1960s
THE THREE DEGREES
Discography:
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Philly soul vocal group the Three Degrees started in 1963 in Philadelphia, PA. They were discovered by producer and songwriter Richard Barrett. Barrett was a key force for 1950s groups the Chantels, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and his own group the Valentines. The original lineup was Fayette Pickney, Shirley Porter, and Linda Turner. Barrett recorded this lineup on their first single, "Gee Baby (I'm Sorry)." In 1963, Linda Turner and Shirley Porter left the group and were replaced by Helen Scott and Janet Jones. Around this time, Barrett began managing and producing Sheila Ferguson who was a high school friend of Scott. Barrett got deals for both the group and Ferguson with Swan Records. By 1966, Helen decided to leave the group and become a housewife. Sheila Ferguson took her place. She sang backup on all the Three Degrees' Swan recordings, as did the Three Degrees for her solo singles. In 1967, Valerie Holiday joined the group, while Janet Jones departed. Over the next four years, both the Three Degrees and Ferguson released many singles.
In 1970, now signed to Roulette Records, the Three Degrees scored their first national chart hit with a remake of the Chantels' "Maybe" with Scott taking the lead vocals. It went to number four R&B in summer 1970. The follow-up, "I Do Take You," peaked at number seven R&B. Barrett got the group short-term deals with Warner Bros., Metromedia, and Gamble & Huff's Neptune Label. The group had a cameo in the classic 1971 movie The French Connection starring Gene Hackman and toured with Engelbert Humperdink. In 1973, Barrett worked a deal with Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia International Records (PIR). The Three Degrees' first PIR single was "Dirty Ol' Man," a disco hit. A short time later, Don Cornelius, producer and host of TV's Soul Train, approached Gamble & Huff about coming up with a new theme song for his hit syndicated show. The Three Degrees were asked to do vocals at the end of the show's new theme track. After some airings, public demand forced the TV show's theme to be released as a single. "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)" by MFSB featuring the Three Degrees went gold hitting number one R&B and holding the number one pop for two weeks during spring 1974. Meanwhile, a previously released Three Degrees single, "Year of Decision," stalled at number 74 R&B. Another MFSB/Three Degrees single, "Love Is the Message," peaked at number 42 R&B in the summer of that year. In the summer of 1974, PIR released another single on the group, "When Will I See You Again." The single went platinum, selling over two million copies, going to number four R&B and number two pop around September 1974. Their PIR debut album, The Three Degrees, was released at the end of 1974. The follow-up, "I Didn't Know," written and produced by Bunny Sigler, went to number 18 R&B in early 1975. The group performed the song on a guest appearance on the hit NBC show Sanford and Son. Their only other charting PIR single was "Take Good Care of Yourself" (number 64 R&B in summer 1975).
Around 1976, Pickney left the group and was replaced by returning member Helen Scott. CBS released their album Standing up for Love in the U.S. in 1977. In 1978, the Three Degrees were signed to European label Ariola Records. The group recorded three LPs for the label. Longtime favorites in the U.K., the group performed at Buckingham Palace for Prince Charles' 30th birthday party and they were guests at his wedding to Princess Diana. During the first half of the '80s, the Three Degrees released U.K.-issued albums, Album of Love and Live in the UK and singles, "Liar" and "A Sonnet to Love." Stock/Aitken/Waterman produced a 1985 U.K. chart hit, "The Heaven I Need," on the group for Supreme Records. In 1986, Sheila Ferguson left the group. With Helen Scott, Valerie Holiday, and Victoria Wallace, the group recorded an album for Ichiban Records, ...And Holding! The act recorded another live CD with Billy Paul and Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes during a TSOP tour in the summer of 1989. Scott, Holiday, and new member Cynthia Garrison recorded three albums in the 1990s.
Source: Ed Hogan, All Music Guide
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DEL SHANNON
Discography:
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One of the best and most original rockers of the early '60s, Del Shannon was also one of the least typical. Although classified at times as a teen idol, he favored brooding themes of abandonment, loss, and rejection. In some respects he looked forward to the British Invasion with his frequent use of minor chords and his ability to write most of his own material. In fact, Shannon was able to keep going strong for a year or two into the British Invasion, and never stopped trying to play original music, though his commercial prospects pretty much died after the mid-'60s.
Born Charles Westover, Shannon happened upon a gripping series of minor chords while playing with his band in Battle Creek, MI. The chords would form the basis for his 1961 debut single, "Runaway," one of the greatest hits of the early '60s, with its unforgettable riffs, Shannon's amazing vocal range (which often glided off into a powerful falsetto), and the creepy, futuristic organ solo in the middle. It made number one, and the similar follow-up, "Hats Off to Larry," also made the Top Ten.
