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Gene Adkinson (Miami Edison Sr. High School, Class of 1952) and Wade Buff (Coral Gables High School, Class of 1952) met during their sophomore, junior and senior years, as members of the Greater Miami Boys Drum and Bugle Corp. This was a 100 piece band and precision drill team. They became fast friends and composed several songs while still in high school including "It's Almost Tomorow". Wade providing the lyrics and Gene the music. During there freshman year at the University of Florida, they perform before a student crowd of over 5,000 in the “Freshman Talent Show”. They won!!. Winning the Freshman Talent show led to a twice-weekly radio show on the university radio station, "WRUF", where the announcer was Chuck Murdoch. The program was called "Starlight Serenade with Gene and Wade". The half-hour program featured songs by Wade and Gene and concluded at 10:30PM. Their sign-off theme song was one of their compositions, "It's Almost Tomorrow". Chuck thought it would be a good idea to conducted a contest on the show to name the group. The name selected was "The Dream Weavers". The reason given for the name was that the song they wrote were dreamy and they were therefore, weavers of dreams , hence "The Dream Weavers". Due to many requests from students and to earn needed funds, Gene and Wade decided to finance a recording session of "It's Almost Tomorrow" for sale on campus. "You've Got me Wondering", another of their compositions, was chosen for the flip-side of the record. Backing the Dream Weavers for the original recording session were fraternity brother Lee Turner on piano and an acquaintance from Jacksonville, Eddie Newsom on upright Bass (Eddie knew the guy with the recording studio in his garage). A 3-gal vocal group on campus, "The Co-eds", Sally Sanborn, Mary Carr, Mary Rude, were the back-up group. By-the-way, a member of that group was another 1952 Edison graduate, Mary Rude, who later married Wade. While home for the summer, Gene and Wade brought the demo recording of "It's Almost Tomorrow" to get a professional opinion on its market potential from one of Miami's most popular disc jockeys. That disc jockey played the record on his nightly request show for a few nights without comment, except to say it was written and recorded by University of Florida students from Miami. Show Biz This resulted in interest by several recording companies. Gene and Wade entered into a recording contract with Decca Records (now MCA) and a publisher Northern Music Co. A few weeks later Decca released "It's Almost Tomorrow" nationally. It set a long-standing record by selling 5.000 recordings in Miami the first day of its release. The records popularity was so overwhelming that other record companies quickly "covered" it with artist such as Jo Stafford, Snooky Lanson, Lawrence Welk, David Carroll, Sammy Kaye and many others. "It's Almost Tomorrow" became number one in the U.S., Canada, England and Japan. It remained on 'Billboards Honor Roll of Hits" for 22 weeks. The song has now been recorded by at least 40 artist in many languages. Sheet music sales also reached the number 1 position in the U.S. and Great Britain. In a publication compiled by Fred Bronson, "Billboard’s Hottest Hot 100 Hits" (3000 biggest singles from 1955 until the present), their recording of "It’s Almost Tomorrow" had several notable accomplishments. Here are some of them: · Number 86 in the Top 3000 (ahead of records like "It’s Now or Never" #118 by Elvis Presley) · Number 46 in the top 100 in The Fifties. · Number 17 in the top 100 in 1956 · Number 5 in Decca’s top 50. · Number 13 in Debut top 100. There recording of "It's Almost Tomorrow" was a world wide hit. As you can see from the publication "Hit Singles, Top Twenty Charts" it reached number One in the United Kingdom (UK). The Dream Weavers first national TV appearance was on CBS's ED Sullivan show on New Years 1956, followed by performances on the Perry Como Show on Valentines Day and others. During the two years The Dream Weavers were among Decca's top recording artists, they released a half-dozen records and one extended play album. Among those released were "You're Mine", "Into The Night", "A little Love Can Go A Long Long Way" and "Give Us This Day". In March of 1956 Wade and Mary Rude got married and after a short honeymoon the group was back on the road. After two weeks headlining in Las Vegas Wade and Mary decided life on the road was not conducive to married life. Wade turned the group over to Gene who set about finding a replacement for Wade. Lee Raymond was signed after extensive auditions in New York. While short by comparison, the entertainment career for The Dream Weavers attained success beyond Gene's and Wad's fondest dreams. Besides the shows mentioned above, they had a full schedule of headline performances in top supper clubs around the country including headlining in Las Vegas. Their entertainment career ended when Gene was drafted in the army. |
