September 12, 2024 • 18 mins
In a story full of artifacts from music’s past, one looms larger than any other. Doo-wop legend Frankie Lymon’s tombstone lives in Bay City, Michigan. Here’s how it got there.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and never Mind Media. When
you're searching for the roots of a rock and roll
band that existed fifty five years ago, you suddenly realized
(00:21):
that the history of modern American music can be traced
back to a few key figures. In the search for
the Fake Zombies, I encountered some big ones like Clive
Davis and Don Kershner, guys who created the rock and
roll business. Then they're the artists themselves, people who created
the thing we now call rock and roll, that question Mark,
and the mysterians Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. Bay City, Michigan,
(00:47):
the epicenter of the story of the Fake Zombies, is
a town where music matters. It was the home of
Delta Promotions and the place where Bill Kehoe and Jim
Atherton cooked up their audacious scheme out not one, but
two bands pretending to be the Zombies, plus fake versions
of the Animals and the Archies just for good measure.
(01:07):
It would have been impossible to start putting together the
pieces of this crazy tale without the Bay City people
who got pulled into this wild con, People like former
Delta Promotions employee Tom Hocot, mysterious guitarist Bobby Balbarama, and
Jim Atherton's prom day and longtime friend Ria Thompson. Hello
from the moment I found that faded black and white
(01:29):
promotional photo of the Texas Zombies with Delta Promotions address
and phone number on it. The person who did more
than anyone else to help me open up the world
of this story was Bay City's resident rock and roll historian,
Gary Doctor J. Johnson. Good to start here, take me around?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay, well, gettis.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Gary's passion for and deep knowledge of music is pretty
much unparalleled, and when it comes to the music of Michigan,
there is literally nobody who knows more. He's an encyclopedia
of information on bands from Detroit, the up and everywhere
else in Michigan. A few years ago, Gary put a
lifetime's worth of rock and roll memories from his home
state to good use by creating the Michigan Rock and
(02:11):
Roll Legends Museum, which is now housed on the second
floor of the Bay City Historical Society.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Let me take you through this. This is our newest
exhibit right here. This, to me is one of the
coolest things about the.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Museum, and if you go past the first floor exhibits
about logging and milling and shipbuilding, and go up the stairs,
you find yourself in a room overflowing with Michigan music memorabilia.
There's rock posters and guitars connected to everybody from Del
Shannon to Bob Seeger to MC five and Bay City's
(02:45):
prodigal daughter Madonna and the Bay City Rollers, whose name
is a reference to the town. They were actually from Scotland.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Of course. This is the big Madonnas Mick Jagger swinging
over the audio, the poster from the seventy two tour.
We have that here, autographs, autographed, the guitar, and we
have that, we have the original release. Anyways, we've got
some interesting things.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Taking center stage in the museum is something that's not
technically memorabilia. It's something much bigger, literally and figuratively. It's
made of granite. It's thirty three inches high, twenty seven
inches wide and eight inches deep, and it weighs more
than a thousand pounds.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I said, you know, we have to tell the story
of the tombstone, so it starts out over it.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I'm Daniel Ralstone and this is the first bonus episode
of the True Story of the Fake Zombie Frankie Lyman's
Tombstone Blues. Frankie Lyman is one of those figures that
(03:57):
shaped modern music, one of the earliest architects of what
we now know is pop music. When Frankie Lymon became
a star back in nineteen fifty six, he was thirteen.
Lyman and his bandmates were called the Teenagers because they
were all very much teenagers, though just barely. Gary says,
the fact that Frankie was so young opened a lot
(04:17):
of other young people's eyes.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Like Gary, he like opened the door for young people
to think, Jae, you know, I could probably do this,
and really important in Michigan because you know, all these
artists who would become so big at Motown, you know,
(04:39):
eight or nine years later, were only teenagers, like Smokey
Robinson forming his early groups, Diana Ross forming her early
vocal groups.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
If you know Frankie Lymon's name, you know the deep
debt people like Justin Bieber, the Backstreet Boys and in Sync.
