Danny and the Juniors at the height of their late-1950s fame. From left: Danny Rapp, Joe Terranova, David White and Frank Maffei.
David White, hitmaker with Danny & the Juniors, dies at 79
By Richard Sandomir
31st March 2019
David White, who formed the doo-wop quartet Danny and the Juniors in the mid-1950s, co-wrote their No. 1 hit “At the Hop” and composed their successful follow-up, “Rock and roll is here to stay,” died on 16 March 2019, in Las Vegas. He was 79. His daughter Wendy Adamczyk said the cause was lung and throat cancer.
Like many other teenagers in the early days of rock ’n’ roll, Mr. White and his friends Danny Rapp, Frank Maffei and Joe Terranova (also known as Joe Terry), who called themselves the Juvenaires, harmonized in cars and school bathrooms. Their singing on a street corner in Philadelphia in 1957 attracted the attention of John Madara, then a 19-year-old singer, who heard them through his nearby bedroom window.
“The next day I asked some friends, ‘I heard this great group. Do you know who they are?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that was Danny Rapp and the guys,’ ” Mr. Madara recalled in an interview in 2014 with Tom Meros for his online series “Tom TV.” Aware of Mr. Madara’s interest in the group, Mr. White found his way to Mr. Madara’s apartment, where they struck up a friendship and agreed to work together.
Mr. Madara suggested they write a song that would play off teenagers dancing the bop on the television show “American Bandstand” and have an infectious beat like Jerry Lee Lewis’s recent rockabilly hit “Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.” With help from Artie Singer, a vocal coach and producer, they made a demo record, “Do the Bop,” with Mr. Madara singing lead and the Juvenaires singing backup. But when Mr. Singer and Mr. Madara brought the demo to Prep Records, it was rejected.
“Artie took it to Dick Clark” — then a powerful Philadelphia disc jockey as well as the host of “American Bandstand” — “who suggested the title change to ‘At the Hop,’ ” Mr. White said in an interview in 2013 with the blog Milwaukee Opportunities. The group quickly recorded a new version — only the lyrics needed to be changed — with Mr. Rapp singing lead.
Mr. Clark agreed to play the song and gave it a huge boost in late 1957 when he had the group, now renamed Danny and the Juniors, on “Bandstand.” It leapt to No. 1 the Billboard Hot 100, on 9 December 1957, and stayed there for seven weeks.
Hoping to repeat the success of “At the Hop,” Mr. White wrote “Rock and roll is here to stay”, while touring with the group in Davenport, Iowa. It was not the hit “At the Hop” was — it peaked at # 19 on 10 March 1958 — but it acted as an enthusiastic rebuke to adults’ view of rock as a short-lived fad that tore at teenagers’ moral fiber.
“Rock and roll is here to stay,” they sang. “It will never die/It was meant to be that way/Though I don’t know why.”
David Ernest White was born on 26 November 1939, in Philadelphia. When he was 3 he joined his parents, Frank and Marcia Tricker, in their acrobatic touring act, Barry and Brenda and Company. David showed an early interest in music; he began playing piano, clarinet and trombone in elementary school and was writing songs at 14.
The Juvenaires, which Mr. White formed when he was about 15, sang at local parties and other events. Sometimes they practiced in Mr. White’s 1953 Pontiac so they would not disturb the neighbors.
Danny and the Juniors had a few modest hits after “At the Hop” and “Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay,” but none that kept them atop the charts. Mr. White left the group around 1961 and, in partnership with Mr. Madara, wrote many songs, including the Top 10 hits “The fly” (1961), for Chubby Checker; “You don’t own me” (1963), for Lesley Gore; and “1-2-3” (1965), for Len Barry.
In 1965, Mr. White, Mr. Madara and Ray Gilmore formed a short-lived group, The Spokesmen, and together wrote a single, “The dawn of correction,” an optimistic corrective to Barry McGuire’s foreboding No. 1 hit, “Eve of destruction.” It rose to No. 36 on the Hot 100.
Mr. White found less success afterward. He broke up with Mr. Madara, released a solo album under the name David White Tricker, that did not do well; lived for a time in a trailer park; worked on various musical and film projects, and wrote a memoir that has not yet been published. He also collected royalties from filmmakers and advertisers eager to license songs from his archive, especially “At the Hop” and “Rock and roll is here to stay.”
In the late 1960s, Mr. Rapp formed an all-new version of Danny and the Juniors that toured the country; at one point, he asked Mr. White to join him. While they never reunited, Mr. White sang a few songs with Mr. Rapp’s group at a lounge near Lake Tahoe in 1982.
“He was real up, he was real excited about seeing me,” Mr. White told The Los Angeles Times in 1988. “I came very close to going back with him because he was working like crazy.”
It was the last time they saw each other Mr. Rapp died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1983.
Mr. Terry and Mr. Maffei continued to perform occasionally as Danny and the Juniors, along with Mr. Maffei’s brother, Bob.
In addition to Ms. Adamczyk, Mr. White is survived by his wife, Sandra (Simone) White; another daughter, Jody Conrad, and three grandchildren. A third daughter, Linda White, died in 2013.
David White.
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