Nick A. Marinelli [The original Shades of Blue lead singer]
Born in Detroit at a very young age, Nick spent his early years in Detroit's northwest Italian neighborhood. The family moved to California for a short time and in the 50' s moved back to Livonia Mich. where Nick attended Emerson Jr. High. At this time Nick hooked up with some guys who were into street corner Doo-Wop. That's when things took off. Back then they called themselves "Little Bow & The Arrows", singing at local schools and small teen clubs.
In the late 50's and early 6O's while attending Franklin High (Livonia), Nick got serious about music. Nick, Bob Kerr , Ernie Demai and Dan Guise renamed the group, "The Domingo' s" .The group got there first experience recording in a basement studio with a song called "Camel Walk". Nick still has this record to this day. The group emulated such stars as the Temptations, Contours, Penguins, and the fantastic Flamingo's. The guys worked at colleges and local teen clubs like the old Walled Lake Casino, with local DJ's Lee Alan and Dave Prince. This was when Mitch Rider was called "Billy Lee and the Rivera's". Nick says, those days were full of freebee gigs, but we did keep busy working local teen clubs throughout our high school years.
While attending college, the group lost Dan to other interests. They changed the dynamics of the group by adding a girl, and developed a little different sound. The group now consisted of Nick Marinelli [lead], Ernie Dernai [lst tenor], Linda Alan [2nd tenor], and Bob Kerr [baritone]. Little did they know in time they would touch so many lives with a simple song!
Nick said, prior to this period of time, some friends of theirs " The Reflections" became stars with a hit song [Just like Romeo & Juliet]. These guys were instrumental in connecting them with Golden World Studios as backup and demo singers.
Within a short period of time the group proved to be a talent to deal with. Edwin Star" Agent Double O Soul", decided to work together with the group developing new songs. The best of the bunch was a tune called "Oh How Happy" .
At the time Golden World had no interest in another white vocal group similar to the "Reflections". John Ryse an independent producer who liked what he was hearing took the group to Harry Balk at Impact Records. The group along with John renamed the group "The Shades of Blue", developed from soulful R&B white singers known as blue eyed soul groups. "Oh How Happy" was released in the spring of 1966 and rocketed to the top of the charts and became a Gold Record. The rest as they say is history .Over the years the song has sold millions of copies and has been licensed over twenty seven times. "The Shades of Blue" also had two other charted hits, Happiness, and Lonely Summer. They also released an album called "Happiness is the Shades of Blue", which Nick has recently re-mastered on CD.
After four years of touring around the country performing with various groups doing concerts, TV shows, and touring with Dick Clark, the group decided to retire in 1970. At that time acid and hard rock music started to dominate talented harmony groups.
Through the years Nick has been busy producing and writing some Country and contemporary Christian music with friend Marshall Block of Real II Reel Productions. Together they produced a Country Christian Album called " Out of The Blue", but never released it. He also has done some syndicated TV production. During the 90's as a solo artist, Nick performed with various artists under the name "Nick Alan".
2002 -Giving in to prompting from many fellow contemporaries, Nick hooked up with, as Nick puts it, "three of the most talented singers I have ever known", Andy Alonzo, Stuart Avig~ Donald ReVels and reformed the new "Shades ofBlue~'. The group has been touring for two years now and "The Shades of Blue" have never sounded better.
Nick is happily married to his wife of 37 years and have two greats kids. Both he and his wife are having "Fun" traveling the music circuit together with the rest of the group.