Out of his group, frank Lymon and the Teenagers, they
were the original boy band. That whole boy band thing
started when Frankie Lymon announced himself to the world in
nineteen fifty six with the band single Why Do Fools
Fall in Love? The song was a smash hit, reaching
(05:24):
number six on the Billboard chart, number one on the
R and B charts, and hitting number one in the UK.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
The guys that were in The Temptations who went on
to become The Temptations were all teenagers. Stevie Wonder was
probably only six years old at that particular time when
he heard that song, So I think you know that
just allowed young people to dream that they could do
(05:52):
those things.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That song, and especially Frankie's high, boyish vocals, made such
an impression that that sound essentially became the blueprint used
by Barry Gordy for his motown girl groups, especially Diana
Ross and The Supremes. Diana Ross has covered Frankie in
her live set for decades. Frankie Lymon has also been
(06:22):
cited as an influence by Michael Jackson, Ronnie Specter, The Temptations,
George Clinton, Smokey Robinson, and Billy Joel, and Why Do
Fools Fall in Love was covered by the Beach Boys
and Joni Mitchell. Watching old clips of Frankie, his voice
(06:51):
so youthful and powerful his incredible dance moves. It's easy
to see why he was the blueprint for such a
wide range of artists and the foundation of the motown sound.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
When Phil Spector first heard the ron Nats Ronnie Bennett,
he said, had a voice like Frankie Lyman. So you
see that kind of connection, and you know then the
song itself, which becomes a hit again in the in
the sixties, or even back in the nineteen fifties when
(07:22):
Black Axe had difficulty getting played in a lot of
radio stations, the song was a big hit for two
white artists at the same time.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
In nineteen fifty six, Lyman and his band appeared in
the rebellion Flick Rock Rock Rock and put out songs
throughout the middle of nineteen fifty seven, at which point
Frankie went solo. Looking back, that decision to split with
the Teenagers would leave Frankie down a dark pat recording
(08:00):
throughout the fifties, but his solo work didn't come anywhere
close to replicating the success he had with the Teenagers.
By the early sixties, Frankie's career was headed downhill. The
tale of Frankie Lyman is fundamentally a tragic one. Lyman
was introduced to heroin at the age of fifteen. As
his star began to fade, his drug problems increased. He
(08:23):
went to rehab in nineteen sixty one. In nineteen sixty six,
a decade after his heyday with the Teenagers, he was
arrested on a heroin charge. Instead of doing jail time,
he spent two years in the army, during which he
seemingly got clean. After being discharged, he moved in with
(08:43):
his grandmother and worked on getting his music career back
on track. Things were looking good, and he managed to
set up a recording session on February twenty eighth, nineteen
sixty eight, thanks to interest from his old label, Roulette Records. Tragically, though,
he chose to celebrate this good news by using again.
(09:07):
Frankie Lyman was found dead of an overdose in his
grandmother's bathroom, a syringe lying next to him, on February
twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight, the day before the comeback
recording session. He was just twenty five. There are unbelievably
(09:29):
high peaks in Frankie Lyman's story and an equally tragic
and untimely death. But there's another side that's arguably even
more interesting the stuff of Hollywood movies. Right after filmmaker
Gregory Nava directed Jennifer Lopez in her breakthrough role playing
the title character in Selena, Nava made another biopic about
(09:51):
a singer gone before their time. It's called Why Do
Fools Fall in Love? The movie has that title not
only because of Lyman's biggest hit, but also because Lymon's
love life was off the charts crazy, specifically his marital life.
When Frankie Lymon died, there was a dispute over the
royalties for his biggest song, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
(10:14):
They came to light that there were not one or two,
but three women who were married to Frankie Lymon when
he passed. That charisma and swag that Lyman showed on
stage was very much carried over to his life off stage.
