The Drifters

(eng) This 'author' represents two different groups of Drifters who are difficult to completely separate. THe original Drifters (1953-1958) were formed to back up lead singer Clyde McPhatter. After McPhatter went solo Bill Pinkney and the Thrasher brothers continued the group with various other lead singers including, for a while, Johnny Moore. In 1958 their manager, George Treadwell, who owned the group's name, fired them after a disagreement and hired a group called The Crowns to be the new Drifters (1959- ). This group contiued to have hits and after lead singer Ben E. King went solo the group conintued under the leadership of Charlie Thomas, until in 1964 they were joined by none other than Johnny Moore from the old Drifters. Moore became co-leader, and after Thomas left in 1967 the Drifters were more or less Moore's group (under Treadwell's management). In the 1970s Moore moved the Drifters to the UK where they enjoyed further success.
Moore continued with the UK Drifters until his death in 1998, and a version of that group still works in the UK. In the 60s and 70s Bill Pinkney and several of the 1950s Drifters formed a group called The Original Drifters which performed in various permutations until Pinkney's death in 2007 -- he was the last surviving Original Drifter. And there is a third group of Drifters: in the 1970s Chsrlie Thomas fromed a group with 1959 members Dock Green and Elsberry Hobbs to be known as Charlie Thomas's Drifters. A version of this group still performs today under Thomas's leadership.