From Broadway to the Street Corner: The Doo Wop Project
The mission of The Doo Wop Project is clear: to preserve and propel the authentic sound of doo-wop. Learn how these six Broadway powerhouses are revitalizing the genre's gritty, street-corner roots for a new generation. With their new album, Echoes of the Street, they're "Doo Wopifying" everything from The Temptations to Taylor Swift!
The Doo Wop Project isn’t just a group of powerhouse vocalists; they are curators of music history, performing the delicate but necessary work of revitalizing an older music genre and repackaging it for a new generation to discover.
The Origins of Doo Wop
Time has a way of sanitizing the past, and when we think of doo-wop today, we picture clean-cut young men in pressed suits harmonizing and snapping in neatly choreographed unison. Because of that image, it’s easy to dismiss doo wop as quaint music for an era of innocence long gone. Yet its origins tell a different story—one filled with grit, resilience, and a spirit of invention. For Perspective, Doo-wop started out as the black, teenage inner-city expression of the ’50s, much like rap emerged as the black teenage inner city expression of the ’70s.
Doo Wop was born in the late 1940s out of Black communities in America’s great industrial cities—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit—it thrived on the margins, fueled by a restless and resourceful spirit amongst the city’s black youth. By the early ’50s, you could find teenagers gathering and harmonizing wherever the city’s architecture lent them an echo: streetcorners, tenement stoops, in subway stations.
Urban teens unable to afford musical instruments gravitated toward doo wop because they could make entire bands out of their voices, a baritone’s rumble became the stand-in for a bass line; falsetto traced out trumpet notes; and nonsense syllables—“dip dip dip,” “sha na na na”—slid into place as the percussion. Through Doo Wop, these teens built an expression of youth, energy, and imagination, one that, by the mid-1950s, had surged into the mainstream American culture.
Credit: Rob Buchwald
The Doo Wop Project
Six men with Broadway backgrounds have made it their mission to give doo wop its fair share in the 21st century. The Doo Wop Project is made up of Dominic (Dom) Nolfi, Charl Brown, John Michael Dias, Russell Fischer, Dwayne Cooper, and their musical arranger and keyboardist, Santino (Sonny) Paladino. Together, they’ve spent over a decade touring the country, earning acclaim with four albums and even a PBS special. Now, with their fifth album, Echoes of the Street, set to release on October 10, the group is hitting the road again, bringing their latest reimagined harmonies to audiences across the US.
Their dedication to the genre is rooted in personal passion, and each member discovered and fell in love with doo-wop in their own way. For Dwayne, the group’s Bass, the connection came through family. “My introduction to doo-wop was through my mother. She dated one of the Drifters and often played various styles of music in our home. I was always in awe of the tight harmonies,” he recalls. Whereas, for Sonny, the connection was a matter of personal inheritance—his uncle, Martin D’Amico, played keyboard for Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge. “I grew up watching my uncle play keyboard in that band, just like I do with The Doo Wop Project… you might say that it’s in the blood!” Meanwhile, Dom discovered the genre through the soundtracks of classic films like A Bronx Tale, Goodfellas, and Mean Streets. “At home, I’d lock myself in my room and learn the tunes by singing along”. Despite their different paths, all six share a common thread, a deep love for doo-wop and its sister genres.
Credit: Josh Drake
Reinventing Tradition
The group first came together on the Broadway stage during the musical Jersey Boys, where they discovered not only a shared love for the genre but also an audience eager to embrace it. Since its formation, the Doo Wop Project has built its reputation on performing both classic doo-wop standards and inventive “Doo Wopified” versions of modern hits. Their upcoming 12-track album, Echoes of the Street, broadens that repertoire even further, spanning R&B classics, pop anthems, and selections from musical theater—from The Temptations’ “My Girl” to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” (featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers), alongside “Somewhere” from West Side Story and Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” Among the album’s highlights is “Sincerely,” by the Moonglows, a track that Dom describes as “pure doo-wop at its finest,” a song that “works a cappella in the subway or with a 60-piece orchestra.”
For the group, the deciding factor in choosing what to “Doo Wopify” is simple: timelessness. “We always try to find songs that have lasted, or will last, the test of time,” Sonny explains. “Something every generation in the audience can recognize.” By including contemporary songs in their set list, they also give younger listeners a way to connect with the genre. “It’s our own clever way of giving them what they didn’t know they needed—a chance to appreciate this music,” Dwayne adds. The sheer cheer and joy that The Doo Wop Project radiates through their performances makes it nearly impossible for anyone, older or younger, to resist smiling, swaying, or tapping along. Their music speaks to two simple truths: good music doesn’t have a time limit, and harmony is infectious.
“With Doo Wop, you really have to listen to one another, stay tight, and capture as much as possible the essence of the era. . . Many artists can sing the material, but it’s another thing to see faces light up when we sing this stuff well because they are immediately transported back to their good old days.”
– Dwayne Cooper | The Doo-Wop Project
What sets The Doo Wop Project apart as America’s premier doo-wop group is their sheer vocal excellence. Each member is a powerful vocalist on their own, yet every person brings a distinct tonality and style that is integral to the group’s harmonies. Charl explains, “Each of us has a strong solo voice, but what we truly enjoy is the brotherhood that comes through in harmony.” The art of creating interlocking harmonies, or as the Doo Wop Project would call them, “tight harmonies,” is no easy feat, yet the group has mastered it, infusing every note with precision, control, and artistry. As Dwayne explains, “With Doo Wop, you really have to listen to one another, stay tight, and capture as much as possible the essence of the era. . . Many artists can sing the material, but it’s another thing to see faces light up when we sing this stuff well because they are immediately transported back to their good old days.”
Many believe that doo wop ended when the Beatles took over the US charts in the mid-1960s, but in reality, doo wop never truly left—it has simply evolved, reinventing itself with each new generation and quietly shaping the musical landscape as an undercurrent. With The Doo Wop Project’s efforts to preserve the genre and bring it to a new generation, perhaps doo wop is poised for a mainstream resurgence. As Dom says, “Finding a group of guys to harmonize with will never go out of style. When everything is clicking in five-part harmony, there’s nothing like it.”