He'd walked down the aisle with Elizabeth Waters in nineteen
sixty four, but also singer Zola Taylor from The Platters
in nineteen sixty five and schoolteacher Amira Eagle in nineteen
(10:37):
sixty seven, marrying wives number two and three without ever
bothering to get divorced. In the course of the royalty dispute,
it turned out that his first wife, Elizabeth Waters, had
never actually divorced her first husband, and then, while Lyman's
relationship with Zola Taylor was real, his marriage to her,
which took place in Mexico, may have in fact been
a publicity stunt. In either way, Taylor had no paperwork
(11:01):
to prove that her marriage to Frankie was legal. If
you want to check out the big screen version of
the story, it stars Halle Berry and Vivica A Fox,
and there's a cameo by Little Richard as himself. Of course,
Why Do Fools Fall in Love is available now to stream.
When Frankie died in nineteen sixty eight, he was buried
(11:23):
in his hometown of New York City in Saint Raymond
Cemetery in the Bronx. After his passing, Whye a Fools
Fall in Love got even more popular after it was
featured in George Lucas's American Graffiti. Frankie's story was told
in the movie Why Do Fools Fall in Love? And
Frankie and the Teenagers have been inducted into both the
Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll
(11:44):
Hall of Fame. When a group of his fans discovered
that Frankie had been buried in an unmarked grave, they
pulled together three thousand dollars to have a tombstone. Mate
Beneath his name and the dates of his birth and
death are the words we Promise to Remember, which plays
on another classic song by Frankie and the Teenagers, I
Promised to remember. The man whose idea was to have
(12:15):
that tombstone made. New Jersey music store owner and ardent
Officionado Vocal Harmony Group's Ronnie Italiano reached out to Lyman's
widow and Myra Eagle about having the tombstone installed by
his grave at Saint Raymond Cemetery. This was right in
the middle of the legal battle over royalties involving all
three of Lyman's reported widows. Eagle asked Italiana to hold
(12:36):
off on moving the tombstone until a less contentious time, so,
initially as a temporary measure, Taliano held onto the tombstone
and displayed it at a store. The tombstone found its
home in the window of Ronnie Eye's Clifton music store,
the Clifton, New Jersey, where it was mounted on a
riser a top a bed of synthetic grass with plastic
(12:58):
flowers laid around it. When Ronnie Italiano died in two
thousand and eight, his widow took over running the store,
but it closed in twenty twelve. The question was where
would Frankie Lymon's tombstone live. A friend of Italiano's, Pam Nardella,
who had met him through their shared love of groups
(13:19):
like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, ended up having the
tombstone transported to her garden in Elmwood Park, New Jersey,
where it looked a little out of place amongst her
flowers and a Nativity set. It stayed there for a
full eight years, from twenty twelve until twenty twenty, when
Gary Johnson, who'd read about it in a book called
Weird New Jersey, tracked down Nardella and pitched her on
(13:42):
an idea to move the granite headstone from her backyard
to a more fitting final resting place his Rock and
Roll Legends Museum in Bay City, Michigan. Nardella always wanted
the tombstone to have a better and more fitting home
than her backyard, but neither the Smithsonian nor the rock
of a Hall of fame. Despite Lyman being an inductee
(14:03):
showed any genuine interest. In twenty twenty, Gary Johnson was
in the process of opening the Michigan Rock and Roll
Legends Museum and thought Frankie Lymon's tombstone would be an
incredible addition to its collection. Though Frankie Lymon wasn't a
Michigan artist, his music had been so influential for Motown
artists and arguably Motown is the sound of Michigan, that
(14:25):
he held a very important place in the musical history
of the state. More importantly, Gary cared enough to tackle
the major logistical headache of getting this obscenely heavy piece
of history almost halfway across the country. This was late
twenty twenty, and the sad reality is that most of
the monument companies Gary contacted about moving the tombstone were
too busy to help him. Fortunately, Gary found a company
(14:48):
who understood the significance of the tombstone and was willing
to help out in a special circumstance like this. On
December eleventh, twenty twenty, Gary and Pam Nardella were joined
by fellow music fans journalists, all masked in socially distanced
as the tombstone was carefully removed from its spot in
Pam's backyard and winched into a truck ready to begin
(15:08):
the long journey to Bay City. It arrived at the
Bay City Historical Society a little over a month later.
