For a while, it worked - the white covers frequently outsold the Black R&B originals from 1954 until 1956. Many rock historians point out - with a great deal of justification - that this amounted to an attempt by the music establishment to buck the oncoming threatening storm of the rock era by watering it down into a much more palatable and conventional (i.e., white) form that in reality had little to do with rock at all. Their strategy of foraging for sources among Black R&B vocal singles was widely imitated throughout the industry, by Pat Boone, the McGuire Sisters, Georgia Gibbs, and numerous others.
The Crew Cuts were regular visitors to the Top 20 over the next couple of years, repeating the "Sh-Boom" syndrome with songs like "Earth Angel," their second-biggest hit at number three (though nobody remembers the Crew Cuts' version today, the Penguins' original had long established supremacy with audiences and on oldies stations). Although the original Chords version still became one of the first Top Ten rock & roll hits, the Crew Cuts' cover outsold it by a wide margin, finding a far easier entrance into established radio formats and mainstream white audiences. When the Crew Cuts got a hold of "Sh-Boom," they gave the song a far more standard (white) pop treatment than the Chords had, complete with big-band type orchestration. The Toronto foursome already had a Top Ten hit under their belts with their first major label single, "Crazy 'Bout Ya Baby," before tackling "Sh-Boom" what's more, their first hit had been a group original, not an R&B cover. Their cover of the Chords' "Sh-Boom" went to number one in 1954, setting the stage for their other commercially successful pop treatments of R&B hits by the Penguins, Gene & Eunice, Otis Williams & the Charms, the Robins, the Spaniels, the Nutmegs, and others. The Canadian quartet differed from those acts, however, in their concentration upon covers of songs originally recorded by R&B and doo wop vocal groups.
They weren't rock & rollers in the first place: their clean-cut white harmony glee club approach was really in the style of early- and mid-'50s groups such as the Four Aces, the Four Lads, and the Four Freshmen. On most informed lists of rock & roll villains, the Crew Cuts would have to rank near the top.
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