Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Teenagers — three Black, two Puerto Rican — from Washington Heights, a neighbourhood north of Harlem, were far more streetwise than the adoring public who bought their records might have imagined. “I never was a child,” Lymon said in a 1967 interview. “I was a man when I was 11 years old, doing everything that most men do. In the neighbourhood where I lived, there was no time to be a child. While kids my age were playing stickball and marbles, I was working in the grocery store carrying orders to help pay the rent.”When not delivering groceries, Lymon harmonised on street corners with local youths, joining a quintet called The Premiers. Richard Barrett, a doo-wop singer employed by Goldner as his right-hand man and talent scout, heard The Premiers and arranged an audition. Goldner picked out a number called “Why Do Birds Sing So Gay”. Herman Santiago, the group’s tenor, had developed the song from lines in a love letter passed on to him by a neighbour in the projects when he complained of lacking inspiration. Goldner, who produced a remarkable run of hits across 1953-1965, sensed that Lymon’s soprano was something special, so anointed the youngest and smallest member of the group (now called The Teenagers, at Goldner’s insistence) as their lead singer. He also renamed the song “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”. Goldner and Lymon made adjustments to the track in the studio: when it was released, Santiago-Lymon-Goldner shared the writing credit, while the label read “The Teenagers featuring Frankie Lymon”. The sheer exuberance of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”, and Lymon’s soaring voice, made it a huge hit and established The Teenagers as the first teen stars of the rock’n’roll era. Lymon embraced fame and its trappings with a fury — sex, drink, drugs (he was addicted to heroin aged 15). After several lesser hits, the group (now called Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers) split while performing in London in early 1957. Frankie Lymon didn’t live to see the song enjoy a lucrative afterlife. His post-Teenagers career fizzled quickly and he died of a heroin overdose in 1968, aged 25, having never received a cent in royalties. Goldner, an inveterate gambler, sold his label and publishing rights to Morris Levy, a mob-affiliated thug who ruthlessly fleeced his artists. After Ross scored her hit with “Fools”, Lymon’s three wives — he never divorced any of them — all went to court claiming they were entitled to his royalties (the song’s writers now being credited as Levy-Lymon). After a protracted legal process, a New York judge ruled that Elizabeth Waters was Lymon’s genuine widow and entitled to royalties from “Fools”. Herman Santiago then tried to get his name back on the publishing of the song he originally composed; he succeeded, but a US appeals court determined that he had left it too long. “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” stands as a reminder of how teenage dreams and music industry practice often collide — these Teenagers probably wished they’d never sung beyond the street corners of Washington Heights.Let us know your memories of ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ in the comments section belowThe paperback edition of ‘The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by ChambersMusic credits: ISIS; Parlophone; Capitol; Rhino
