Voo Doo Drums

Aki Aleong

Voo Doo Drums

A.Aleong-B.Abbott-H. Beckett

All World Publ. ASCAP

Hank Levine Orchestra vocal acc. by the Ravels
Mona-Lee Records
1959

First pressing was on Pan World 520, Aki Aleong's own label.

Mona Lee Records was incorporated on April, 4 1960 in New York by Samuel Kaufman, Esq., 507 Fifth Avenue.  President was Leonora "Lee" Rupe,  ex-wife of Arthur Goldberg, better known as Art Rupe owner of Specialty Records.  In 1959 Lee was engaged (and she married him at a unknown date) to Harry Apostoleris, of the mighty records distributor Alpha Distributors, New York. 

The label issued about ten singles between 1959 and 1963, about half of these releases were re-issues. Original labels include G&G (Calif.), Antone, Bayou (Ft. Worth), Ebb (Calif.) and Carellen (Florida).  The label was re-activated in 1968 for three releases distributed by Bell Records.

Actor and record executive Aki Aleong was born on December 19, 1934 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Henry Leong (Aleong), a cook from Hong Kong, and Agnes Vera Gonsalves from St. Vincent, British West Indies; he was originally called Assing Aleong by his father and Leonard Gonzales by his mother. Aleong attended Progressive Education Institute in Trinidad as a youth. After moving to Brooklyn, New York, with his mother in 1949, Aleong graduated from Boys High School; in 1951, he started taking classes at Brooklyn College while working in a hardware store.

Responding to a casting call for an Asian character, Aleong was cast as the Goat Boy in the 1954 Broadway production of Teahouse of the August Moon on Broadway. In 1956, Aleong made his first live television appearance in The Letter, an episode of NBC’s Producers’ Showcase. In 1957, Aleong was cast in the movie Motorcycle Gang...