Doo Wop Groups of the '50s and '60s Say 'Enough!' to Bogus Bands

Nov. 30, 2007 — -- The doo wop era of the 1950s and '60s gave us so many memorable songs and famous groups. Like "Charlie Brown" and "Yakety Yak" by the Coasters, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "The Great Pretender" by the Platters, and "Under the Boardwalk" and "On Broadway" by the Drifters.

"20/20" attended an outdoor concert in New York City a few months ago by the Elsbeary Hobbs Drifters. They sang the Drifters' hits, but the singers appeared young. They didn't look old enough to have bought the records, let alone to have recorded them. Well, one older guy maybe, but not the others. What's going on here?

Jon "Bowzer" Bauman, ex-leader of Sha Na Na, calls it a "sophisticated form of identity theft."

Bauman, now of Bowzer's Rock 'N' Roll Party travels with America lobbying politicians, because he's mad that groups with no members of the original band that recorded the hits profit from the work of musicians who were the real Platters, Coasters and Drifters.

Bowzer said promoters come up with as many of these groups as are needed on any given night.

"If you were to call the source of these groups -- and let's say it's New Year's Eve and they already have 15 dates -- and you were to say, 'I want it for my party' … a 16th group would suddenly form," Bowzer said.

"They are the three most valuable group names of the Doo Wop era," Bowzer said of the Coasters, Drifters and Platters. "It's no accident that those are the victims, because how many hit records did those three groups have, in aggregate? Well, over 100 hit records between the three groups."

Many of the original Drifters, Coasters and Platters have died, but others like Charlie Thomas and Ben E. King of the Drifters still perform their great hits like "There Goes My Baby" and "This Magic Moment."

King and Thomas say with so many fake Drifters performing, they lose jobs because the phonies perform for less. Despite having had such huge hits, these singers are anything but rich.

"I wish I could find the money," Thomas said. "I guess it's spread out amongst the phonies ... And [Ben] and I should have a yacht and be in Acapulco someplace, laying back up under a coconut tree."