The group was an influential musical act that performed into the mid-1960s and had a Top 20 R&B hit with "Church Bells May Ring", a song which was covered with greater commercial success by The Diamonds.

[1][4] Even though it was a regional hit in Harlem and Los Angeles, the group's subsequent offerings on the label did not fare as well and by early 1954 Allen Records had dissolved.

[5] Spending all of 1955 performing, the Willows (according to music journalist Patrick Prince "they had dropped the 'Five' after Joe had overslept and missed a matinee show during an Apollo engagement") closed the year by signing with Morty Craft's newly established Melba Records.

[5] In April 1956, the Willows appeared at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn with other notable doo wop groups such as the Flamingos, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and the Platters.

Although the group never re-entered the national charts, the Willows still performed regularly and recorded with the Melba, Club, El Dorado, Gone, Warwick, and Heidi labels until they disbanded in 1965.