June 6, 1964 - Hitting No. 1 today on the Billboard Hot 100 was “Chapel of Love” by the Dixie Cups, a girl group from New Orleans.
The song tells of the happiness and excitement the narrator feels on her wedding day because she and her love are going to the “chapel of love” and they’ll “never be lonely anymore.”
“Chapel of Love,” which written last year by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who had themselves recently married. It was written for Darlene Love to record, but producer Phil Spector was dissatisfied with her version, and it was not released.
The three singers in the Dixie Cups are Barbara Ann Hawkins, Rosa Lee Hawkins, and Joan Marie Johnson. Originally known as the Mel-Tones, they traveled to New York City with their manager, Joe Jones, to attempt to get a record deal. They were given “Chapel of Love” to sing and passed the audition with the award-winning production duo Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Leiber and Stoller then decided to issue the record as the first release on their own new record label, Red Bird, and changed the group’s name to The Dixie Cups.
Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s