The “Golden Hits Of The 60s” 

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CORSAIRS

“SMOKY PLACES”

(Abner Spector)

Tuff 1808

No. 12   March 17, 1962

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The Corsairs were three brothers and a cousin from La Grange, North Carolina, that grew up and attended

the same schools together. They were Jay “Bird” (b. July 14, 1942), James “Little Skeet” (b. Dec. 1, 1940),

and Mose “King Moe” Uzzell (b. Sept. 13, 1939), plus cousin George Wooten (b. Jan. 16, 1940). They started

singing together as members of the school glee club, perform­ing at local gatherings and talent shows. Calling

them­ selves the Gleems, they eventually made tracks to Newark, New Jersey, to audition for the record

compa­nies in and around the New York area.

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One night early in 1961, the Gleems were playing in a smoky Newark nightclub. Abner Spector, a producer

and big wheel at the tiny Tuff record label, was in the audience.  Abner liked what he heard, and told the

group that he wanted to record them as the Corsairs. The rest, as they say, is history–but a very sketchy

history; and too brief.

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“Smoky Places,” the Corsairs’ second release, was a top-of-the-line neo-doo-wop goodie. Quality vocal­ group

numbers like this one were becoming increas­ingly scarce on the airwaves. (True, there were groups like the

CLASSICS and the EARLS, but their days on the radio–and the charts–were numbered.)  The Cor­sairs’

follow-up,”Til Take You Home,” hit number 68 in 1962, and the singles kept rolling out: “Stormy,” “Dancing

Shadows,” “On the Spanish Side,” and “At the Stroke of Midnight.”  But regardless of who was credit­ed on

the disk as lead singer–“King Moe,” Jay “Bird,” or “Little Skeet”–not one of these well-arranged plat­ters

charted.

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With time, the group’s members did some weeding and seeding.  Larry McNeil was added in 1965, the last

year the group was known to exist.  Just what happened to the Corsairs after this point is not known.