The Brown Dots

[1] He immediately put together a competing Ink Spots group consisting of lead tenor Joe King, bass Jimmy Gordon, and an unknown baritone.

By late January 1945, a lawsuit brought by the Ink Spots caused Deek Watson to claim that he would form a new group based on a "completely new idea".

Over the years, it's also been done by (among others) Smiley Lewis (1954), the Rivileers (1954), Sam Cooke (1958), Jesse Belvin (1959), the Voices Five (1959), Donnie Elbert (1960), the Cleftones (1961), the Spaniels (1961), Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells (1964), Rufus Thomas (1971), James Brown (1976) and Rod Stewart (2004).

By late summer or early fall, Joe King left, to be replaced by Jimmie Nabbie, who had originally wanted to be an operatic tenor.

However, bandleader Tommy Dorsey contacted them and asked them (politely) to cease using the "Sentimentalists" name (since he'd recently had a vocal group by that name, although they'd since changed their name to the Clark Sisters).