You Thought Your Mormon Tongan R&B Band Was Hot Stuff?

The Jets, eh? Am I the only one wondering where the hell Bennie is? I mean, the members of this band better have electric boots, or I'm gonna be pissed. At the very least, someone needs to be sporting a mohair suit, or I want my money back. I mean, I read it in a magazine - and would the press ever lie to me? Alternatively, do you think the performers in this particular ensemble snapped their fingers as they strutted down derelict Manhattan alleyways and belted "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way, from your first cigarette to your last dying day" in jazzy syncopation? Or wait, wait, here's a third possibility: maybe they played back-up for Joe Namath!

No, sadly, these particular Jets did none of those things. Here's one thing they did do: become the world's greatest Mormon Tongan R&B band. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're about to tell me, "Little Earl, they were probably the world's only Mormon Tongan R&B band." Which could be true for all I know, but does that really lessen the achievement?

The Wolfgramms, or at least eight out of the seventeen Wolfgramm siblings (seventeen? Better step it up guys), were like the Osmonds, but more ... Tongan. Like Debarge but more ... law-abiding. Like Prince (both artists hailed from Minneapolis), but more ... reserved. Have you ever wondered if it would be possible to make R&B music that is almost entirely devoid of sex? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... the Jets.

The Jets were so family friendly that I actually saw them perform at the San Mateo County Fair one year. I couldn't believe that the Jets were actually coming to my very own county fair. In person! Didn't they have, like, stadiums to fill or something? But the Jets didn't care about the fame and the glory. They were in it for the people. For years afterward, I wondered if my mind had simply made the Jets up. No one mentioned them for decades. It turns out that they were real.

Or were they? I kind of feel like this is a band that was invented by a room full of cynical TV execs for the sole purpose of starring in a lucrative after-school program, complete with lunchbox and backpack marketing tie-ins. Sort of like Jem and the Holograms, but more ... Tongan and Mormon. Except, no, I think the Jets were just naturally "jetting." They were a self-made phenomenon, living the cheesy '80s pop dream. Check out the video of their first hit, "Crush On You." Up next: Double Dare! Amusingly enough, I just read their Wikipedia article and discovered that the Jets recorded a full-length version of the theme song for Rescue Rangers.



Apparently their LDS elders had no objection to "Cross My Broken Heart" appearing on the Beverly Hills Cops II soundtrack alongside more risque fare such as "I Want Your Sex." Tossing out those morals in a quest for the almighty dollar, eh Jets?



The Jets may have stolen Prince's cutesy spelling schtick with "Rocket 2 U," but if they'd ever bothered to sit down and listen to an actual Prince song, this family's reaction probably would have been more like "Rocket 2 Ewww." I feel like they deliver the line "Baby I can rock it all night" with about as much libidinal urgency as the neighborhood nun.



Frankly, the uptempo stuff may have satisfied the Jets' Minneapolis club crowd, but that wasn't where their bread and butter truly lay. Where they really brought that Pacific Island heat ... was in the slow jams. First up, "You Got It All," and this one does indeed have it all: sterling compositional pedigree (Rupert Holmes, he of "Escape [The Pina Colada Song]" fame), sweet and smoldering lead vocals from the second-youngest member of the family, 13-year-old Elizabeth Wolfgramm (boy, those Tongan girls sure grow up fast), smooth sax break ... it's a lite rock monster.



See, the Jets' ballads are all about the concept of "less is more." It's not what they do, it's what they don't do. Sure, "You Got It All" and "Make It Real" kind of sound like two eight-year-olds farting around on a Casio keyboard in their living room, but who needs all the bells and whistles when you've got that 13-year-old Mormon Tongan power? Like the punchline in that old Mormon joke says, "Bring 'em, and bring 'em young." Actually, on closer listen, I do detect some gnarly guitar pyrotechnics on "Make It Real" (check out the solo at 3:02 and the little fill at 3:49). Don't tell me the Jets also featured the Mormon Tongan Hendrix? Talk about stacked. Even though "Make It Real" describes a darker romantic scenario than the rosier "You Got It All," which would normally give it a leg up in my book, I might have to give the edge to "You Got It All" and its ultra-smooth Yacht Rock backing vocals. It's like a cross between Vanity 6 and Air Supply.



Final thought: what were the other nine Wolfgramm siblings doing this whole time? Selling Girl Scout cookies?