Shannon had intermittent minor hits over the next couple of years ("Little Town Flirt" was the biggest), but was even more successful in England, where he was huge. On one of his European tours in 1963, he played some shows with the Beatles, who had just scored their first big British hits. Shannon, impressed by what he heard, would become the first American artist to cover a Beatles song when he recorded "From Me to You" for a 1963 single (although it would give him only a very small hit). Shannon's melodic style had some similarities with the burgeoning pop/rock wing of the British Invasion, and in 1965 Peter & Gordon would cover a Shannon composition, "I Go to Pieces," for a Top Ten hit.
Del got into the Top Ten with a late-1964 single, "Keep Searchin'," that was one of his best and hardest-rocking outings. But after the similar "Stranger in Town" (#30, 1965), he wouldn't enter the Top 40 again for nearly a couple of decades. A switch to a bigger label (Liberty) didn't bring the expected commercial results, although he was continuing to release quality singles. Part of the problem was that some of these were a bit too eager to recycle some of his stock minor-keyed riffs, as good as his prototype was. A brief association with producer Andrew Loog Oldham (also manager/producer of the Rolling Stones) found him continuing to evolve, developing a more baroque, orchestrated pop/rock sound, and employing British session musicians such as Nicky Hopkins. Much to Shannon's frustration, Liberty decided not to release the album that resulted from the collaboration (some of the material appeared on singles, and much of the rest of the sessions would eventually be issued for the collector market).
By the late '60s, Shannon was devoting much of his energy to producing other artists, most notably Smith and Brian Hyland. Shannon was a perennially popular artist on the oldies circuit (particularly in Europe, where he had an especially devoted audience), and was always up for a comeback attempt on record. Sessions with Jeff Lynne and Dave Edmunds in the '70s didn't amount to much, but an early '80s album produced by Tom Petty (and featuring members of the Heartbreakers as backing musicians) got him into the Top 40 again with a cover of "Sea of Love." He was working on another comeback album with Jeff Lynne, and sometimes rumored as a replacement for Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys, when he unexpectedly killed himself on February 8, 1990, while on anti-depressant drugs.
Source: Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
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GERRY & THE PACEMAKERS
As unfathomable as it seems from the distance of over 30 years, for a few months, Gerry & the Pacemakers were the Beatles' nearest competitors in Britain. Managed (like the Beatles) by Brian Epstein, Gerry Marsden and his band burst out of the gate with three consecutive number one U.K. hits in 1963, "How Do You Do It," "I Like It," and "You'll Never Walk Alone." If the Beatles defined Merseybeat at its best in early 1963, Gerry & the Pacemakers defined the form at its most innocuous, performing bouncy, catchy, and utterly lightweight tunes driven by rhythm guitar and Marsden's chipper vocals. Compared to the Beatles and other British Invasion heavies, they sound quaint indeed. That's not to say the group were trivial; their hits were certainly likable and energetic and are fondly remembered today, even if the musicians lacked the acumen (or earthy image) to develop their style from its relentlessly upbeat and poppy base.
Marsden formed the group in the late '50s featuring himself on guitar and lead vocals, his brother Fred on drums, Les Chadwick on bass, and Arthur Mack on piano (to be replaced in 1961 by Les McGuire). They worked the same Liverpool/Hamburg circuit as the Beatles, and ran neck and neck with their rivals in local popularity. They were signed by Epstein in mid-1962 (the first band to do so besides the Beatles), and began recording for the EMI/Columbia label in early 1963, under the direction of producer George Martin. Their first single was a Mitch Murray tune that Martin had wanted the Beatles to record for their debut, "How Do You Do It?" The Beatles did record a version (found on the Anthology 1 release), but objected to its release, finding it too sappy, and in any case more interested in recording their own, gutsier original compositions. It suited Marsden's grinning, peppy style well, though, and went to number one before it was displaced from the top spot by the Beatles' third 45, "From Me to You."
The Pacemakers would never vary much from the clattering guitar-dominated pop of their first singles, turning again to Mitch Murray for the follow-up, "I Like It," and remaking an old pop standard for their next effort, "You'll Never Walk Alone." It's not universally known that Gerry Marsden actually wrote much of the band's material, and he penned most of their subsequent hits, including "It's All Right" (their gutsiest and best performance) and "I'm the One." He also wrote "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin' " (sharing credits with the rest of the group) and "Ferry Cross the Mersey," ballads that Martin embellished with light string arrangements, which may (or may not) have helped prepare the producer for deploying strings on Beatle tracks starting in 1965.
