Ollie & The Nightingales

Achieving a brief but strong burst of popularity in 1968 with their fantastic top 40 hit "I Got A Sure Thing", soul group Ollie & The Nightingales was centered around artist Ollie Hoskins. He was previously with the Wayside Travellers as early as 1950 before hopping over to the Gospel Writer Junior, the latter group recording for the label Pepper Records in Memphis before becoming The Dixie Nightingales. They recorded for Nashboro Records and then for Stax's gospel subsidiary Chalice before the group finally ended up on Stax itself, finally picking up the full "Ollie & The Nightingales" name. Their smooth soul track "I Got A Sure Thing" found them working with rnb stars Booker T. Jones and William Bell. Though that Stax tune hit #16 on the Billboard Black Singles chart and even garnered some international airplay, the band's time in the spotlight proved brief. Later releases simply couldn't capture that same vibe. Later on, after the departure of Ollie Hoskins, the group brought in Sir Mack Rice and became simply The Nightingales. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.