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The Tokens music biography continued...

High School in Brooklyn, and also included Neil Sedaka, who would go on to have a highly successful solo career. The group started going by the name The Tokens in 1959, with a line up consisting of Mitch Margo and his brother Phil, Hank Medress and Jay Siegel. Their first recording as such was the 1961 self-penned "Tonight I Fell In Love", which was picked up by Warwick Records. Following the record's rise to number 15 in the US, the Tokens forged a creative partnership with producers and songwriters Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore at RCA Records. That pair, along with songwriter George Weiss, reworked the folk song "Wimoweh", itself reworked by the folk group the Weavers from a 30s South African song called "Mbube", into "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". A seminal hit, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" reached #1 on the US charts and #11 in the UK, making The Tokens stars.




In early 1962 the Tokens attempted to repeat the success of their number 1 tune by reworking other songs, including another African folk song, "B'wa Nina (Pretty Girl)", and the Ritchie Valens hit "La Bomba," itself an old Mexican folk song. The Tokens never recaptured the success they enjoyed with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", although they appeared on the US singles chart regularly until the beginning of the 70s, most notably with He's In Town" in 1964, "I Hear Trumpets Blow" in 1966 and "Portrait Of My Love" in 1967. In 1967 the Tokens signed with Warner Brothers Records (which refused to release a concept album they had recorded entitled Intercourse, which the band released itself in 1971) and two years later switched over to Buddah Records. Soon after, the band began to disintegrate and in 1974 its members officially went their separate ways. A reunion concert in New York in 1981 featured the Margo brothers, Siegel and Medress. Some of the band members, particularly Mitch Margo, attempted to keep the Tokens name alive by forming new line-ups into the 80s and 90s, by which time they had become nostalgic favorites.