The Spiders were an R&B vocal group from New Orleans, who achieved their greatest fame in the 1950s.

The group was founded as a gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 group in 1947 under the name Zion City Harmonizers, and later sang as the Delta Southernaires, recording and performing on radio under the latter name in 1952-53. Cosimo Matassa

Cosimo Matassa

Cosimo Matassa is an Italian-American recording engineer and studio owner responsible for many R&B and early rock and roll recordings....

 convinced them to begin singing secular music, and in 1953 the five-piece signed with Imperial Records

Imperial Records

Imperial Records is a United States based label started in 1947 by Lew Chudd and reactivated in 2006 by label owner EMI.- The independent and Liberty Records years :...

 under the name The Spiders. They had a string of U.S. hits in the middle of the decade, including "I Didn't Want to Do It" (R&B #3, 1954), "21" (R&B #9, 1955), and "Witchcraft" (R&B #5, 1956). The last of these was written by Dave Bartholomew

Dave Bartholomew

Dave Bartholomew is a musician, band leader, composer and arranger, prominent in the music of New Orleans throughout the second half of the 20th century...

 and was later cover

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

ed by Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

.

Members Joe Maxon and Matthew West left the group in 1955, and were replaced by Issacher Gordon and Bill Moore. Chick Carbo signed with Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...

 as a solo artist late in 1956, and by the next year the group had splintered; their last single as a group was 1957's "That's My Desire

That's My Desire (1931 song)

"That's My Desire" is a 1931 popular song with music by Helmy Kresa and lyrics by Carroll Loveday.The highest-charting version of the song was recorded by the Sammy Kaye orchestra in 1946, although a version of the song recorded by Frankie Laine has become better known over the years, being one of...

", though the song "Tennessee Slim", recorded in the middle of the decade, was issued as a single in 1960.

Chuck Carbo

Chuck Carbo

Hayward "Chuck" Carbo was an American R&B singer , best known for his time as a vocalist in the New Orleans group The Spiders.Carbo sang with his brother, Leonard "Chick" Carbo, in The Spiders, who recorded for Imperial Records in the 1950s and scored a string of hits on the U.S. Black Singles chart...

 later recorded for Rounder Records

Rounder Records

Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...

, releasing an album in 1993; Chick Carbo died in 1998, Chuck in 2008.

They are not to be confused with the unrelated early rock group including Vince Furnier

Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...

 famously known as Alice Cooper.

Members

• Hayward "Chuck" Carbo
  Chuck Carbo
  Hayward "Chuck" Carbo was an American R&B singer , best known for his time as a vocalist in the New Orleans group The Spiders.Carbo sang with his brother, Leonard "Chick" Carbo, in The Spiders, who recorded for Imperial Records in the 1950s and scored a string of hits on the U.S. Black Singles chart...
  
  
• Leonard "Chick" Carbo
• Joe Maxon
• Matthew West
• Bill Moore
• Issacher Gordon
• Oliver Howard