Sometimes you have to bet on yourself. You can do it!

The Clovers met in high school in Washington, D.C. in 1946. A few talent shows around town, a few radio appearances, then suddenly it’s a manager, a single, and an introduction to Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records, an upstart indie R&B label based in New York.

Ertegun signed them up, and for their first recording session, gave them a song he himself had written. Released as a single in 1951, “Don’t You Know I Love You” was the first #1 for Atlantic on the R&B chart (or on any chart), as well as the first for The Clovers. They would hit the top spot twice more for the label. In fact, their first 15 singles made the Top 10 on the R&B charts, but for some reason the group struggled to cross over to the mainstream pop chart.

The hits began to dry up in the mid-50s, and Atlantic let the group’s contract lapse in 1957. In a commercial decline, The Clovers decided to make a bold move, recording an entire album of new songs. Sounds normal now, but not in 1958 when groups recorded and released single after single and only afterwards compiled the successful ones into a full album. Long-playing records were expensive, and both rock & roll and R&B relied heavily on young people with precious little money.

But it worked. The album succeeded and brought The Clovers enough attention to get themselves signed to United Artists, a brand new label with something to prove and hopes that the group could rediscover their hitmaking prowess.

Having made their own luck, The Clovers now received the opportunity to work with two of the hottest hitmakers in the biz, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The pair had penned huge hits for The Coasters, Elvis, and many others, and now presented The Clovers with “Love Potion No. 9” — but only after the group’s manager, a business guy who had also been dropped by Atlantic and picked up by United Artists, cajoled the songwriters into giving the group a potential smash, one originally intended for The Coasters.

And why number 9? Leiber and Stoller simply liked the vibration of the sound made by the word “nine,” using it twice before, in both “Kansas City” and “Riot In Cell Block #9.”

Released as a single in 1959 (feel the vibration), “Love Potion No. 9” became the The Clover’s biggest hit on the Hot 100 pop chart, reaching #23 (weirdly, it was their lowest-charting single ever on the R&B chart, also #23). The Searchers recorded the most popular version of the song a few years later, hewing closely to the original.

So head on down to 34th and Vine …. with The Clovers.