The Groups
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THE DELLS      (an excerpt from the chapter)

The Dells received a huge boost in the late '80s when filmmaker Robert Townsend sought out the group to be technical consultants for his new film, The Five Heartbeats, originally a comedy about a black vocal group. Barksdale recalls, "We were working at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles doing a little mini-tour with the Delfonics. A young lady, Kitty Sears, brought Robert backstage to meet us. After the introductions, he ran it down as to why he really wanted to meet us. He wanted to put together a comedy about black stand-up vocal groups. Well ... that kinda hit the main vein. Ain't nothing funny about being a black stand-up vocal group, as Marvin [Junior] ran it down to him. It's a very serious situation with black brothers struggling out there on the highway, getting stopped by the police, the racism, not being able to eat where we wanted to eat, staying in the flophouses ... After Marvin ran it down to him, he said, 'Wait a minute. This isn't what I was going to write about but I like this idea better than the idea about a comedy.'

"Robert followed us around for about six weeks on this mini-tour, getting information from us on a day-to-day basis, watching the reaction of the crowd to the various songs we sang, watching our dress, watching our mannerisms, taking a little more advice. As far as being technical advisors, about 85 percent of [The Five Heartbeats] was about the Dells' life story. The Dells had a cameo part that was supposed to be in the movie. Either 'Stay in My Corner,' which we did in the cameo, didn't fit or they didn't like what they shot. I'd rather think that it just didn't fit rather than us failing our acting debut. Either way, our part wound up on the editing floor."

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