Where to begin?

During their prime — roughly their first 25 years — The Drifters saw 40 (that’s right, 40) different members come and go through the lineup, including 10 different lead vocalists, and somehow they still managed to survive and thrive. Mostly.

(Two of those ten lead vocalists you need to know by name: their original one, Clyde McPhatter, who gained fame with the group, wanted more money, and soon left for a successful solo career; and Ben E. King, who gained fame with the group, wanted more money, and soon left for a successful solo career.)

A quick history: The original Drifters, the first guys to get together and say, “Hey, let’s call ourselves The Drifters,” formed in 1953. They achieved no hits on the pop charts, but scored heavily on the R&B chart with multiple #1 singles, even surviving the departure of their star, McPhatter, in late 1954. This survival didn’t last long, however, as members began quitting, getting into fights, getting drafted, demanding more money, until finally, their manager — who also owned the group’s name — fired the remaining members in 1958.

And that was the last anyone heard of The Drifters. . . well, for about a year anyway. During this time of non-existence, manager/owner guy found a group called The Five Crowns — with lead singer Ben E. King — and convinced them to assume the mantle of The Drifters. Result? Massive success, huge hits on every chart, another lead vocalist going solo, more people leaving, fighting, dying, getting drafted, getting fired, getting rehired, getting rehired from the original group, and all of this occurred in the span of just a few years! But this time, unlike the original incarnation, The Drifters weathered the storms and stayed together (albeit with a rotating cast, like a long-running Broadway show).

The group began to fade by the mid to late 1960’s and were off the charts entirely in the early 1970’s, when suddenly they found new life over in the UK. After a long history of sporadic success there, The Drifters reeled off hit after hit in the mid-70’s until finally joining the oldies but goldies circuit at the end of the decade.

So find a paradise that’s trouble-proof. Here’s all you need to know:

As with most groups whose prime hit-making output stems from before 1965, it’s all about the singles, baby, so a Greatest Hits compilation is definitely the way to go. Most collections tend to focus on the peak years — the ones beginning with the second incarnation — so you’ll always have the biggest and best-known songs, but it’s worth trying to find an album which grabs the greatest of the original group and a couple of the 1970’s hits. Let’s have a little listen . . .

With Clyde on lead in 1954. “Such A Night” almost certainly would have topped the R&B chart, but instead stalled at #2 after many radio stations banned the song as too suggestive — if you have children nearby, send them away now:

With Ben on lead in 1960. The inkling of an idea for “Save The Last Dance For Me” first found purchase in the mind of Doc Pomus on his wedding day. Doc contracted polio as a boy and by this time mainly used a wheelchair to get around. As he sat, immobile, and watched his new bride — a Broadway dancer as it happened — tripping the light fantastic with the male guests, he began to arrange the thoughts in his head into this #1 song about remembering who you’re going home with:

With Rudy Lewis on lead in 1963. A classic about trying to make it big in New York City by Cynthia Weill and her husband Barry Mann, two songwriters trying to make it big in New York City:

With Johnny Moore on lead in 1964. Rudy Lewis was supposed to record the vocal for “Under The Boardwalk,” but died the night before the session. Moore had been a member of the original group back in the 1950’s and would remain the primary vocalist for the next 3 decades. But here’s my own personal relationship with the song . . . at the age of 10, I started borrowing a cassette tape of my mother’s with a mix of hits from the 50’s and 60’s. I would play it at relatively low volume through my inexpensive, single-speaker tape player while falling asleep at night. Occasionally, this one particular song would come up and I’d catch a nearly indecipherable bit of lyric which didn’t seem to make sense. After a few nights of this, I got up and rewound the tape — I understood that they were down by the sea, and it was hot, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they were chanting, “I met a warthog.” I played it many times, my ear pressed to that one low-fidelity speaker, knowing those words couldn’t be right — and yet, that’s all I could hear. . . “I met a warthog.” For the last four decades my family has given me warthog-themed items for Christmas: