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Peaches & Herb are a vocalist duo, once comprising Herbert "Herb" Feemster, and Patrice "Peaches" Hawthorne, from Philadelphia. Herb has remained a constant in "Peaches & Herb" since its creation in 1967, while five different women have filled the role of "Peaches".
Herbert Feemster, born on 1 October, 1942, in Washington, DC, sang in church and neighborhood groups as a child. After graduation from high school, he worked in a local record store, where he eventually met record producer Van McCoy. McCoy agreed to let Herb audition, and decided to record him with Francine Barker, the lead singer of another group he was producing. The duo delighted McCoy so much that he released singles to local radio stations.
Francine "Peaches" Barker (so nicknamed as a child because of her prim demeanor) and "Herb" Feemster — Peaches & Herb — had a string of successful singles in the next two years with the songs Let’s Fall in Love, Close Your Eyes, For Your Love, and Love Is Strange. Despite the duo's burgeoning success, Barker chose to leave the duo because of the rigours of touring.
Marlene Mack replaced Barker, becoming the second of the five "Peaches". The new duo continued to chart with such singles as Two Little Kids and When He Touches Me. However their popularity began to fade. Depressed by the slumping prospects of his partnership with Mack, Feemster chose to retire from the music industry in 1970, after which time he got a job at the Washington, D.C. police department.
"Peaches & Herb" thus lay dormant until Feemster decided to re-enter the music business in 1976. In his search for a new "Peaches", Feemster again enlisted the assistance of Van McCoy, who suggested that Linda Greene would be suitable for the position. Feemster met Greene and concurred, leading to the formation of the most successful of the "Peaches & Herb" incarnations.
Their first album 2 Hot went gold. It contained the songs "Shake Your Groove Thing" which peaked at number 5, on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 1979, and "Reunited", the unlikely follow-up single, which reached number 1.
Unable to repeat the success of 2 Hot with their subsequent albums, Greene and Feemster decided to retire their partnership in 1983.
Although Feemster again chose to revive his entertainment career in 1990, with the help of a fourth "Peaches" Patrice Hawthorne. She is now the bandleader of her own orchestra. Nevertheless Herb retained his job with the Washington, D.C. police department, suggesting a somewhat less than serious approach to his professional music career.
Today most people are familiar with the duo only because of the continued popularity of the disco staple Shake Your Groove Thing, which has featured prominently in many motion pictures like An Extremely Goofy Movie, Monster, and Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, as well as in an advertisement campaign by Intel from the late 1990s.
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"Peaches & Herb"