58 years ago today, The Drifters recorded their hit single “There Goes My Baby,” which seems like as good an excuse to spotlight the song in Single Stories as any, wouldn’t you say?
“There Goes My Baby” is particularly notable in the history of The Drifters, as it was the first single recorded by the second incarnation of the group. If you don’t know the story about this situation, it’s a doozy, but the nutshell explanation is this: the “Drifters” name was owned by the group’s manager, George Treadwell, and in 1958 he fired all of the original members of the group, took an existing group called The 5 Crowns, and called them The Drifters. In other words, it was exit Clyde McPhatter, enter Ben E. King.
