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Ran-Dells

Entry updated 25 October 2021. Tagged: Music.

US SF Music trio from southern New Jersey, consisting of three first cousins who all attended Brandeis University: Steven Rappaport (1943-2007), Robert Rappaport (1943-    ) and John Spirt (1949-2003). They are remembered for their one sf novelty hit, "The Martian Hop" (1963) an original composition which made it to #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in September 1963. The cousins were inspired by the then-current popular trend in dances and the high interest in Space Flight following John Glenn's 1962 orbit of Earth and John F Kennedy's promise to land a man on the Moon. The song is about a dance thrown by the Martians (see Mars) for visiting earthmen; they are seen doing such contemporary dances as the Loco-Motion and the Hully-Gully. Group member Steven Rappaport was studying electronic music at the time and here made the first use in a pop record of additive synthesis with sine-wave generators. [LW]

Steven Rappaport

born Villas, New Jersey: 1943

died Maui, Hawaii: 4 July 2007

Robert Rappaport

born: Cape May, New Jersey: 1943

John Spirt

born Cape May, New Jersey: 1949

died Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 2003

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