By David Salfino
Reporter

(July 9, 2009) — Bergen county music lovers won’t have to wait until the summer’s through to see Bob Miranda and The Happenings. The vocal group, whose 1966 smash hit, “See You In September,” was recently included in Entertainment Magazine’s top 100 summer songs of all time, will perform at Town Hall Park on Delafield Avenue in Lyndhurst on Friday, July 17, at 7 p.m.

“Here we are, a sweet-sounding vocal group on the charts, and I didn’t even know what we were doing there,” said Miranda, the group’s founder and lead singer. “It really surprised the hell out of us.”

The song, which peaked at number three on the national charts, had been a minor hit by The Tempos in 1959. Sticking to its formula of revising older records, Miranda and company slowed down the tempo of the original, added some vocal hooks, and gave it a different arrangement.

“What we tried to do was to pick a great song that we thought hadn’t been made into a great record,” Miranda said. “I really felt we could make it better and I think we did.”

The Happenings followed “September” with other hits including Steve Lawrence’s “Go Away Little Girl,” George and Ira Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” and Al Jolson’s “My Mammy.” The group toured throughout the United States, Europe, and South America, and appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Smothers Brothers Show, and The Merv Griffin Show.

Miranda remembered the band’s heyday as bittersweet.

“There were some great things that happened, and there were some really lousy things that went on within the group that eventually broke us up,” he said. “When you’re making big money, personalities change.”

The group, whose original members were Miranda, David Libert, Tom Giuliano, and Ralph DiVito, met at a church dance in East Paterson in the early 1960s.

“We actually met in the bathroom of the church,” Miranda said. “If you were a singer at the time, you met in the men’s room, because that’s where the echo was.”

After getting their act together, the group, calling themselves The Four Graduates, began performing in the Tri-State area, mostly in the Catskill Mountains. After doing some recording, Miranda was hired as a staff songwriter by The Tokens, who had scored a big hit with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in 1962.  

While working for The Tokens, Miranda wrote songs for The Chiffons and Gerry and the Pacemakers. In 1965, The Tokens formed B.T. Puppy Records, and signed The Four Graduates, who then changed their name toThe Happenings, to a five-year contract.

The first session produced “Girls on the Go,” “a big hit in Springfield, Massachusetts, and nowhere else,” according to Miranda. The second session produced “See You In September,” and the rest, as they say, is history.

The new version of The Happenings, which has been together since 1992, includes singers Bob Kulik and George Rizzi, and a seven-piece band. The group’s live show combines standards and original material.

“You can expect to hear our hits, along with a lot of ‘60s music--The Beach Boys, Rascals, The Righteous Brothers, you name it,” said Miranda. “We sound the same, maybe better than we did back then, and we’re really looking forward to coming to Lyndhurst.”

For details visit www.thehappenings.com and www.bobmiranda.com. The concert, which is free, will be held rain or shine.