Artist · chart history
The Dells
Band Harvey United States Active 1953–2012
The Dells formed in 1953 in Harvey, United States and was active until 2012. The Dells has 2 chart appearances on 2 radio countdowns from 1 station on RockLists, spanning 2009–2020. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Oh What a Night”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #505. The station that charted The Dells most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 2 appearances.
The Dells started out as the El-Rays, formed in high school in Harvey in the early '50s by Marvin Junior, Verne Allison, Johnny Funches, Chuck Barksdale, and Michael and Lucius McGill. They made their first record in 1954, and two years later "Oh What a Night" gave them their first R&B hit, a swooning doo-wop slow dance that still sounds like the last song of the evening.
A near-fatal car crash in 1958 broke the group up, but they were back in 1960 with Johnny Carter in for Funches, and that lineup held for almost half a century, until Carter died in 2009. Chess and Cadet were among their labels, and There Is, in 1968, shows off what they did best, Junior's lead and Barksdale's bass pulling the harmonies wide.
In 1989 "Oh What a Night" came back as the title track of a new album, and in 2004 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame both inducted them. They kept singing until illness forced Junior and Barksdale to retire, closing out a 60-year run.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Dells on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oh What a Night | 1 | #505 | – | – | |
| 2 | There Is | 1 | #1334 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 1334 | There Is | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2009 | 505 | Oh What a Night | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) |
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