It wouldn't be put into the final spot in the
museum until the summer. At the time, Garry was still
in the process of bringing together the different pieces for
his Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum when Frankie's tombstone
(15:29):
was placed in the center of the room. On a
wall nearby were pictures of the most pivotal figures in
Michigan music history, motown legends, people like Barry Gordy, Smokey Robinson,
and the Miracles, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder the Temptations. They
had all cited Frankie Lymon as an important influence. Frankie
(15:49):
Lymon's Tombstone had found its home in the Michigan Rock
and Roll Legends Museum. After all the people left, all
the equipments put away, and the tombstone was in its
final resting place. Gary stood there alone. He can't be sure,
(16:09):
but there, surrounded by all those Michigan music legends, he
thought he saw something.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
You know, there is a rumor that the Historical Museum
is haunted, and you know, when you're in the museum
all by yourself, I mean it's a very old building
and there are noises. You know, there's the tombstone and
these pictures of the artists that were in the Hall
(16:37):
of Fame, and many of them probably shared a stage
with Frankie Lyman back in the day. It was real
strange because of the lighting in the gallery. There was
kind of like a reflection off the tombstone out of
the floor and you know, so there's all that that
was part and parts love it. So I'm not a
(16:59):
real big believer in the supernatural, but it was kind
of interesting to be there at that particular time.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
This episode is dedicated to all the music Michigan legends
who help build rock and roll special thanks to Gary
Johnson from the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum. Got
a fake zombie story to share, We've set up an
email address, Fake Zombies Pod at gmail dot com. This
podcast was written by Daniel Ralston and Nick Dawson. Produced
(17:33):
by Nick Dawson and Anna McLean. Original music by Robin Hatch.
Executive produced by Melissa Locker, Ian Wheeler, and Daniel Ralston.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and Nevermind Media. For more
(17:54):
podcasts from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your pots. Guests
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and never Mind Media. When
you're searching for the roots of a rock and roll
band that existed fifty five years ago, you suddenly realized
(00:21):
that the history of modern American music can be traced
back to a few key figures. In the search for
the Fake Zombies, I encountered some big ones like Clive
Davis and Don Kershner, guys who created the rock and
roll business. Then they're the artists themselves, people who created
the thing we now call rock and roll, that question Mark,
and the mysterians Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. Bay City, Michigan,
(00:47):
the epicenter of the story of the Fake Zombies, is
a town where music matters. It was the home of
Delta Promotions and the place where Bill Kehoe and Jim
Atherton cooked up their audacious scheme out not one, but
two bands pretending to be the Zombies, plus fake versions
of the Animals and the Archies just for good measure.
(01:07):
It would have been impossible to start putting together the
pieces of this crazy tale without the Bay City people
who got pulled into this wild con, People like former
Delta Promotions employee Tom Hocot, mysterious guitarist Bobby Balbarama, and
Jim Atherton's prom day and longtime friend Ria Thompson. Hello
from the moment I found that faded black and white
(01:29):
promotional photo of the Texas Zombies with Delta Promotions address
and phone number on it. The person who did more
than anyone else to help me open up the world
of this story was Bay City's resident rock and roll historian,
Gary Doctor J. Johnson. Good to start here, take me around?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay, well, gettis.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Gary's passion for and deep knowledge of music is pretty
much unparalleled, and when it comes to the music of Michigan,
there is literally nobody who knows more. He's an encyclopedia
of information on bands from Detroit, the up and everywhere
else in Michigan. A few years ago, Gary put a
lifetime's worth of rock and roll memories from his home
state to good use by creating the Michigan Rock and
(02:11):
Roll Legends Museum, which is now housed on the second
floor of the Bay City Historical Society.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Let me take you through this. This is our newest
exhibit right here. This, to me is one of the
coolest things about the.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Museum, and if you go past the first floor exhibits
about logging and milling and shipbuilding, and go up the stairs,
you find yourself in a room overflowing with Michigan music memorabilia.
