The latest incarnation of the legendary R&B group The Drifters accomplished something I never thought I'd see last Saturday night: they got 300 students, parents and teachers twisting together in the Norris Family Theater.

The history of this group is remarkable for fifty years of drastic personnel changes. In 1952, Clyde McPhatter recruited four members from the Mount Lebanon Church in Harlem...a gospel choir that had gained attention for its choreography, and The Drifters recorded three successful doo-wop tunes nobody today remembers. In 1958 their manager fired them all and hired The Five Crowns as the new Drifters with Ben E. King as lead tenor. Leiber & Stoller wrote them "There Goes My Baby," and--backed by strings and Latin rythyms--they belted out "This Magic Moment," and "Save the Last Dance For Me."

Exit Ben E. King; enter Rudy Lewis. In the early sixties, songwriters at the Brill Building (Carole King, Gerry Goffin, etc.) set them up with a series of #1 hits, including "Some Kind of Wonderful," "On Broadway," "Up On the Roof," "Saturday Night at the Movies," and "Under the Boardwalk." They were inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, long after remnants of the group moved to England, touring and recording for a European label. The band that rocked the house Saturday pays loyal tribute to the Drifters that preceded.