“Bring it On” meets “Dreamgirls” in the girl-group musical, “Betty and the Belrays” by William Electric Black aka Ian Ellis James The piece tells the story of three white female singers from Detroit who struggle to change a racially divided society by singing for a black record label.
Girl groups are now an iconic part of the history of the recording industry in America. In a brief, shining period between the payola scandal and the British invasion, American girl groups swamped the charts with songs that are now classic: mostly sweet harmonies on sentimental themes, with classic melody constructions and simplistic love lyrics. Partially because of the concern that America’s teens would like the songs better if they didn’t know the singers’ color, many girl groups were anonymous except for their recordings.
Almost all of them were black, but that was not known to many fans at the time. “Betty & The Belrays,” asks, “what would have happened if a white girl group had actually tried to recapitulate the careers of these black groups?”
