Cameo-Parkway Records
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Cameo and its sister label Parkway were a major Philadelphia-based record label.
Cameo Records was founded in December 1956 in Philadelphia by Bernie Lowe and Kal Mann. The name was revived from a 1920s record label, Cameo Records. Dave Appell joined the label early as A&R director. Parkway, a subsidiary label, was formed in 1958.
The first hit for Cameo was "Butterfly" by Charlie Gracie, which rocketed to #1 nationally in early 1957 and established Cameo as a hit label. Cameo continued to have hits by groups like the R&B group the Rays, who had a #3 hit with "Silhouettes" later that year. In 1958, the big hits were by John Zacherle with his top 10 novelty hit "Dinner with Drac", and the Applejacks' rocking instrumental "Mexican Hat Rock", which cracked the top 20.
In 1959, teen idol Bobby Rydell scored his first hit with "We Got Love" on Cameo. From 1960-1963, Bobby Rydell was the label's second largest hit maker after Chubby Checker. He had hits like "Wild One" (his biggest), "Volare" and "Swinging School", "Forget Him" and others.
Chubby Checker had a minor novelty hit in the summer of 1959 called "The Class", which featured Checker doing funny imitations of singers Fats Domino, The Coasters, Elvis Presley, Cozy Cole and the Chipmunks. In the summer of 1960, a cover of an obscure Hank Ballard tune called The Twist was done by Checker and rode to immortality. It first went to #1 in 1960, and, when it caught on with parents, went to #1 again in early 1962. Checker had lots of hits, including "Pony Time" (his second #1), "Let's Twist Again", "The Fly", "Slow Twistin'", "Limbo Rock", "Popeye", "Birdland" and others.
Around 1961, Cameo-Parkway began developing some new stars. First, the vocal group the Dovells, which featured Len Barry as the lead singer, scored hits in late 1961 with the #2 smash "Bristol Stomp" and "You Can't Sit Down" in early 1962. The R&B quartet the Orlons had a big hit with "The Wah-Watusi", which hit #2 in the summer of 1962. They had a few more top 20 hits.
Dee Dee Sharp had been a studio backing singer at Cameo-Parkway for some time before she got her chance to make a solo record. The 15-year-old had done a duet with Chubby Checker on "Slow Twistin'", but her powerhouse vocals were so impressive that she recorded her first solo single, "Mashed Potato Time", on the same day. It jumped to #2 in the spring of 1962. More dance songs followed, including the followup "Gravy", and another dance song, "Ride!"
The last hits from Cameo-Parkway's peak came from the smooth R&B group the Tymes, who scored the #1 hit "So Much in Love" in the summer of 1963.
For the next few years, with the onslaught of the British Invasion, Cameo-Parkway wasn't doing very good. Artists like Jo Ann Campbell, Maynard Ferguson, Clark Terry and stars like Clint Eastwood and Merv Griffin had little success on the label. Artists who later became big, including Bob Seger, also had unsuccessful records at Cameo-Parkway.
The last major hits for the label were ? and the Mysterians "96 Tears", which went to #1 in the fall of 1966; and, in 1967, the Ohio Express' "Beg, Borrow and Steal" and Senator Bobby's novelty remake of "Wild Thing".
Cameo-Parkway released 449 45rpm singles and 158 33 1/3rpm albums between 1957 and 1966. Among the types of music released were doo wop, rockabilly, dance hits, big band, hard rock, and northern soul.
In late 1967, after financial problems worsened, the label was purchased by Allen Klein, who renamed the label ABKCO Records.
For various legal and financial reasons, ABKCO allowed the Cameo-Parkway recordings to fall out of print after the 1970s, and they remained officially unavailable on compact disc (or any other format) for many years. In May of 2005, however, the company released a multi-CD box set of the labels' most notable output (Cameo-Parkway: 1957-1967), and was planning to issue various single-artist compilations in the near future.