There's rock posters and guitars connected to everybody from Del
Shannon to Bob Seeger to MC five and Bay City's
(02:45):
prodigal daughter Madonna and the Bay City Rollers, whose name
is a reference to the town. They were actually from Scotland.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Of course. This is the big Madonnas Mick Jagger swinging
over the audio, the poster from the seventy two tour.
We have that here, autographs, autographed, the guitar, and we
have that, we have the original release. Anyways, we've got
some interesting things.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Taking center stage in the museum is something that's not
technically memorabilia. It's something much bigger, literally and figuratively. It's
made of granite. It's thirty three inches high, twenty seven
inches wide and eight inches deep, and it weighs more
than a thousand pounds.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I said, you know, we have to tell the story
of the tombstone, so it starts out over it.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I'm Daniel Ralstone and this is the first bonus episode
of the True Story of the Fake Zombie Frankie Lyman's
Tombstone Blues. Frankie Lyman is one of those figures that
(03:57):
shaped modern music, one of the earliest architects of what
we now know is pop music. When Frankie Lymon became
a star back in nineteen fifty six, he was thirteen.
Lyman and his bandmates were called the Teenagers because they
were all very much teenagers, though just barely. Gary says,
the fact that Frankie was so young opened a lot
(04:17):
of other young people's eyes.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Like Gary, he like opened the door for young people
to think, Jae, you know, I could probably do this,
and really important in Michigan because you know, all these
artists who would become so big at Motown, you know,
(04:39):
eight or nine years later, were only teenagers, like Smokey
Robinson forming his early groups, Diana Ross forming her early
vocal groups.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
If you know Frankie Lymon's name, you know the deep
debt people like Justin Bieber, the Backstreet Boys and in Sync.
Out of his group, frank Lymon and the Teenagers, they
were the original boy band. That whole boy band thing
started when Frankie Lymon announced himself to the world in
nineteen fifty six with the band single Why Do Fools
Fall in Love? The song was a smash hit, reaching
(05:24):
number six on the Billboard chart, number one on the
R and B charts, and hitting number one in the UK.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
The guys that were in The Temptations who went on
to become The Temptations were all teenagers. Stevie Wonder was
probably only six years old at that particular time when
he heard that song, So I think you know that
just allowed young people to dream that they could do
(05:52):
those things.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That song, and especially Frankie's high, boyish vocals, made such
an impression that that sound essentially became the blueprint used
by Barry Gordy for his motown girl groups, especially Diana
Ross and The Supremes. Diana Ross has covered Frankie in
her live set for decades. Frankie Lymon has also been
(06:22):
cited as an influence by Michael Jackson, Ronnie Specter, The Temptations,
George Clinton, Smokey Robinson, and Billy Joel, and Why Do
Fools Fall in Love was covered by the Beach Boys
and Joni Mitchell. Watching old clips of Frankie, his voice
(06:51):
so youthful and powerful his incredible dance moves. It's easy
to see why he was the blueprint for such a
wide range of artists and the foundation of the motown sound.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
When Phil Spector first heard the ron Nats Ronnie Bennett,
he said, had a voice like Frankie Lyman. So you
see that kind of connection, and you know then the
song itself, which becomes a hit again in the in
the sixties, or even back in the nineteen fifties when
(07:22):
Black Axe had difficulty getting played in a lot of
radio stations, the song was a big hit for two
white artists at the same time.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
In nineteen fifty six, Lyman and his band appeared in
the rebellion Flick Rock Rock Rock and put out songs
throughout the middle of nineteen fifty seven, at which point
Frankie went solo. Looking back, that decision to split with
the Teenagers would leave Frankie down a dark pat recording
(08:00):
throughout the fifties, but his solo work didn't come anywhere
close to replicating the success he had with the Teenagers.
