Billy Ward (born Robert L. Williams, 19 September 1921, Savannah, Georgia—died 16 February 2002, Inglewood, California) grew up in Philadelphia, the second of three sons of Charles Williams and Cora Bates Williams, and was a child musical prodigy, winning an award for a piano composition at the age of 14. Following military service he studied music in Chicago, and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. While working as a vocal coach and part-time arranger on Broadway, he met talent agent Rose Marks, who became his business and songwriting partner.
The pair set out to form a vocal group from the ranks of his students. The group was at first called the Ques, and comprised Clyde McPhatter (lead tenor), Charlie White (tenor), Joe Lamont (baritone), and Bill Brown (bass). Ward acted as their pianist and arranger. After the group made successful appearances on talent shows in the Apollo Theater and on the Arthur Godfrey show in 1950, Rene Hall recommended them to Ralph Bass of Federal Records, a subsidiary of King, where they were signed to a recording contract and renamed themselves the Dominoes. Their first single release, "Do Something For Me", with McPhatter’s lead vocal, reached the R&B charts in early 1951, climbing to #6.
After a less successful follow-up, the group released "Sixty Minute Man", on which Brown sang lead, and boasted of being able to satisfy his girls with fifteen minutes each of "kissin'" "teasin'" and "squeezin'", before "blowin'" his "top". It reached #1 on the R&B chart in May 1951 and stayed there for a 14 weeks. It was an important record in several respects—it crossed the boundaries between gospel singing and blues, its lyrics pushed the limits of what was deemed acceptable, and it appealed to many white as well as black listeners, peaking at #17 on the pop charts. In later years, it became a contender for the title of "the first rock and roll record".
The group toured widely, building up a reputation as one of the top R&B acts of the era, and an audience which crossed racial divides. However, Ward's strict disciplinarian approach, and failure to recompense the singers, caused internal problems. The name "The Dominoes" was owned by Ward and Marks, who had the power to hire and fire, and to pay the singers a salary. Clyde McPhatter was being paid barely enough to live on, and often found himself billed as "Clyde Ward" to fool fans into thinking he was Billy Ward's brother. White and Brown both left in 1951 to form The Checkers, and were replaced by James Van Loan and David McNeil (previously of The Larks).
In March 1952, the Dominoes were chosen to be the only vocal group at Alan Freed's "Moondog Coronation Ball". The hits continued, with "Have Mercy Baby" topping the R&B charts for 10 weeks in 1952. However, in early 1953, McPhatter also decided to leave, and soon formed a new group, The Drifters. His replacement in the Dominoes was Jackie Wilson, who had sung with the group on tour. Lamont and McNeil also left and were replaced by Milton Merle and Cliff Givens. With Wilson singing lead, singles such as "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down" continued to be successful.
In 1954, Ward moved the group to the Jubilee label and then to Decca, where they enjoyed a #27 pop hit with "St. Teresa of the Roses". However, the group were unable to follow that success in the charts, and there were a succession of personnel changes. They increasingly moved away from their R&B roots with appearances in Las Vegas and elsewhere. In late 1956, Wilson left for a solo career and was replaced by Gene Mumford of The Larks. The group then got a new contract with Liberty Records, and had a #13 pop hit with "Stardust". This proved to be their last major success, although various line-ups of the group continued recording and performing into the 1960s.
They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006.
Former members
Billy Ward
Clyde McPhatter
Charlie White
Joe Lamont
Bill Brown
James Van Loan
David McNeil
Jackie Wilson
Milton Merle
Cliff Givens
Stardust
The Dominoes Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by.
Sometimes I wonder, how I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
The melody
Haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
And now my consolation is in the stardust of a song
Besides the garden wall, when stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale
Tells his fairytale
Of paradise, where roses grew
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain.
The Dominoes's song "Stardust" is a beautiful ballad expressing the feeling of loneliness and the memories of a past love. The first verse mentions the "purple dusk of twilight time," which is a metaphor for a transition period in one's life when they are saying goodbye to something or someone dear to them. The singer talks about how the stars always remind him of the distance between him and his former love. The second verse talks about how the melody of a song haunts the singer's imagination, and how it takes him back to the days when he was once in love, and every kiss was inspiring. These memories are now a source of consolation for him. The third and final verse talks about how the singer dreams in vain, trying to relive the moments of the past, but ultimately, all he has left is the memory of his lost love, which remains with him like stardust melody.
