La La Brooks

Born in New York in 1947, Dolores 'La La' Brooks grew up in Brooklyn in a large family and began singing gospel in church at a very young age before joining the Crystals as a teenager, a female vocal group associated with the pop, R&B and early 1960s rock and roll sound. La La Brooks became the group's lead vocalist on several notable recordings, notably the singles 'Da Doo Ron Ron' and 'Then He Kissed Me' in 1963, as well as on the albums Twist Uptown (1962) and He's a Rebel (1963). After this initial period, La La Brooks pursued a path between singing, writing and stage, appeared in the original Broadway productions of Hair and then Two Gentlemen of Verona, and also worked under the name Sakinah Muhammad after converting to Islam. Her career also led her to collaborations in soul, funk and jazz contexts alongside Idris Muhammad, with whom she recorded on Peace and Rhythm in 1971 and then My Turn in 1992. Having settled for a time in London and then Vienna, where she also hosted a radio show, La La Brooks later returned to the United States and resumed performing. As a solo artist, she released La La Brooks and Friends in 1996 and then All or Nothing in 2014, in a repertoire that extends the girl group, soul and orchestrated pop heritage of the 1960s.