“Oh What a Night” by The Dells

The Dells got two hits out of "Oh, What a Night". The first, a doo-wop number spelled "Oh, What a Nite", came out on Vee-Jay in 1956, reportedly inspired by a party some female friends had thrown in the group's honor, and it climbed to 4 on the R&B chart. In 1969 they went back to it on Cadet and rebuilt it as a soul record, changing the arrangement and the tempo and opening with a spoken passage from bass singer Chuck Barksdale.

That remake went further than the original: 10 on the Hot 100 and number one on the soul singles chart. Record World made it a Four Star Pick that summer, marveling at how new such an old song could sound, and Rolling Stone later placed it at 260 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.