Professionals by Day, Doo-Wop Harmonizers by Night

RB Express, which styles itself as "New Jersey's Premier 40's, 50's, and 60's singing group," will play in Alan M. Augustine Park – the "Village Green" next to the Scotch Plains municipal building – tonight at 7:30 p.m.

RB Express is a quintet, consisting of Rick Davis as lead vocals, Mike DelFranco as first tenor, Pat Moschetto as baritone, and Ray Block as second tenor and Ernie Lackey as bass. "We're a five-part harmony group," Lackey said in a telephone interview (all interviews for this piece were conducted by phone).

"I went out and found these guys almost by accident," said Vincent Losavio, the owner of John's Meat Market and the concert's principle organizer. "One of them is my customer. He's the CFO of a bank in New York and he's a very stern guy. He saw that we had a doo-wop band playing one night and he said, 'Hey, we do that.'"

The group formed in 2004, and it has travelled up and down the east coast ever since. Lackey is retired. He previously worked for AIG, he said, but "got out before it all blew up." He now lives on a farm in Virginia, and RB Express is his full-time job.

"I do ok. I live very comfortably on what I make," he said. Of the rest of the band, two more are retired and two still work. DelFranco works for JPMorgan Chase as a systems analyst and Rick Davis is an electrician.

The band has opened for doo-wop legends such as Little Anthony and the Imperials, the Tokens, the Duprees and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. The summers are especially busy, Lackey said. The group often performs 10 to 15 shows per month.

Part of the band's appeal, Lackey said, is nostalgia. "When times are hard like these, people want to think of the better days in the past," Lackey said. "Times when they could go to sleep with their doors unlocked and walk the streets without worry."

The band began almost by accident, Lackey said. But once it was clear there was a market for doo-wop, he did not wait to capitalize on the opportunity.

"It started a long time ago as a joke," he saisd. "We were singing at a wedding, with two guys – who are no longer in the band – and my wife – who wasn't my wife at the time…. A drunk guy came up and said, 'Hey, you guys are really good, I want to hire you.'"

That guy from the wedding, it turned out, stayed true to his word. "The next day he called me and said, 'Do you remember me? I really wanna hire you,'" Lackey said. "So I said, 'Sure, how much?' He said, '$1,500?'"

Lackey rang his two band mates the next day to break the good news and the bad. The good news? "Some guy wants to pay us to sing." The bad news? "We got to learn about 60 news songs in a week."

As the band became more popular, Lackey found himself scrambling for more singers.  He found musicians through open auditions, as well as some other, less orthodox, methods. 

"We found Rick singing karaoke in a bar," Lackey said. "My wife said, 'Wow, he's really good.' So I hired him. Then I sang against Mike DelFranco in a competition. I beat him, but he was really good, so I hired him and fired my wife."

Lackey said he is truly looking forward to performing in Scotch Plains. Fans should expect at least a 90-minute set. But, seasoned performers as they are, they have been known to play up to four hours depending on the gig.

"It's going to go on until at least 9 p.m.," Losavio said. "We're going to go the extra mile tonight."

Lackey was also enthusiastic. "We have a damn good time. We're pretty funny, we tell jokes, we have banter, but the singing is damn good. We've been accused in the past of lip-syncing. We've had to do a cappella versions of songs just to prove it."