Eddie Rambeau

Eddie Rambeau was one of those rock & roll vocalists of the mid-'60s who held sway for a couple of years, until the band acts overwhelmed them on the radio and as live attractions. A rival to such figures as Tommy Roe, Gary Lewis, and Bobby Vee, he was one of a brace of "Eddies," "Tommies," "Bobbies," and other male pop/rock crooners who succeeded the likes of Frankie Avalon et al. in the mid-'60s. He may have been one of the most talented of them, however, for although Rambeau only saw one major national hit (ironically, a cover of "Concrete and Clay"), he was a reasonably successful songwriter for much of the 1960s. He was born Edward Cletus Fluri (some sources spell this "Flurie") in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of would-be singers from the Keystone State, took his aspirations to Philadelphia. He was signed to the Swan Records label, the poorest of the three majors in the city (after Cameo-Parkway and Chancellor) in the hope of being another Frankie Avalon or Fabian and re-christened Eddie Rambeau, chalking up a regional chart single with "Skin Divin'." He recorded for the label into the early to mid-'60s, but never broke on any charts outside of Pennsylvania. In contrast to a lot of other aspiring singers in that era, Rambeau had other talents, including songwriting, and it was in partnership with producer/writer Bob Crewe that he enjoyed his first success as a composer, with the song "Navy Blue," which was a Top Ten hit for Diane Renay in 1964 on Mercury Records. Rambeau also co-wrote her next hit single, "Kiss Me, Sailor," but success as a vocalist eluded him until the spring of 1965. He was signed to Crewe's DynoVoice label when he heard "Concrete and Clay," an original song by the British acoustic/electric rock group Unit Four Plus Two. Rambeau's version,...