R&B band from the Johnsville area of Carroll County. Most members attended Robert Moton High School in Westminster. Members included Billy Dixon, Billy Anderson, Bill Horsey, Buck Jackson, and Bernard Bolger.
They began in the 1950s playing local area venues such as the club in Union Bridge, the Johnsville Community Center, a long stint at the Frederick American Legion.
In Baltimore an appearance at a 1957 Apollo Theater Amateur show earned them the opportunity to audition for the Arthur Godfrey Show. Locally they made a live appearance on a Chop Chop Fisher radio broadcast. The Bees made their rounds at some of the most prestigious clubs and halls while sometimes playing alongside big-name entertainers. Carr’s Beach, Swallow Beach, Cole Field House, Dew Drop Inn in Virginia where they played backup for such artists as Frankie and Lewis Lymon, Ben E. King, Platters and others.
By the mid-’60s families, jobs and obligations took precedence and the band stopped performing.
Dixon went on to play in the Soul Explosion, and the Playboys (from Union Bridge). Anderson later recorded a single with keyboardist Freddie Rhuebottom and the Apollo’s on the Soul House label.
