Earl Carroll Dead: Singer for the Cadillacs and Coasters Dies at 75

Thanks for all of the years of fun and great songs you gave us. I Just heard of your passing .... I will miss you. Even tho' i never met you personally, you will always be with all of us ..... God Bless you Earl " Speedo" ,,,,, God's Speed rob Akron Ohio.

I will always hear his beautiful voice leading "Gloria" with The Cadillacs. I have a lot of their music on DVD and CD's. RIP Mr Carroll!

God bless you and thank you for all that great music...RIP

Music back in his day was music, none of the garbled lyrics of twisted words that didn't make any sense. Plain simple but yet full of story, love and heartache, and not to mention hitting a funny bone every now and then. RIP Earl for you deserve a long and peaceful rest. But just know Doo Wap and the oldies will live on with some of us younguns for quite a while.

Fond memories of working at PS87 with Earl and will treasure the autographed picture of the Cadillacs he gave to our daughter several years ago. Great guy who loved music and all the kids at our school.

Judie Lulow, former PS87 teacher

I've had the pleasure of seeing Speedoo & The Cadillacs perform on a number of occasions over the past 10 years & I marvelled not merely at Earl's voice, but his energy. Constant motion seemed to be the name of the game of The Cadillacs & beyond that, there was Speedoo's voice which sounded just as great as it did when he began back in the 50's. Which happened to be a good six years before I was born!

He was always a pleasant man to speak with & to be around & one of my proudest achievements came when several of my pictures from their PBS performance & a couple of other concerts were featured in the book "Forever Doo-wop", written by their MD John Michael Runowicz.

R.I.P. Speedoo & thank you for the great music & memories!

Speedo you will be well misses we go a long way back

I had the honor of working with Earl Carroll with both the Caddilacsa & the Coasterswhen I played Hammond B-3 organ with North Jersey Express. We were the House band for "The Al Roberts Revue". We played for all of the Oldies shows that Al booked all over the east coast. I remember One show that we did at Danny's Continental in Union, NJ where al had booked both the Caddilacs & the Coasters along with The Angels in the same night. The Caddilacs went on first, with Earl "Speedo" Carroll singing lead, then the Angels performed & lastly, The Coasters were to close the show. But as Earl Garner was singing Charlie Brown, we were all surprised when Speedo himself came out onstage & sang an additional 4 of the best versionss of both groups hits. Tunes like; Gloria, The Girl I love, Shopping for clothes, Zing went the strings of my heart, & tthier own version of The Drifters holiday hit "White Christmas" with The Coaster's bass singer "Curley" singing lead. Tha5t was back in December of 1981. I'll always remember Mr. Carroll as a fabulas entertainer who had tons of energy onstage & a perfectionist.
Don Turner

I was a teenager in the mid to late 50',just outside of NYC, when many these great "doo wop" groups were being formed, and these great songs were being sung by a very talented group of young men and women, many of whom are no longer among us. And now Earl "Speedo" Carroll has joined his many talented friends "upstairs". These early groups had no formal writers, arrangers or music directors They wrote their own words & music, and sang these songs on the sidewalks, street corners, and in church stairways to basements, looking for an echo, endevoring to develop their own unique doo wop sound, just hoping someone would hear them and give them their "break". They sometimes took their songs recorded on reel to reel tapes, into small recording sudios, some were mastered vebatim, and go on to released recordings, others went into small recording studios, and proceeded to sing them exactly as they were practiced for hours and hours on end, and were recorded and released, unchanged in any way. Orchestrations were very minor, ususally just to keep to "beat", as not to drowned out the wonderful blended harmony, formed by a distinctive lead, 1st and 2nd tenor, a static baritone, and that all most important bass. Gosh, we've lost so many of these wonderful group members over the last decade, what a shame, God Bless You Speedo.

You will be missed Speedo. I will be playing your music on my radio rogram. The Lunch Bunch Bunch Blues on WEFT Champaign., weft.org on the internet Monday December 3 1130am till 200 pm central time.