Editor Ira’s here today with the scoop on one of America’s earliest boy bands.

A while back, Trivia Mafia ran a "Boy Bands of the 21st Century" theme night. Planning for that event entailed a lot of editorial debate about the definition of a boy band. Was it a group assembled by a manager for the express purpose of teen appeal? Could it be any band of young men with the charisma to become teen idols? Might it be just any band with dudes in it?

Opinions still vary within the Trivia Mafia ranks, and in the general discourse. One thing I can say for certain: however you want to define a boy band, the trio known as Dino, Desi, and Billy was one of the first. And for a bonus, they were some of rock and roll's earliest and most indisputable nepo babies.

If you believe the liner notes of their first record (and you certainly should not), Dino, Desi, and Billy got their start one day in 1965 when Frank Sinatra was paying a visit to his good pal Dean Martin. Dean's teenage son happened to be rehearsing with his band. When Frank heard their crazy sounds he immediately whisked them to a recording studio to lay down a demo and sign a contract with Sinatra's Reprise record label.

Now, call me a cynic, but the more likely scenario is just that gambling on Dean Martin's kid becoming the next teen idol was an easy way for Reprise to cash in on the rock and roll craze. The Beatles had kicked that movement into high gear the year prior, and it showed no sign of slowing down.

It was a pretty safe bet, as the kids' band came preloaded with celebrity bona fides. Right up front you had Dino Martin, the 13-year-old scion of Dean Martin and his second wife Jeanne Biegger. The trio also included 12-year-old Desi Arnaz Jr, the offspring of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the biggest power couple in television. And then there was 13-year-old Billy Hinsche, the son of a casino owner and schoolmate of Dino and Desi. Hey, every boy band needs the less obvious heartthrob for all the sensitive artsy kids to crush on.

While all three of the boys had musical talent – Desi in particular had inherited his father's aptitude for percussion – that was more or less beside the point. When the time came for them to record their first single, they were asked whether or not they would like to attend the recording session. The trio had been matched up with the finest songwriters and studio musicians Rat Pack money could buy. Dino, Desi, and Billy contributed vocals and marquee names. Everything else was handled by legendary L.A. session musicians The Wrecking Crew.

If you don't know that name, you definitely know their music. The Wrecking Crew was a group of multitalented instrumentalists who played on a staggering number of hit records throughout the '60s and '70s. You've heard them play on massive songs by The Beach Boys, The Monkees, The Righteous Brothers, Sonny and Cher, The Fifth Dimension, Neil Diamond, The Mamas and The Papas, The Byrds, Jan and Dean, and The Crystals, just to name a few. They also worked heavily in the nascent TV industry, laying down the iconic theme songs for "The Twilight Zone," "Batman," "Bonanza," "Hawaii Five-O" and many more. They usually went uncredited on those recordings and stayed relatively anonymous, although some Wrecking Crew alumni went on to solo success, Leon Russell and Glen Campbell being the most visible examples.

The boys were also matched up with Lee Hazlewood, the celebrated producer and songwriter who later recorded a string of successful duet albums with Frank's daughter Nancy Sinatra.

Their first album, 1965's "I'm a Fool," was a jumble of originals and straightforward covers of the era's big hits. Their renditions of counterculture anthems like the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" ring about as true as you would expect from a trio of super-rich Hollywood middle-schoolers, but they're also kind of lovable in their clueless blandness.

A couple of the original songs, however, had some legit appeal. The Hazlewood-penned "The Rebel Kind" and "Not the Lovin' Kind" are both perfect nuggets of teeny-bopper posturing. The latter climbed as high as no. 25 on the U.S. pop charts. The lads scored their biggest hit when the similarly swaggering "I'm a Fool," written by Joey Cooper and Red West, peaked at no. 17.

(Red West is worth a sidebar himself. A member of Elvis Presley's so-called "Memphis Mafia," West was a prolific songwriter and actor who often served as Elvis's stunt double. He also married Elvis's personal secretary, published a tell-all book within weeks of Elvis's death, and played Red the auto shop owner in the original "Road House.")

The success of those three hits made Dino, Desi, and Billy genuine rock stars for the rest of 1965. They appeared on numerous TV shows, including "The Ed Sullivan Show." They toured as openers for The Beach Boys. A cover of "I'm a Fool" turned up on an Alvin & The Chipmunks album.

As happens to most boy bands, though, the bloom faded rather quickly. The trio continued to record and open for big names like Paul Revere & The Raiders and The Lovin' Spoonful, but they never cracked the Top 40 again. They put out two more LPs to diminishing notice from the public. By 1969, Billy was eager to head off to college and Desi had joined the cast of his mother's new TV series. The group separated amicably just before the end of the decade.

After the band broke up, Dino started going by the more mature-sounding "Dean Paul Martin" and trying to find his niche. He entered a tennis career that peaked with playing the qualifying rounds for Wimbledon. He followed his father into acting, starring opposite Ali MacGraw in the tennis romance "Players" and with a young Courtney Cox in the TV cult classic "Misfits of Science." In his late 20s, he pursued a lifelong fascination with aviation and joined California's Air National Guard, a surprising move for someone of his age and celebrity status. That turned out to be a fateful avocation, as Martin died at age 35 when his plane crashed on a 1987 training exercise in the San Bernardino Mountains during a heavy snowstorm.

Desi Arnaz Jr followed a more classic nepo baby career arc. He co-starred with his mother Lucille Ball and sister Lucie Arnaz on the successful sitcom "Here's Lucy" and became a regular guest star on TV shows throughout the 1970s. He co-hosted an early episode of "Saturday Night Live" alongside his dad. He played the lead in a number of movies alongside the likes of Gregory Peck, Carol Burnett, and Vincent Price, although none of them were particularly successful. He was tabloid fodder as the younger lover of both Patty Duke and Liza Minnelli, much to his mother's chagrin.

Billy Hinsche, meanwhile, never left the music business. The friendships he'd established with The Beach Boys on those teenage tours continued to flourish. He worked as a session musician on a number of their '60s and '70s recordings and provided keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals in their live performances. He eventually became a brother-in-law of founding Beach Boy Carl Wilson. He remained an in-demand utility player on the L.A. music scene for decades. You can hear his backing vocals on classic songs by Elton John, Warren Zevon, and Joan Jett, among others.

In the late '90s, Billy decided to ride the wave of '60s nostalgia and get the band back together. Desi's acting career had more or less stalled by that point, so he was happy to re-enlist with his old bandmate. With Dino Martin tragically out of the picture, they recruited his younger brother Ricci and hit the nostalgia circuit as Ricci, Desi, and Billy. That trio played various oldies showcases throughout the 2000s and even released a pair of live CDs. The passing of Ricci in 2016 and Billy in 2021 more or less ended the group's further reunion prospects, although Desi is still kicking and keeping his hand in the entertainment business.

For all of their artifice and privilege, it's hard to hate on Dino, Desi, and Billy. They were predictably savaged by contemporary critics, but over time they provided a solid template for decades' worth of boy bands who followed in their wake. They were also one of the most ethnically diverse pop acts of their era, with Desi's Cuban heritage and Billy's Filipino roots making them a rarity in the largely segregated music landscape of 1965.

Their time at the top may have been brief and their songs may have been played mostly by other people, but Dino, Desi, and Billy still stand as proof that with enough grit, determination, and proximity to Frank Sinatra, a bunch of rich kids with world-famous parents can sort of make it in the music industry for a few years. I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that.