John Madara - producer, composer,
vocalist
John Medora was born in
Philadelphia on May 28, 1936. During his teen years, Rock and Roll
was beginning to take shape. When John was 17 years old, he took
singing lessons with vocal coach, Artie Singer. Artie had a song he
had written called "Be My Girl." They recorded it, and it made the
National charts top 100. By that time John had changed his name to
Johnny Madara. Following "Be My Girl" John recorded a song
written by Dave White and himself called "Do The Bop" with backup singers
Dave White, Danny Rapp, Frank Maffi and Joe Teranova, who would later
become "Danny and The Juniors." Capitol Records, who Johnny had a
contract with, passed on "Do The Bop," and at the suggestion of Dick
Clark, the title and lyrics were changed to "At The Hop." Danny and
The Juniors recorded the song for Artie Singer's label, Singular Records,
and later the master was sold to ABC Paramount. By christmas of
1957, "At The Hop" reached the top of the charts worldwide, was #1 on the
charts for an astounting 7 weeks (the first record to reach that success),
and remained in the Top 100 for 21 weeks.
John recorded several
other records, including Heavenly and Vacation Time, which hit the charts,
but Johnny Madara's singing career would be put on the back burner
following the huge success of "At The Hop." Dave and John's
subsequent success as producers and writing partners, with such hits as
"The Fly" (Chubby Checker), "You Don't Own Me" (Lesley Gore), and "1-2-3"
(Len Barry) made it difficult to resurrect John's singing career. It
would be several years later that John would record one final time with a
group he formed called The Spokesmen.
In 2002 John produced a CD for
Tony Danza titled: The House I Live In' to wonderful praise