By the early sixties, Frankie's career was headed downhill. The
tale of Frankie Lyman is fundamentally a tragic one. Lyman
was introduced to heroin at the age of fifteen. As
his star began to fade, his drug problems increased. He
(08:23):
went to rehab in nineteen sixty one. In nineteen sixty six,
a decade after his heyday with the Teenagers, he was
arrested on a heroin charge. Instead of doing jail time,
he spent two years in the army, during which he
seemingly got clean. After being discharged, he moved in with
(08:43):
his grandmother and worked on getting his music career back
on track. Things were looking good, and he managed to
set up a recording session on February twenty eighth, nineteen
sixty eight, thanks to interest from his old label, Roulette Records. Tragically, though,
he chose to celebrate this good news by using again.
(09:07):
Frankie Lyman was found dead of an overdose in his
grandmother's bathroom, a syringe lying next to him, on February
twenty seventh, nineteen sixty eight, the day before the comeback
recording session. He was just twenty five. There are unbelievably
(09:29):
high peaks in Frankie Lyman's story and an equally tragic
and untimely death. But there's another side that's arguably even
more interesting the stuff of Hollywood movies. Right after filmmaker
Gregory Nava directed Jennifer Lopez in her breakthrough role playing
the title character in Selena, Nava made another biopic about
(09:51):
a singer gone before their time. It's called Why Do
Fools Fall in Love? The movie has that title not
only because of Lyman's biggest hit, but also because Lymon's
love life was off the charts crazy, specifically his marital life.
When Frankie Lymon died, there was a dispute over the
royalties for his biggest song, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
(10:14):
They came to light that there were not one or two,
but three women who were married to Frankie Lymon when
he passed. That charisma and swag that Lyman showed on
stage was very much carried over to his life off stage.
He'd walked down the aisle with Elizabeth Waters in nineteen
sixty four, but also singer Zola Taylor from The Platters
in nineteen sixty five and schoolteacher Amira Eagle in nineteen
(10:37):
sixty seven, marrying wives number two and three without ever
bothering to get divorced. In the course of the royalty dispute,
it turned out that his first wife, Elizabeth Waters, had
never actually divorced her first husband, and then, while Lyman's
relationship with Zola Taylor was real, his marriage to her,
which took place in Mexico, may have in fact been
a publicity stunt. In either way, Taylor had no paperwork
(11:01):
to prove that her marriage to Frankie was legal. If
you want to check out the big screen version of
the story, it stars Halle Berry and Vivica A Fox,
and there's a cameo by Little Richard as himself. Of course,
Why Do Fools Fall in Love is available now to stream.
When Frankie died in nineteen sixty eight, he was buried
(11:23):
in his hometown of New York City in Saint Raymond
Cemetery in the Bronx. After his passing, Whye a Fools
Fall in Love got even more popular after it was
featured in George Lucas's American Graffiti. Frankie's story was told
in the movie Why Do Fools Fall in Love? And
Frankie and the Teenagers have been inducted into both the
Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll
(11:44):
Hall of Fame. When a group of his fans discovered
that Frankie had been buried in an unmarked grave, they
pulled together three thousand dollars to have a tombstone. Mate
Beneath his name and the dates of his birth and
death are the words we Promise to Remember, which plays
on another classic song by Frankie and the Teenagers, I
Promised to remember. The man whose idea was to have
(12:15):
that tombstone made. New Jersey music store owner and ardent
Officionado Vocal Harmony Group's Ronnie Italiano reached out to Lyman's
widow and Myra Eagle about having the tombstone installed by
his grave at Saint Raymond Cemetery. This was right in
the middle of the legal battle over royalties involving all
three of Lyman's reported widows. Eagle asked Italiana to hold
(12:36):
off on moving the tombstone until a less contentious time, so,
initially as a temporary measure, Taliano held onto the tombstone
and displayed it at a store. The tombstone found its
home in the window of Ronnie Eye's Clifton music store,
the Clifton, New Jersey, where it was mounted on a
riser a top a bed of synthetic grass with plastic
(12:58):
flowers laid around it. When Ronnie Italiano died in two
thousand and eight, his widow took over running the store,
but it closed in twenty twelve. The question was where
