Tony & the Twilights

Tony & the Twilights, also known as Tony Richards & The Twilights, were an offshoot of three different groups from the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, NY. Tony Richards, aka Tony Passalacqua, had sung with the Fascinators, a quartet formed in Bushwick in 1957. Among the Fascinators' rivals and contemporaries were the Clusters, who were friends of Passalacqua's, and the Markels, another Bushwick-based group, who scored a modest hit in 1958 with "Letter of Love." When the Fascinators broke up in 1961, Passalacqua hooked up with Joe Gugliaro and Joe Agugliaro (who were cousins) of the Clusters, and Donnie Milo, formerly of the Markels, essentially forming a reconstituted Clusters. The new group was called the Twilights and the group was signed to Colpix Records, but they immediately ran into trouble when their first single was issued as The Twilights featuring Tony Richards, which was soon changed to Tony & the Twilights. The inevitable ego clashes ensued and the group split up in the next year after recording a series of singles for Colpix and other labels. Tony Richards, as he was billed, later recorded as Tony Mitchell, but never recaptured the promise of his early work with the Fascinators.