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Formed 1959 in New York, NY [The Bronx]
Group Members:
Guy Villari, (lead), Sal Cuomo, (first tenor), Chuck Fassert, (second tenor), Tony Gravagna, (sax player-baritone), Don Jacobucci, (bass).
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The original group, formed 1957 as the Monterays", were Villari, Cuomo, Fassert and Ernie Maresca.
In 1958, when Maresca decided to change his name to "Frisby Clements" and front the group, he was promptly replaced with Cuomo's friend Don Jacobucci.
The group recorded many demos in Bell Sound, Associated, and Regent Sound studios.
Finally they were they were signed to Seville Records as "The Desires". They recorded a few songs that were not released until the group had success 3 years later as The Regents.
The Regents name came from a combination of doing a demo at Regents Sound studio and the fact that Villari smoked Regents Cigarettes. To this day, Villari has the empty pack that was in his pocket when the name was chosen.
In 1958 the group decided to do a song Villari had written called "A Teenagers Love". They booked an hour of studio time, for $15, at a small studio in Manhattan called "Associated". The group took 50 minutes to do the song. As the group was leaving the studio, one of the members noticed that they still had 10 minutes of studio time left. They decided to "throw in" Barbara Ann. The group did three takes and left. Shortly, thereafter, Tony Gravagna who came along just to play sax was taken into the group.
The Regents went to every record company they could find but they were not able to land a contract. They disbanded about a year later.
In 1961 Fred Fassert, brother of Chuck, who wrote the song had a local group audition for Lou Cicchetti. Lou was the owner of Cousins Records, which was a record shop on Fordham Road in the Bronx, New York. Lou had put out a few records by local groups without success. The group, (The Consorts), which included Eddie Jacobucci, performed "Barbara Ann" for Lou and he liked it. Fred explained that his brother had a demo of the song, which was recorded three years previously.
Fred played the Regents demo in the store and while playing, customers in the store tried to buy it. Lou decided to put out the Regents version and do other songs with The Consorts.
He sent the Regents to "Bruno & Dean Studio", in New Rochelle, New York to cut a flip side and to overdub a bass player on Barbara Ann. Guy was in the hospital at the time so Eddie Jacobucci did Guy's part on the flip side.
Cousins released "Barbara Ann" in March of 1961. He had 1000 copies pressed and when they sold out he leased it to Roulette/Gee Records for worldwide distribution. The record was a number one hit for four weeks in New York, went to number 13 on the pop charts and number seven in R&B.
Their follow-up "Runaround", written by Ernie Maresca, went to number 28 on the pop charts and number 30 in R&B.
They did two more records for "Gee" but when there was a royalties dispute with the company, the group broke up.
In 1964 Villari and Fassert started a new group, named after their second record, "The Runarounds". They brought in a third singer, Ron Lapinsky, and did the night club circuit with some success.
From time to time they brought in new members for recording purposes. Along with Sal Corrente they recorded a song called "Unbelievable" for Nat King Coles "KC" label. They also recorded for MGM, Capital, Tarheel and Felsted records, but never hit the charts again.
In 1967 they, once again, disbanded but emerged in 1973 once more as The Regents with Guy Villari, the only remaining original member, Ron Lapinsky and Bob Falcone.
The group enjoyed success as a concert group and did many road tours throughout the country. They were also selected as one of three "oldies" groups to appear on the 1988 Grammy Awards Show.
The Regents were given credit, by a national magazine as having the first "beach song" and were the first white group to have a hit record with a white falsetto lead.
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