finetune artist: The Fifth Estate

The Fifth Estate is recalled for a novelty hit, "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" (from The Wizard Of Oz), which reached number 11 in the US charts during the summer of 1967. The group had been formed three years earlier and, inspired by the "British Invasion", they began a career which took them through a variety of short-lived record deals until they secured their one-off success. The quintet - Wayne "Wads" Wadham (vocals, keyboards), Rick Engler (vocals, guitar, kazoo, violin, clarinet, bass), D. Bill Shute (guitar, mandolin), Dick "Duck" Ferrar (vocals, guitar, bass) and Furvus Evans (drums) - broke up when Shute was drafted. He later returned to music and has forged a successful career as a folk musician. His partner, Lisa Null, formed Green Linnet Records with Patrick Sky and this outlet was responsible for several of Shute's subsequent recordings. Wayne Wadhams became a professor at Boston's prestigious Berklee College Of Music and founded the Boston Skyline label. The label releases mostly classical albums, but it did release a Fifth Estate compilation in 1993, Ding Dong! The Witch Is Back! , which includes tracks by their previous incarnation, the D-Men.

Listen to The Fifth Estate at Finetune.

Ding Dong! the Witch Is Dead