Line by Line Meaning
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
As the sun sets and the sky turns purple, I am overcome with a sense of longing and nostalgia.
Steals across the meadows of my heart
This feeling of sadness and yearning spreads throughout my entire being.
High up in the sky the little stars climb
As darkness falls, the stars become visible in the night sky, a reminder of the vastness of the world and the distance between us.
Always reminding me that we're apart
In the face of this vastness, I am reminded that my beloved is far away from me, and I am alone.
You wander down the lane and far away
Even as I long for you, you are moving further and further away from me.
Leaving me a song that will not die
But even as you leave me, you leave behind a memory, a song that will stay with me forever.
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
Our love is a memory, a beautiful but distant thing that now exists only in the past.
The music of the years gone by.
It is a song that reminds me of our time together, a time that is now long gone.
Sometimes I wonder, how I spend
In my moments of solitude, I find myself questioning how I spend my time, how I can occupy my thoughts with anything other than you.
The lonely nights
The nights are the hardest, when I am most acutely aware of your absence.
Dreaming of a song
In my dreams, the song of our love plays on, a bittersweet reminder of what once was.
The melody
It is a beautiful melody, haunting and melancholy all at once.
Haunts my reverie
It lingers in my thoughts, never far from my mind, and colors everything I do.
And I am once again with you
In those moments, I feel close to you, as though you are with me again.
When our love was new
I remember the early days of our love, when everything was bright and new, full of hope and possibility.
And each kiss an inspiration
Every touch was electric, and every moment felt like it was leading us to something greater.
But that was long ago
But that time has passed, and we can never return to it.
And now my consolation is in the stardust of a song
So instead, I find solace in the memory of our love, in the song that we shared and that will always remind me of what we had.
Besides the garden wall, when stars are bright
In my mind's eye, I can see us standing together, beside a garden wall, bathed in the light of the stars above.
You are in my arms
And in that moment, nothing else mattered, because you were there with me, in my arms.
The nightingale
The world around us fades away, as we are lost in the beauty of the moment.
Tells his fairytale
It feels like a storybook romance, something out of a fairy tale.
Of paradise, where roses grew
A perfect moment, in a perfect place, where everything seemed to be just as it should be.
Though I dream in vain
But that moment was fleeting, and now it seems as though it was just a dream.
In my heart it will remain
But even as the memory fades, it remains in my heart, a cherished moment that will live on forever.
My stardust melody
And it is this moment, this memory, that gives rise to the beautiful and poignant melody of our love.
The memory of love's refrain.
A memory that echoes through time, a reminder of a love that once was, and that will always be a part of me.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: CHRISTOPHER GENTRY, JOHN HUTCHINSON DEAN, MATTHEW EVERITT, SIMON IAN WHITE, STUART BLACK
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@spillteatv9417
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by
Sometimes I wonder, how I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
The melody
Haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
And now my consolation is in the stardust of a song
Besides the garden wall, when stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale
Tells his fairytale
Of paradise, where roses grew
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain
@jesusurrutia3809
This song immortalized you Ray Liotta, Rest in Peace. 🕴🌆

@bettypotter6226
Absolutely. Love him in this scene.
@bettypotter6226
I loved Ray Liotta in the gray suit airport scene. This song makes it soo sexy. Love you Ray. Rest In Peace good man.
@wvcricker5683
Then you had Jimmy Two Times who said “I gotta get the papers, get the papers”….
@GrummanTestPilot
@@wvcricker5683god tier comment
@beselbic
Scorsese sure knows how to pick some great classic tunes for his films.
@purkasz
Not him. Robbie Robertson of the Band is his music director
@williammontgomery4045
0
@nancyhicksgribble9799
Actually Martin did choose them. On the original book he got from Pileggi, Martin scribbled the music that was popping up in his head as he read the book.
@FunnyVideoMaker77
Except in The Irishman when he played that one song over and over