The Starlets were an American girl group

Girl group

A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...

 from Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

.

The group came together in 1961, and auditioned for a Chicago songwriter, Bernice Williams

Bernice Williams

Bernice Williams is an American songwriter, who wrote the 1960s song "Duke of Earl" along with Gene Chandler and Earl Edwards. She also wrote "Night Owl". Bernice wrote three Billboard Hot 100 songs in the 1960s.Chandler was discovered by Williams...

. Williams wrote them the tune "Better Tell Him No", which was released on Pam Records that year. The record peaked at #38 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

. The group then toured with Jackie Wilson

Jackie Wilson

Jack Leroy "Jackie" Wilson, Jr. was an American singer and performer. Known as "Mr. Excitement", Wilson was important in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. He was known as a master showman, and as one of the most dynamic singers and performers in R&B and rock history...

, Mary Wells

Mary Wells

Mary Esther Wells was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s...

, and Gladys Knight & the Pips

Gladys Knight & the Pips

Gladys Knight & The Pips were an R&B/soul family musical act from Atlanta, Georgia, active from 1953 to 1989. The group was best known for their string of hit singles on Motown's "Soul" record label and Buddah Records from 1967 to 1975, including "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Midnight...

. The group's follow-up single, "My Last Cry", was less successful.

In December of that year, the group performed in Philadelphia, and while there, Newtown Records owner Harold Robinson had them record the song "I Sold My Soul to the Junkman". Newtown released the single under the name "The BlueBelles" in order to avoid contractual issues with Pam Records; as the song became a hit, Robinson assembled a local Philadelphia ensemble to lip-synch the song on television. Among this second group's members was Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...

. As "Junkman" itself became an even bigger hit than "Better Tell Him No", The Starlets sued Robinson, settling for $5,000 per member.

The Starlets then moved to Okeh Records

Okeh Records

Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...

, releasing one single, 1962's "You Belong to Me", and broke up shortly thereafter.

Members

• Jane Hall
• Maxine Edwards
• Mickey McKinney
• Jeannette Miles
• Liz Walker (aka Dynetta Boone)