, from several acts who may not have sold millions of discs back in the day, but who’ve proven themselves crowdpleasing favorites many times over — including Eugene Pitt and the Jive Five (“My True Story”), Jimmy Gallagher & The Passions (“Just to Be with You”), The Chantels (“Maybe”), and The Harptones (“Life is But a Dream,” a 1955 recording best known from its decades-later appearance in the film Goodfellas). There’s even a next-generation nod to the vocal-soul tradition of the New York metro area, courtesy of Dennis Dorrity and his All Stars.
Tickets for Saturday’s 7:30 pm performance ($45 – $60) are available right here.