Ron Hicklin Singers

The Ron Hicklin Singers were a group of Los Angeles studio singers contracted and organized by Ron Hicklin. They are most famously known as the real singers behind the background vocals on The Partridge Family recordings.

In Los Angeles studio circles in the 1960s through 1980s, they were the vocal equivalent (and often worked with) The Wrecking Crew, performing backup vocals on literally thousands of songs, TV and movie themes, and radio and television commercials. The group usually consisted of vocalists Ron Hicklin, brothers Tom Bahler, and John Bahler, Jackie Ward, and Gene Morford. Often they were not credited, or else were credited under other names. For example, when singing the TV theme of "Love, American Style", they were credited as The Charles Fox Singers. The Hicklin Singers also sang the TV themes for "Batman" and "Flipper", "That Girl", "Laverne and Shirley" (along with lead vocalist Cyndi Grecco. Hicklin himself sang the lead vocals for the theme from TV's "Happy Days". The Bahler Brothers are the piercing tenor harmonies on Hugo Montenegro's hit of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme.

They were the vocalists on the Ray Conniff Singers albums after 1970. Further, they were part of the vocal sounds of the Anita Kerr Singers, Henry Mancini and Percy Faith's orchestra. They performed the complex vocals on Burt Bacharach's famous "South American Getaway" from the soundtrack of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with Thurl Ravenscroft (Tony the Tiger's voice) singing bass.

Brothers Tom and John Bahler were part of Imperial Records vocal group "The Love Generation" in the sixties. (Two of the songs from that group were actually used in the pilot episode of "The Partridge Family", and began their involvement in that enterprise.) Ron Hicklin's voice was mixed with Gary Lewis's in Gary Lewis & The Playboys's "This Diamond Ring." Jackie Ward had a hit on her own as Robin Ward with 1963's hit "Wonderful Summer".

As the Ron Hicklin Singers, the group backed up or were the real vocals on tunes by The Monkees, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, Cher, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Brady Kids, hundreds of other artists, and most famously known for being the real singers behind The Partridge Family. They sang commercial vocals including campaigns for Kawasaki ("Kawasaki lets the good times roll"), Datsun ("Drive a Datsun, then decide") and McDonald's ("You deserve a break today"), and countless local radio station and television ID jingles.

Local Radio and Television station ID jingle companies throughout four decades utilized The Ron Hicklin Singers in their productions including "The Heller Corporation" [http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/wmalmachine.html] . TM Productions utilized the Ron Hicklin Singers on syndicated ID jingles packages including HOT HITS, YOU (The "You" Campaign), GOOD FEELINGS and several others. JAM Creative Productions also utilized their vocals in several of their packages.

Today, the group is split up and mostly retired. John Bahler lives in Branson, MO and conducts the "new" Lawrence Welk orchestra. His wife, Janet Lennon, is a member of The Lennon Sisters. John also runs Portraits By Bahler [http://www.portraitsbybahler.com/index.html] . Tom Bahler, a close associate of Quincy Jones and associate producer and arranger of We Are The World, retired to Playa del Rey in 2005. Ron Hicklin is still a studio singer, contributing vocals to Harry Connick, Jr.'s Christmas CD "When My Heart Finds Christmas" in 1994.

External links

* http://www.cmongethappy.com/interviews/tb/index.html An interview with Tom Bahler
* http://www.cmongethappy.com/interviews/jw/index.html An interview with Jackie Ward