The Serendipity Singers were a 1960s American folk group, similar to The New Christy Minstrels.
This nine-member folk-oriented group started at the University of Colorado with seven original members of a group called the Newport Singers. Those members; Bryan Sennett, Brooks Hatch, Mike Brovsky, John Madden, Jon Arbenz, Bob Young and Lynne Weintraub had, with the exception of Weintraub, all previously worked together in various trios before coming together to form the Newport Singers.
In 1963, after working extensively in the Rocky Mountain Denver-Boulder Front Range region, the Newport Singers moved to New York City based on a telegram offering a record contract from a William Morris agent. Fred Weintraub, then-owner of the Bitter End in Greenwich Village agreed to manage the group. Weintraub, also at the time the talent co-coordinator for the popular ABC Hootenanny television series, felt the group needed two more people to round out the sound. He invited Tom Tiemann and Diane Decker, two University of Texas students whom he had heard, to New York for an audition. It was Weintraub who proposed the name change from the Newport Singers to Serendipity. After some considerable discussion the compromise became the Serendipity Singers.
After several months of rehearsal and work with Bob Bowers who became the group’s musical director, the Serendipity Singers opened at Weintraub's Bitter End café. They played in Greenwich Village and landed spots on the weekly Hootenanny show.[1]
Philips Records signed them in 1964 and released their debut album to considerable sales success. Bowing at #90 on the Hot 100 on Leap Day 1964, the debut single "Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)" climbed to #6 on 2-9 May 1964 and also hit #2 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart (and even managed to top the 17 April 1964 WLS Silver Dollar Survey,[2] right in the middle of Beatlemania). The follow-up, "Beans in My Ears", hit #30 on the Hot 100 and #5 on the AC chart a few months later.[3] They also released a French language album which met with moderate success in France. Their initial success, however, was dampened by the continuing impact of the British Invasion, and within a few years the group's sound seemed dated to younger audiences.[1] They released five albums on the Philips label before the end of 1965; United Artists released one LP in 1967, which was the group's final. All of the initial members had left the group by 1970, but modified versions of the group have continued touring into the 2000s. In 1999, eight of the original nine members united for a concert.
The Serendipity Singers' novelty material continues to be played on the Dr. Demento radio show such as "Beans In My Ears" and the Shel Silverstein song "Plastic."