The Playmates › Similar Artists

Allan Sherman - 44% match to The Playmates

Allan Copelon, 30 November 1924, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 21 November 1973, Los Angeles, California, USA. Allan Sherman enjoyed a lucrative career during the 60s with his self-penned parodies of popular and folk songs. After his parents’ 1930 divorce, Sherman lived with his mother and attended 21 different schools in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Miami. After att Read more

The Muffs - 41% match to The Playmates

Based in Los Angeles, California, this US punk band was formed in 1991 by Kim Shattuck (vocals) and Melanie Vammen (guitar), both refugees from all-female garage rockers the Pandoras. Ronnie Barnett (bass) and Criss Crass (drums) completed the original line-up, which completed a highly enjoyable punk pop collection for Warner Brothers Records in 1993. Vammen and Crass left afte Read more

Ray Stevens - 38% match to The Playmates

Harold Ray Ragsdale, 24 January 1939, Clarksdale, Georgia, USA. A prolific country pop writer and performer, Stevens’ novelty hits of the 70s and 80s illustrate the history of the fads and crazes of the era. He became a disc jockey on a local station at 15 and the following year recorded ‘Five More Steps’ on the Prep label. Stevens’ first nonsense song, & Read more

Clyde McPhatter - 37% match to The Playmates

Clyde Lensley McPhatter, 15 November 1932, Durham, North Carolina, USA, d. 13 June 1972, New York City, New York, USA. For three years, McPhatter was the lead singer in the seminal R&B vocal group Billy Ward And His Dominoes. He left in 1953 to form the Drifters, whose early releases were enhanced by the singer’s emotional, gospel-drenched delivery. In 1954 McPhatte Read more

The Rubinoos - 37% match to The Playmates

The Rubinoos carried on the great pop tradition of UK bands like the Hollies and the Beatles and that espoused by other American acts like the Raspberries. They were formed in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California, USA, in 1973 by Tommy ‘TV’ Dunbar and Jon Rubin, who were thrown out of high school together and enrolled in a so-called Progressive School where they Read more

Freddy Cannon - 31% match to The Playmates

Freddy Picariello, 4 December 1940, Lynn, Massachusetts, USA. A frantic and enthusiastic vocalist, known as the ‘last rock ‘n’ roll star’, Cannon was the link between wild rock ‘n’ roll and the softer Philadelphia-based sounds that succeeded it. The son of a dance-band leader, he fronted Freddy Karmon And The Hurricanes and played guitar on sess Read more

Ral Donner - 29% match to The Playmates

Ralph Stuart Donner, 10 February 1943, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 6 April 1984, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Donner had a short string of US chart singles in the early 60s, most notably the number 4 ‘You Don’t Know What You’ve Got (Until You Lose It)’. He began singing in church in his teens and formed his first band at the age of 13, and began touring two yea Read more

Larry Verne - 26% match to The Playmates

Redd Kross - 26% match to The Playmates

This Los Angeles, California, USA band was formed in 1979. Redd Kross melded elements of 70s glam-rock, 60s psychedelia and 80s heavy metal to become a popular ‘alternative’ act in the 80s. Originally called the Tourists, the band changed its name to Red Cross (they were later forced to change the spelling after the International Red Cross organization threatened to s Read more

Tommy Edwards - 25% match to The Playmates

17 February 1922, Richmond, Virginia, USA, d. 22 October 1969, Virginia, USA. This jazz/pop/R&B singer-songwriter began his professional career in 1931. He wrote the hit ‘That Chick’s Too Young To Fry’ for Louis Jordan in 1946. A demo recording of his own ‘All Over Again’ later won Edwards an MGM Records contract. Early releases included ‘I Read more

Napoleon XIV - 24% match to The Playmates

The pseudonym of US songwriter, performer and recording engineer Jerry Samuels, Napoleon XIV burst into the US/UK Top 10 in the summer of 1966 with the bizarre ‘They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!’. Although clearly a novelty song, its subject matter, mental illness (brought on by the loss of the singer’s dog), prompted a ban on many American radio stat Read more

Larry Williams - 22% match to The Playmates

10 May 1935, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, d. 2 January 1980, Los Angeles, California, USA. Williams recorded a handful of raucous rock ‘n’ roll songs for Specialty Records that later influenced, among others, John Lennon. Williams learned to play the piano while in New Orleans, and moved to Oakland, California, with his family while in his teens. There he joined a Read more

Leroy Van Dyke - 22% match to The Playmates

Leroy Frank Van Dyke, 4 October 1929, Spring Fork, Missouri, USA. Besides working on the family farm, Van Dyke learnt the guitar and sang country songs. He gained a degree in agriculture from the University of Missouri, and then worked as a farm reporter and also trained as an auctioneer. Van Dyke worked for army intelligence during the Korean War and because he entertained Read more

Sheb Wooley - 22% match to The Playmates

Shelby F. Wooley, 10 April 1921, near Erick, Oklahoma, USA, d. 16 September 2003, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Wooley, was born part Cherokee Indian, grew up on the family farm, learned to ride as a child and rode in rodeos as a teenager. His father traded a shotgun for Sheb’s first guitar and while still at high school, he formed a country band that played at dances and Read more

Bobby Rydell - 21% match to The Playmates

Robert Ridarelli, 26 April 1942, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Probably the most musically talented of the late 50s Philadelphia school of clean-cut teen-idols, Rydell first performed in public as a drummer at the age of seven. At nine he debuted on Paul Whiteman’s Teen Club amateur television show and was the show’s regular drummer for three years. He attended Read more