The Chips

The Chips was a short-lived New York doo-wop band consisting of teenage friends Charles Johnson (lead vocal), Nathaniel Epps (baritone), Paul Fulton (bass), Sammy Strain and Shedwick Lincoln (tenors). The group's first recording is their most enduring; "Rubber Biscuit" started life as Johnson's answer to the marching rhythms of the Warwick School For Delinquent Teenagers while he was an intern there. When Josie Records heard the tune they signed the band and the record was issued in September 1956. Although it did not chart, "Rubber Biscuit" became an instant east coast radio favourite, and saw its performers touring alongside The Dells, The Cadillacs and Bo Diddley, but the momentum gained by their debut single was waning and the group broke up at the end of 1957. Rubber Biscuit can be heard in the background in the 1973 film Mean Streets, starring Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel.