Gems

The Gems -- not to be confused with the girl group of the same name from the same city, who were signed to Chess Records -- were a quintet formed in Chicago in 1952, with Ray Pettis on lead, Bob Robinson and David Taylor as tenors, William James as baritone, and Rip Reed as bass. After a couple of years of singing around the Windy City, they were signed to Drexel Records in the spring of 1954, and their "Let's Talk About the Weather" b/w "Deed I Do" became the company's first release a few weeks later. It did well enough locally so that the group was also on the label's second...