Frank Virtue

Frank Virtue was one of the founders behind the postwar pop music boom in Philadelphia. A prodigiously talented guitarist and bassist, as well as a gifted arranger, he was working professionally while still in college and became a bandleader during a year spent in the United States Navy. In 1947 he founded the Virtuoso Trio, which 12 years later became the Virtues, the instrumental band responsible for the 1959 single "Guitar Boogie Shuffle." Virtue left the group, disbanding it, in 1962 and went into production, founding his own studio where he occasionally recorded a descendant group of sorts, the Virtuoso Orchestra, as well as such singles as Eddie Holman's "Hey There Lonely Girl," among numerous other artists. Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff were later major producers based at Virtue's studio. ~ Bruce Eder