- The 1960s girl group The Angels began in New Jersey as The Starlets and consisted of sisters Barbara and Phyllis Allbut, Bernadette Carroll and Linda Malzone. After some minor regional hit records, they got gigs doing back-up work on studio recordings. They went through some personnel changes--Malzone left and was replaced by Linda Jansen--and at one time their manager kept Carroll and fired the rest of the group, bringing in new members to replace them. They auditioned for a small label, Caprice Records, with the song "'Til". The label liked it and released it as the group's first record under their new name, The Angels, and it reached #14 on the US charts. A follow-up single, "Cry Baby Cry", didn't chart at all, and neither did their first album for Caprice, "...And The Angels Sing", in 1962. Jansen left the group that year and was replaced by Peggy Santiglia. In 1963 the group signed with Smash Records (a subsidiary of Mercury Records). The group recorded, as a demo, a song that was meant for The Shirelles called "My Boyfriend's Back", but Smash decided that, since The Angels were already under contract to them and The Shirelles were with another label (Scepter Records), it would release the Angels' version instead. It became a huge hit and quickly reached #1 on the US charts (its "B" side, "Thank You and Goodnight", was also a hit). Their follow-up record, "I Adore Him", didn't do as well as "My Boyfriend's Back". In 1963 they left Smash Records and signed with Congress Records, a smaller label, and changed their name to The Halos (due to legal wrangling over the ownership of "The Angels" name). They released several songs on Congress, but none of them made the charts. In 1967 they signed with RCA Records, and former member Bernadette Carroll rejoined the group. Although they made a few appearances on TV variety shows, they had no more record hits and the group broke up for good in 1968.
In the 1970s Santiglia re-formed the group as The Angels with the Allbut sisters and released a single. They still tour and make personal appearances.
- IMDb mini biography by: frankfob2@yahoo.com
- Their 1963 #1 hit, "My Boyfriend's Back", came about when a staff writer for April Blackwood Music returned to his old high school in New York, which he had heard was being torn down, for a last look. When he got there he saw a young teenage girl screaming at a rather disreputable-looking teenage boy, "My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble. You've been spreading lies about me all over school and when he gets ahold of you, you're gonna be sorry you were ever born!" He immediately returned to the office, got ahold of two other songwriters and had the song finished in just a few hours.
- Members have included Peggy Farina (aka Peggy Santiglia), Phyllis Allbut, Barbara Allbut, Linda Janssen, Linda Malzone, Toni Mason, Debra Swisher, Bernadette Carroll (d. 5/10/2018).
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