Return To 60’s Main Menu Recording Artists Of The 60s 

 

REFLECTIONS

“(JUST LIKE) ROMEO & JULIET”

 (B. Hamilton, F. Gorman)

Golden World 9

No. 6       May 30, 1964

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Phil “Parrot” Castrodale (b. Apr. 2, 1942, Detroit), Ray “Razor” Steinberg (b. Oct. 29, 1942, Washington,

Penn.), Tony “Spaghetti” Micale (b. Aug. 23, 1942, Bronx), Danny Bennie (b. Mar. 13, 1940, Johnston,

Scotland), and Johnny Dean (b. 1942, Detroit) were the Detroit-based Reflections, so named after  Parrot

caught the hot-shot reflection the group cast in the mirror of their rehearsal hall.  Parrot, Razor, Spaghetti,

and the rest were working record hops, school dances, and other social   functions in 1963 when they were

discovered by producer Jan Hutchens.

 

Hutchens liked the fellows’ old-time doo-wop approach–they had a vocal style that was nearly extinct by

this point in pop history–and lined up a recording session for the guys with the teeny-weeny Tigre label.

The Reflections’ first release, a cover of the Five Satins’ “In The Still Of The Nite,” charted in some Mid-

western markets, including Chicago.    Noting this response to the guys’ throw-back sound, the Golden

World label signed the group to a multi-record contract.

With their next  release, “(Just Like) Romeo & Juliet,” the Reflections secured their one and only sizeable

hit.    Yet ironically, the group  never even took the tune seriously.

 

“When I first heard [the song], I hated it,” Tony Micale told Goldmine’s Stu Fink.      “We thought it was a

real bubblegum  song, the words in it and all.    So we would practice it every day to the point where we

would in all the falsetto stuff. mimic it.     And by mimicking the song, we put in all that falsetto stuff.   We

did that as a joke, as a kind of payback: if they wanted to make it stupid, we’d really make it stupid.”

 

The follow-up to “(Just Like) Romeo &  Juliet,” “Like Columbus Did,” held down the number 96 slot on the

Hot 100 for a week.   “Poor Man’s Son” also charted (#55, 1965), but six further Golden World releases

stiffed.     The problem:  the group was now typecast by record-buyers, who expected the Reflections to

replicate the sound of their big hit.    “They wanted us to do that falsetto on most everything we did after

that.      We hated it and we couldn’t get any madder at a company than we were.”

 

In 1966, the group switched to the ABC label for one rehash of their big moment (“Like Adam & Eve”) and

one effort at updating their sound (“The Long Cigarette”).    The times were wrong or the approach wasn’t

right:   nothing was coming together right for Spaghetti, Razor, Parrot, and the gang.    In a last-ditch

maneuver, the guys changed their name to the High and the Mighty–but their only single under their

new identity, “Escape From Cuba,” sputtered.

 

The Reflections carried on for years, playing college dates and clubs.    Currently, Micale and Dean are

playing in a Detroit-area band called the Larados.