Angels

(L-R) Peggy Santiglia, Barbara Allbut, and Phyliss "Jiggs"Allbut
The Angels were the most successful of the early 60s girl groups.

Originally sisters Barbara and Phyllis "Jiggs" Allbut, as a lark, took  money the received as a bithday gift to recording studio to record Some of Barbara's songs. There they met BobMinute who wanted to know if they would record his songs. as a lark, went to a street corner record your voice outlet and sang a few songs they had written. Overheard by another Bob Minute, they were asked to sing on his demos. Soon they added friends, Linda Malzone and Bernadette Carroll and called themselves the Starlets.

Starlets 1960
(clockwise from top left) Phyliss Allbut, Barbara Allbut, Linda Malzone, Bernadette Carroll

Originally called the Starlets, Barbara and Phyllis "Jiggs" Allbut were two sisters from Orange, New Jersey. that sang together in high school. They recorded "P.S. I Love You" for Astro Records, a tiny New Jersey jazz label. They received airplay in the New Jersey-New York area and Canadian-American Records did the distribution. They also did "Better Tell Him No" for Pam Records. Neither which went anywhere.   The combination of short funds, lengthy traveling, and seven day rehearsals led to Linda's dropping out. By mid-1961 Bernadette left for a solo career and was replaced  Linda Jansen in doing vocal back-up work in New York.

In addition to the personal changes a lawyer contacted the group telling them another female group had trademarked the Starlet name. Girls deciided on the Blue Angels, but soon shortened it to the Angels.

The Canadian-American connection led to a deal with Caprice, a small New York City label, by Gerry Granahan. Their first Caprice release in the summer of 1961 the girls was "Till," a Top 30 hit five years earlier for Roger Williams. After signing with Caprice Records, Jiggs dropped out of college and Barbara ended her studies at the Julliard School of Music. Shortly before the release of their first record "Till," to choose a name, each girl placed a name on a piece of paper in a hat. The name Blue Angels was drawn with Blue later being dropped. "Till" hit the charts in October 1961, rising to #14.

It was after their second release "Cry Baby Cry" (#38) that Linda Jansen left the group and was replaced by  Peggy Santiglia, who had sung commercials and appeared on Broadway in Do Re Mi. Poor material haunted the Angels for the next year and in the spring of 1963 they found themselves without a contract. Then two things happened: they signed with Mercury Records and they came up with a song written by Jerry Goldstein, Rich Gottehrer, and Bobby Feldman. Already familiar with the Angels having produced producing the B side of their last Caprice single, Goldstein, Gottehrer, and Feldman convinced Mercury to let them produce the Angels on a song they had written. By late summer "My Boyfriends Back" was number one nationally on Mercury's Smash affiliate. It even reached number two on the R&B charts.

Their next release "I Adore Him" went to number twenty-five and the B side "Thank You and Good Night" became the sign-off theme on the Murray the K's WINS radio show in New York.

The Angels then went on tour in both America and Europe in 1964, performing with acts like Gerry and the Pacemakers. They also provided back up vocals for other singers, including Jackie Wilson and Lou Christie, continued to record, and did commercials until they signed with RCA in 1967. They broke up in 1969, then reformed in the early Seventies for rock and roll revival shows. Their last major label single was for Polydor Records in 1974, "Papa's Side of the Bed." They are still reportedly doing occasional oldies shows on the East Coast.

The Halos 1965
(L-R) Barbara Allbut, Toni Mason, Phyllis Allbut

The group became the Halos, following a dispute over the ownership of the name "the Angels". Peggy Santiglia took a leave of absence from the group in 1965 and was replaced by Toni Mason. The group released several more singles, none of which charted. Mason left the group in 1967 and was replaced by Debra Swisher (previously of The Pixies Three), who had recently recorded and released her own version of "Thank You And Goodnight" on the ABC-Paramount Records subsidiary, Boom Records. This lineup resumed using the name "the Angels" and released a handful of singles on RCA Records. Former Starlet Bernadette Carroll was back in the group and became the new lead. They appeared on The Dean Martin Show before disbanding in 1968. Santiglia and Phyllis and Barbara Allbut regrouped in the early 1970s and released a new single on Polydor Records.

The following was current as of 2013:
Linda Malzone lives in Florida and has a local group Past Tense. Linda (Jankowski) Jansen continued singing in local bands until joining the Sal Russo Band. A year later Sal and Linda were married and had twin sons. Bernadette Carol retired from the business to raise her sons.

1998 (L-R) Phyliss Allbut, Barbara Allbut, Peggy Santiglia

Barbara Allbut died  July 10, 2021 in Orange, New Jersey, she was 80.
Linda Jankowski died February 19,  2019 in Newark, New Jersey, she was 74.
Carol died October 5, 2018 in her home in Elizabeth, New Jersey at the age of 74.