Dream That Never Came True by The Ad Libs
Whatever this song is, it’s my favorite kind. With only 8,491 listens on Spotify, I’m surprised it isn’t more popular, especially when compared to The Ad Libs’ only ever hit, The Boy From New York City, which at the time of this writing has 1,622,467 plays.
Made up of lead singer Mary Ann Thomas and four male doo-wop singers, The Ad Libs were a local 60s vocal group from the ultra-depressing city of Bayonne, New Jersey. They were unjustly one-hit wonders. There’s a lot online to be found about their one decent success, but very little else, so one can only imagine what happened to them. They probably got rich off of The Boy From New York City and squandered their minimal wealth quite quickly, made to then play demoralizing gigs in empty bars and restaurants as their singing careers dragged on and they were eventually forced to call it quits. They slumped into obscurity, becoming regulars at bar and bat-mitzvah gigs around the tristate area after forging an odd, close relationship with a man named Marty Mankhower, a Queens-based founder of a Jewish events company.
In 1984, the last year of the group’s existence, The Ad Libs got together at a performance space in Canarsie and sang Dream That Never Came True stronger and more poignantly than ever before to a crowd of three made up of a bus driver, a drunk, divorced dad, and a prostitute standing by a bar. The next day they called one another and decided it was all over.
One of the background singers, Norman Donegan, didn’t get wind of the news and kept showing up to gigs only to find nobody, including his colleagues, there. Toward the end of The Ad Libs’ existence, Donegan would become a grade-school teacher, a job he held, according to his Linkedin page, for over 40 years. In the same resume, his time in The Ad Libs is credited as PROFESSIONAL SINGER, Jan 1965-May 1972. There must have been a desire to not mention the very dismal last 12 years of the talented group’s failed attempt at commercial success. Or maybe he didn’t even remember it.
Over a decade ago, Mary Ann Thomas was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died shortly afterward. David Watt, the bass singer, died in 2008 of unknown causes. I, and unfortunately almost everyone else in the world, do not know much about the other two.