Group formed shortly after the breakup of
The Flairs, in the first semester of 1955.
Consisted of; Cornel Gunter (lead), Fred Romain (1st tenor), Pete Fox (2nd tenor), Randy Jones (bass), Obie Young Jessie (baritone)
The Flairs were in temporary disbandment. Gunter got a call to do studio work on a few fresh songs. As Fred was not doing much (with the Native Boys), Gunter recruited him, along with ex-Flairs baritone Obie Young Jessie, tenor Pete Fox and baritone/bass Randy Jones. Billed as The Jac-O-Lacs, they recorded Cindy Lou flipped with Sha-ba-da-ba-doo (Tampa 103) for Robert Scherman and Irving Shorten's tiny label on West Pico Boulevard. Tampa had only The Dooley Sisters under contract at the time and was looking for quartet action. As later with The Sparklers and Flannels, Scherman would often call singers down to his studios whenever he had put together certain vocal-oriented charts.
Fred (Romain) remembers the group piling into his beat-up old 1950 Chevy to get the group down to the studio on time. We had two flats, said Fred, one going down there and one coming back. It was a grueling six-hour session. The Jac-O-Lacs had a hard time getting the parts down correctly. Cindy Lou is a jazz-laced tope-tapper, more in the jump & jive tradition then the prevailing doo-wop one. Cornel gives the song his hammed-up best. Sha-ba-da-ba-doo, a dance craze opus, is in the same mode and is crammed with quirky lyrics and open harmony, augmented by Barney Kessel's Oscar Moore- like guitar ornaments. As with The Native Boys' initial waxing, Cindy Lou went nowhere.