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The Manhattans ft Gerald Alston new song,Get It Ready "
THE MANHATTANS were originally: Winfred “Blue” Lovett, Richard Taylor, Kenny Kelly, George “Smitty” Smith and Edward “Sonny” Bivins. Blue and Smitty were out front as the group’s strong lead singers. Blue was also the group leader and an outstanding songwriter whose compositions with producer Joe Evans gave the group a string of hits on Carnival Records during the mid 1960s.
When Smith became ill in 1970, Phil Terrell stepped in as temporary lead singer until a permanent replacement could be found. In the fall of that same year, Gerald Alston, whose style paid homage to the legendary Sam Cooke took over as lead singer. More a pop singer than either Lovett or Smith, Alston’s incorporation into the group enabled THE MANHATTANS to break out of their mold as “doo-woppers” and achieve major national success on Starday/King Records with a Teddy Randazzo love song entitled “A Million To One”. In 1972, Blue Lovett’s “One Life To Live” reached the top 20 R&B charts. With Alston handling all lead vocals and Lovett providing smooth spoken introductions, THE MANHATTANS moved to Columbia Records in 1973 where they collaborated with producer Bobby Martin on a string of hit ballads including, “There’s No Me Without You”, “We Never Danced To A Love Song” and “Hurt”. The most notable of these ballads was Blue Lovett’s “Kiss And Say Goodbye”, a platinum selling #1 pop and R&B hit in 1976. In that same year, THE MANHATTANS teamed up once again with producer Randazzo to record “Feels So Good”, “You’re My Life” and “There’s No Good In Goodbye”.