would Frankie Lymon's tombstone live. A friend of Italiano's, Pam Nardella,
who had met him through their shared love of groups
(13:19):
like Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, ended up having the
tombstone transported to her garden in Elmwood Park, New Jersey,
where it looked a little out of place amongst her
flowers and a Nativity set. It stayed there for a
full eight years, from twenty twelve until twenty twenty, when
Gary Johnson, who'd read about it in a book called
Weird New Jersey, tracked down Nardella and pitched her on
(13:42):
an idea to move the granite headstone from her backyard
to a more fitting final resting place his Rock and
Roll Legends Museum in Bay City, Michigan. Nardella always wanted
the tombstone to have a better and more fitting home
than her backyard, but neither the Smithsonian nor the rock
of a Hall of fame. Despite Lyman being an inductee
(14:03):
showed any genuine interest. In twenty twenty, Gary Johnson was
in the process of opening the Michigan Rock and Roll
Legends Museum and thought Frankie Lymon's tombstone would be an
incredible addition to its collection. Though Frankie Lymon wasn't a
Michigan artist, his music had been so influential for Motown
artists and arguably Motown is the sound of Michigan, that
(14:25):
he held a very important place in the musical history
of the state. More importantly, Gary cared enough to tackle
the major logistical headache of getting this obscenely heavy piece
of history almost halfway across the country. This was late
twenty twenty, and the sad reality is that most of
the monument companies Gary contacted about moving the tombstone were
too busy to help him. Fortunately, Gary found a company
(14:48):
who understood the significance of the tombstone and was willing
to help out in a special circumstance like this. On
December eleventh, twenty twenty, Gary and Pam Nardella were joined
by fellow music fans journalists, all masked in socially distanced
as the tombstone was carefully removed from its spot in
Pam's backyard and winched into a truck ready to begin
(15:08):
the long journey to Bay City. It arrived at the
Bay City Historical Society a little over a month later.
It wouldn't be put into the final spot in the
museum until the summer. At the time, Garry was still
in the process of bringing together the different pieces for
his Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum when Frankie's tombstone
(15:29):
was placed in the center of the room. On a
wall nearby were pictures of the most pivotal figures in
Michigan music history, motown legends, people like Barry Gordy, Smokey Robinson,
and the Miracles, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder the Temptations. They
had all cited Frankie Lymon as an important influence. Frankie
(15:49):
Lymon's Tombstone had found its home in the Michigan Rock
and Roll Legends Museum. After all the people left, all
the equipments put away, and the tombstone was in its
final resting place. Gary stood there alone. He can't be sure,
(16:09):
but there, surrounded by all those Michigan music legends, he
thought he saw something.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
You know, there is a rumor that the Historical Museum
is haunted, and you know, when you're in the museum
all by yourself, I mean it's a very old building
and there are noises. You know, there's the tombstone and
these pictures of the artists that were in the Hall
(16:37):
of Fame, and many of them probably shared a stage
with Frankie Lyman back in the day. It was real
strange because of the lighting in the gallery. There was
kind of like a reflection off the tombstone out of
the floor and you know, so there's all that that
was part and parts love it. So I'm not a
(16:59):
real big believer in the supernatural, but it was kind
of interesting to be there at that particular time.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
This episode is dedicated to all the music Michigan legends
who help build rock and roll special thanks to Gary
Johnson from the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum. Got
a fake zombie story to share, We've set up an
email address, Fake Zombies Pod at gmail dot com. This
podcast was written by Daniel Ralston and Nick Dawson. Produced
(17:33):
by Nick Dawson and Anna McLean. Original music by Robin Hatch.
Executive produced by Melissa Locker, Ian Wheeler, and Daniel Ralston.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and Nevermind Media. For more
(17:54):
podcasts from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your pots. Guests
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