Tavares

They’ve called themselves The Del Rios, Chubby & The Realities and The Turnpikes at various times, but people around the globe know them best as Tavares, a group of six singing brothers from Rhode Island – Butch, Chubby, Tiny, Ralph, Pooch and Victor – who later made New Bedford Massachusetts their home. Like other New England-based fraternal acts The Ames Brothers, The Lane Brothers and The Shaw Brothers, they became renowned worldwide and are one of their home region’s most notable musical exports.

MUSICAL BEGINNINGS, CAPITOL SIGNING

The Tavares boys were surrounded by music from the time they were born, their father, Feliciano “Flash” Tavares, being an accomplished guitarist with a exhaustive knowledge of Cape Verdean and Portuguese musical traditions. Formed in 1959, they appeared under various names in the ‘60s with a seventh brother, John, joining in some of the ensembles along with drummer Joey Kramer (before he co-founded Aerosmith. In 1971). The group played across New England, including Boston gigs at O’ Jay’s on Basin Street and Jim Nance’s Lounge in Roxbury and the Blue Flame in Onset. Inspired equal measure by Motown and the Gumble and Huff material out of Philadelphia, they became one of the region’s most in-demand R&B acts.

Wanting to move beyond the confines of the New England scene, the group began pursuing a label deal in New York City and, after working Manhattan’s Tin Pan Alley for several years, landed one with Capitol Records in 1967, cutting their debut LP. The band toured extensively to support the album and opened for major acts, but sales were disappointing, prompting the group to sign with the NYC-based Bowen booking agency. As it turned out, that was exactly what the group needed; shortly after coming on board, they were opening for Ike and Tina Turner in Boston and a number of other national acts, getting a level of attention that they’d never known before. The timing was perfect, since close-harmony R&B acts were wildly popular a the time.

NATIONAL BREAKOUT, HALL OF FAME, NEW BEDFORD STREET NAMING

In 1974, Tavares broke nationally with three major hits from their Hard Core Poetry album; “Too Late”, which reached #10 in the Billboard R&B chart, “Remember What I Told You to Forget“ which got to #4 and “She’s Gone” (written by the Philadelphia-based Daryl Hall & John Oates) , which hit #1, becoming their first chart topper. Their follow-up disc, 1975’s In the City, was also a huge success, featuring “It Only Takes a Minute,” which reached #1, “Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel” (#3) and “Don’t Take Away the Music” (#15). The group rounded out the ‘70s by contributing The Bee Gees’ song “More Than a Woman” for the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which won the brothers a Grammy in 1978. That success led to them touring with The Bee Gees, The Jackson 5, KC & The Sunshine Band and Marvin Gaye, among others.

Tavares was inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame in 2014, and ten years later, in June 2024, the city of New Bedford honored the group by naming a street after them, Tavares Brothers Way. Each of the surviving members, Antone “Chubby” Tavares, Feliciano “Butch” Tavares and Perry “Tiny” Tavares, attended the dedication ceremony. “The Tavares Brothers gained worldwide fame through their timeless hit songs, but we in New Bedford know them for their many contributions to the city, especially its Cape Verdean community,” said the city’s mayor, Jon Mitchell. “We’re proud to honor their enduring achievements with the renaming of a street in the country’s first Cape Verdean neighborhood.”

(by Mark Turner)