•THE TOOLS•
Canon 5D Mark 2 with 24-105mm 1:4 lens
Mac Pro with Photoshop CS5 and Wacom tablet

•THE STORY•
By 1958, the Doo-wop style of music ruled the rock n’ roll airwaves. The Silhouettes, Dion & the Belmonts, the Chantels with “Maybe”, the Del Vikings with “Come Go With Me”, the Platters, the Coasters and most of the greatest groups to ever record were capturing the hearts of American youth with their forever-legendary songs. 

The urban centers of Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Los Angeles were the settings that enabled these often young, and mostly African American groups, to express their music without instruments. The use of their voices in a cappella form could be rehearsed in any location, on a street corner, in a hallway, or wherever the groups could gather together.
While the musical movement was male dominated, a trio of teen-aged sister was making a splash in the Philadelphia area. They were the Daughters of a Baptist Preacher named Earl Holloway, a man notable for his ability to communicate with young people and for his passion for the color purple. He claimed it was a divine color, and that’s why he named his girls Lavender, Fuchsia, and Orchid. He cared about only one earthly possession, and that was his purple Mercury convertible. “You’ve got to get peoples attention if you want to connect with them” he would say, and the purple Merc along with his Doo-wop singing family would put him squarely in the middle of the communities he wanted to reach. Unlike so many in the clergy of the 1950’s era, Reverend Holloway embraced the popular music of the times. “Nothing gets into a teenagers head faster than a song with a three-part-harmony and a good beat” he would say.
They called themselves The Violets, and they would fill every seat in the churches and community centers where they played. They would “pass the hat” as a means of supporting themselves, and shunned offers from record companies, “The business is corrupt.” He would say. “They take everything you’ve got and leave you with nothing.” This unfortunately would turn out to be true for most of the popular groups of the Doo-wop era. For the Violets however, success was measured by the number of hearts they reached and not by the thickness of their wallets. Earl knew how to take care of the money, and managed to put each of his girls through college. They became responsible adults, worked for civil rights, and dedicated their lives to public service. They would reach thousands of young people with the help of a hard working father, an infectious sound, and a stylish purple car. Rock on Mercury. Roll on.