Brenda & the Tabulations

Brenda & the Tabulations were an R&B group formed in 1966 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, originally composed of Brenda Payton, Eddie Jackson, Maurice Coates and Jerry Jones.

The group had a distinctive, almost doo-wop sound, especially at the start, featuring Brenda's sweet occasionally rough-edged vocals with smooth background male harmonies. The line-up changed around 1971 with the original three men having departed. Two female backing singers (Pat Mercer and Deborah Martin) were brought in to support Payton.

The group had a series of hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mainly in the U.S. soul charts mostly on small independent labels, Dionn and Top & Bottom, operated by the group's manager, Gilda Woods, the wife of a top radio deejay.However, two were big U.S. pop hits, their first release, "Dry Your Eyes" (pop #20, R&B #2) on Dionn in 1967 and later in 1971, "Right On The Tip Of My Tongue", (pop #23, R&B #5), [Joel Whitburn, "The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits". 7th edn, 2000] . The first was written by Brenda with group member Maurice Coates and the latter written and produced by Van McCoy. They released three albums, "Dry Your Eyes" (1967), "Brenda and the Tabulations" (1970) and "I Keep Coming Back for More" (1977).

Brenda Payton, born in 1946, died in 1992.

References

* [http://www.soulwalking.co.uk/Brenda%20And%20The%20Tabulations.html Soulwalking]