- Joe Billingslea and THE CONTOURS perform at the 2006 Superbowl tailgate party
Certified "Original" by the Motown Alumni Association.
In 1958, a group of four extremely talented young singers - Joe Billingslea, Billy Hoggs, Billy Gordon and Leroy Fair started singing as the Blenders. In 1960, the changed their name to THE CONTOURS and signed with Motown Records®. THE CONTOURS charted eleven hits:
- 1962 - Do You Love Me (1 R&B, 2 Hot 100, 3 Pop) 1963 - Shake Sherry (21 R&B, 43 Pop) 1963 - Don't Let Her Be Your Baby (64 Pop) 1964 - Can You Do It (16 R&B, 41 Pop) 1964 - Can You Jerk Like Me?? (15 R&B, 47 Pop) 1965 - The Day When She Needed Me (37 R&B) 1965 - First I Look At the Purse (12 R&B, 57 Pop) 1966 - Just a Little Misunderstanding (18 R&B, 85 Pop) 1967 - It's So Hard Being a Loser (35 R&B, 79 Pop) 1972 - Baby Hit and Run (Top 40 UK) 1988 - Do You Love Me [reissue] (11Pop)
THE CONTOURS have also been nominated for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and have received the Smokey Robinson Heroes And Legends Award. They were inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Walk of Fame outside Royal Oak's Metropolitan Musicafe.
Today, Joe Billingslea and THE CONTOURS include original member Joe Billingslea, 23-year group member Charles Davis, 14-year veterans Gary Grier and Al Chisholm and Odell Jones. In recent years the group has been featured in PBS specials. "Doo Wop Gold," a video from some of these specials has been available for years and the DVD for their latest PBS performance, "Motown: The Early Years," was released in January 2007. Watch for "Motown: The Early Years" on your local PBS station. In this, the 47th anniversary of THE CONTOURS' signing with Motown Records®, the group is as popular as ever. They have a new CD, "The Contours - Live II" and they play about 100 dates per year. The show is as high energy as it was in the 1960s, though the flips and splits of yesteryear have been replaced by a brilliant choreography more suited to gentlemen in their second half-century of life!
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