When vocalist Barbara Ann Alston died in 2018, she left behind a trove of great recordings and a legacy of complicated legal entanglements, but she is best remembered as the lead singer and co-founder of the Crystals, one of the most popular early doo-wop girl groups in the early 1960s.
Alston was born on December 29, 1943, in Baltimore, Md., and grew up in Brooklyn. Her singing career began after she won a talent show with a group called the Delphi Thezonians, before co-founding the Crystals, which was named after songwriter Leroy Bates’s daughter. She was still a teenager when she joined a quintet of high school girls from Brooklyn to organize the group with inspiration and guidance from her uncle, Benny Wells. While her main interest in the beginning was merely to oversee the choreography, her colleagues soon realized the potential of her alto voice as the lead singer. With her voice out front, she was backed by Dolores “Dee Dee” Kenniebrew, Mary Thomas, Patricia Wright, and Myrna Giraud.
When producer Phil Spector heard the group, he found what he had been seeking, and then pushed Alston to be the lead singer for his newly formed Philles Records. According to several sources, he had overheard them singing the Brill Building, a musical fulcrum in Manhattan. The group was soon an important niche in Spector’s “wall of sound” and established him as one of the nation’s top producers. The gospel-tinged “There’s No Other (Like My Baby)” was the group’s first hit in 1961, making the Billboard Hot 100. It was composed by Spector and Alston’s uncle, with her as the lead singer.
The recording was done on the evening of the prom at William H. Maxwell Career and Technical High School, with Alston, Thomas, and Giraud. It reached number 20 in 1962 and was the debut recording on Spector’s label. In the same year, the group was No. 20 on the Billboard charts with “There’s No Other (Like My Baby).” This hit was followed by “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” which did well despite the element of domestic abuse, though Alston regretted recording it. “‘He Hit Me” was absolutely the one record none of us liked,” she said. “We knew in our hearts that it was going to be a controversial piece and argued on several occasions with Phil about releasing it.”
Most troubling about the tune were the lyrics, particularly a line from the verse that said “I could have never made him mad/But he hit me and I was glad.” Moreover, they sang “Yes, he hit me and it felt like a kiss.” The song was composed by the great team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, who wrote the song after discovering that their babysitter and singer “Little Eva” Boyd was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend.
From 1961 to 1964, the Crystals had a string of hits, including such enduring recordings as “He’s a Rebel,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” and “Uptown,” which gave them their second radio hit. It was after this hit that Giraud, then pregnant, was replaced by Dolores “Lala” Brooks. In 1963, Brooks became the lead singer, and two years later, Alston left the group.
Alston continued as a performer in the Broadway production of “Cabaret” in 1966, and later returned to the Crystals in a brief reunion. Soon her singing career was over, however, and she began working in secretarial jobs in New York and later in Charlotte, N.C. Her marriages to Daniel Prophete and Kenneth Pitter ended in divorce. She had a daughter with Prophete, who later claimed that Alston sued Spector for her share of royalties, and two children with Pitter. There was also a son with L.C. Cooke, Sam Cooke’s younger brother.
Alston died at a hospital in Charlotte, N.C., on February 16, 2018. She was 74.
Find out more
Most of the information here was gathered from obituaries, although there is a biography of the group by Bruce Eder.