The Penguins were an American doo-wop group of the 1950s and early 1960s, who formed in 1954 with members Cleveland Duncan (lead vocal), Curtis Williams (tenor vocal), Dexter Tisby (baritone vocal), and Bruce Tate (tenor vocal).

Duncan and Williams were former classmates at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, California, and Williams had become a member of The Hollywood Flames. In late 1953, they decided to form a new vocal group, and added Tisby and Tate. What inspired their name, says Cleve, was Willie the Penguin, the cartoon logo character in Kool mentholated cigarette ads. This was a time when many young black vocal groups, inspired by late-’40s proto-doo-wop groups The Orioles and The Ravens, named themselves after birds. “What was more cool than a penguin?” Cleve says now, with a smile.

Williams and Gaynel Hodge were previously members of The Hollywood Flames, where they began writing “Earth Angel” with mentor Jesse Belvin, also a Fremont High graduate.

I was singing at a talent show at the California Club on Santa Barbara Avenue” says Cleve, “and Curtis Williams came up afterward and wanted to know if I’d form a group with him.” Curtis Williams had recently left The Hollywood Flames, with whom he had recorded a couple of singles. “So Curtis got [baritone] Bruce Tate from his high school [Jefferson] and I got [tenor] Dexter Tisby from my high school [Fremont]. We learned a few songs, got on some talent shows, sang in some clubs. Then Ted Brinson heard us and got involved.

“Earth Angel” was recorded as a literal garage demo—it was recorded in a home garage at the Los Angeles home of Ted Brinson (a relative of Dootsie Williams, who was a big band veteran and performs bass guitar on the track). The garage was used as the primary recording space of Dootsie Williams for all of his Dootone artists.

The drums were muffled with pillows so as to not overwhelm the vocals. A neighbor’s pet dog stopped many takes by barking.
Everytime the dog barked next door, I’d have to go out and shut him up, and then we’d do another take.

remembered Williams. Williams performs piano on the track, with Preston Epps on bongos (though this unconfirmed), as well as an unknown drummer.

Before his death in 1991, Walter “Dootsie” Williams, owner of Dootone Records, recalled that he first heard about The Penguins from Brinson.

He had a backyard studio over on 30th Street between Arlington and Western that was very economical, so I recorded there. My stuff was mostly songwriters demos then. They’d pay me $300 and I’d record their song. So I heard the group and liked them.

But Dootsie Williams’ was first and foremost a music publisher, and what drew him to The Penguins was that they had brought him a couple of original songs called “Earth Angel” and “Hey, Senorita” (formerly “Esa Chiquita’).

He recorded both songs as demos at Brinson’s studio sometime in the late summer of 1954, and then got an unexpected amount of local airplay.

Williams carried a rough acetate dub with him to Dolphin’s of Hollywood All Night Record Shop, a local record store, to gauge shop owner John Dolphin’s opinion. Dolphin broadcast a late-night rhythm and blues broadcast from his store, and KGFJ disc jockey Dick Hugg was sitting in. Hugg played both sides of the single, and by the next morning, requests began coming in for the song. As a result, Williams abandoned an idea to overdub additional instrumentation and began immediate manufacturing of the 7″ single to issue it as soon as possible. Still convinced “Hey Señorita” would be the hit, it was pressed to the A-side; disc jockeys soon began flipping the record in favor of “Earth Angel”.

The demand for “Earth Angel” nearly bankrupted Dootone, because he had to keep pressing new records even though distributors across the country weren’t paying him for copies already sold. Producer Walter Williams ran out of label paper, leading the single to be pressed on multiple colored labels. It made its first appearance in Billboard as a territorial hit for Los Angeles, becoming the second best-selling R&B single in Los Angeles for the second week of October 1954. It climbed to number one for the city by November 13, after which it began to grow in popularity in New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Nashville. “Earth Angel” became the first independent label release to appear on Billboard‘s national pop charts, where it peaked within the top 10. It was a big hit on the magazine’s R&B charts, where it remained number one for several weeks.

The Penguins’ only hit, it eventually sold in excess of 10 million copies. The original recording of the song remained an enduring hit single for much of the 1950s, and it is now considered to be one of the definitive doo-wop songs. In 2005, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, deeming it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically important.”

The Penguins toured back east, appeared at the Apollo Theater and at Alan Freed’s Brooklyn Paramount rock ‘n’ roll shows, and performed for a national audience on “The Ed Sullivan Show. During this period they enjoyed the status of hitmakers, sharing the stage with greats like Louis Jordan, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington. But despite some good recordings, they couldn’t come up with a successful follow-up to “Earth Angel.

Though competent, their 1957-58 recordings lacked the old fire of the earlier Dootone and Mercury sides, and none of them sold. Demoralized, The Penguins broke up. Cleve Duncan tried something different by recording one single with sisters Gladys and Vesta White (The Radiants), but it likewise went nowhere.

Forming a new Penguins in the early 60’s as a trio – Cleve, baritone Walter Saulsberry and tenor/bass Glen Madison (formerly of The Delcos) they recorded a couple more singles for local labels to capitalize on the dance crazes of the early ’60s. Since then this Penguins lineup has been steadily performing around the country (and occasionally overseas), and Cleve Duncan still sounds pretty much the same as he did that day in Ted Brinson’s garage. As soon as he opens his mouth to sing “Earth Angel,” the last 45 years just fall away.

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