The Chords

The Chords were not a group that settled for sounding good in the Bronx subway. Their sound—doo-wop with harmonies that tangled like old, yet perfect wires—eventually landed them on the charts when someone heard them singing between trains. The curious part? Their first single wasn’t even theirs: the label Cat Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records, forced them to record a cover of Cross Over the Bridge by Patti Page on side A, while side B featured Sh-Boom, a song they had written themselves. That track, with its a cappella intro that sounds like a whisper turning into a shout, exploded in 1954: it reached the top 10 of the US pop charts, and, as a side effect, The Crew-Cuts’ cover—with its “shh-boom, yadda da da”—pushed it to number one. But here’s the irony: The Chords’ original version didn’t have those nonsense syllables. They simply had a melody that, unintentionally, became the first major rock and roll hit to cross genres without asking for permission.

The trouble started when Gem Records claimed their name. Since another group was already registered as Chords, they had to rebrand as Chordcats, and suddenly their moment vanished. They released more songs, but none matched the impact of Sh-Boom. History remembers them for that track, but also for how they faded away: lineup changes, labels that didn’t believe in them, and, by 1960, their definitive breakup. The pianist Rupert Branker died in 1961 during a robbery in Los Angeles, closing a decade that had put them on the map by accident and left them with no future.