Like the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers got to star in their own film, Ferry Cross the Mersey, although this wasn't nearly as successful as A Hard Day's Night. By 1965, in fact, the group's popularity in Britain was seriously declining, although they held on a bit longer in the States, where (in common with several other groups) some of their back catalog belatedly made the hit parade many months after it was first issued in the U.K. Like virtually all of the other Liverpool groups, the Pacemakers proved unable to evolve on the same plane as the Beatles or the best other British bands. Never the hippest of acts image-wise, with their conservative suits and short hair, they were rapidly becoming outdated, sticking to the same basic feel-good formula that had seemed fresh in 1963, but was utterly passé by 1966. That's the year they had their last American Top 40 hit, "Girl on a Swing"; they disbanded in October. Gerry Marsden became a popular cabaret and children's TV entertainer, sometimes performing with the Pacemakers on the oldies circuit. He also contributed vocals to British chart-topping revivals (not with the Pacemakers) of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "Ferry Cross the Mersey" in the 1980s.
Discography:
How Do You Like It?, 1963
Second Album, 1964
Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying, 1964
I'll Be There, 1965
Ferry Cross the Mersey, 1997
At Abbey Road 1963, 1966
Gerry & the Pacemakers
Original Hits
Source: Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide ; Musicbrainz
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The Beatles
THE SHIRELLES
The Shirelles were the first major female vocal group of the rock era, defining the so-called girl group sound with their soft, sweet harmonies and yearning innocence. Their music was a blend of pop/rock and R&B -- especially doo wop and smooth uptown soul -- that appealed to listeners across the board, before Motown ever became a crossover phenomenon with white audiences. Even if the Shirelles were not technically the first of their kind, their success was unprecedented, paving the way for legions of imitators; their inviting musical blueprint had an enduring influence not just on their immediate followers, but on future generations of female pop singers, who often updated the style with a more modern sensibility. What was more, they provided some of the earliest hits for important Brill Building songwriters like Gerry Goffin & Carole King, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, and Van McCoy.
The Shirelles were originally formed in 1958 in Passaic, NJ, by four high school friends: Doris Coley (later Doris Kenner-Jackson), Addie "Micki" Harris, Shirley Owens (later Shirley Alston), and Beverly Lee. Christening themselves the Poquellos, the girls wrote a song called "I Met Him on a Sunday" and entered their school talent show with it. A school friend had them audition for her mother, Florence Greenberg, who ran a small record label; she was impressed enough to become the group's manager, and changed their name to the Shirelles by combining frequent lead singer Owens' first name with doo woppers the Chantels. The Shirelles' recording of "I Met Him on a Sunday" was licensed by Decca and climbed into the national Top 50 in 1958. Two more singles flopped, however, and Decca passed on further releases. Greenberg instead signed them to her new label, Scepter Records, and brought in producer Luther Dixon, whose imaginative, sometimes string-heavy arrangements would help shape the group's signature sound.
"Dedicated to the One I Love" (1959) and "Tonight's the Night" (1960) both failed to make much of an impact on the pop charts, although the latter was a Top 20 R&B hit. However, they broke big time with the Goffin-King composition "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"; released in late 1960, it went all the way to number one pop, making them the first all-female group of the rock era to accomplish that feat; it also peaked at number two R&B. Its success helped send a re-release of "Dedicated to the One I Love" into the Top Five on both the pop and R&B charts in 1961, and "Mama Said" did the same; a more R&B-flavored outing, "Big John," also went to number two that year. 1962 continued their run of success, most notably with "Soldier Boy," a Luther Dixon/Florence Greenberg tune that became their second pop number one; they also had a Top Ten pop and R&B hit with "Baby It's You." Unfortunately, Dixon subsequently left the label; the Shirelles managed to score one more pop/R&B Top Ten with 1963's "Foolish Little Girl," but found it difficult to maintain their previous level of success.
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The group went on to record material for the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, headlined the first integrated concert show in Alabama, and helped a young Dionne Warwick get some of her first exposure (subbing for Owens and Coley when each took a leave of absence to get married). A money dispute with Scepter tied up their recording schedule for a while in 1964, and although it was eventually settled, the Shirelles were still bound to a label where their run was essentially over. Of course, this was also because of the British Invasion, whose bands were among the first to cover their songs; not only their hits, but lesser-known items like "Boys" (the Beatles) and "Sha La La" (a hit for Manfred Mann). The Shirelles scraped the lower reaches of the charts a few more times, making their last appearance, ironically, with 1967's "Last Minute Miracle."Doris Kenner left the group the following year to concentrate on raising her family, and the remaining Shirelles continued as a trio, cutting singles for Bell, United Artists, and RCA through 1971. The group continued to tour the oldies circuit, however, and appeared in the 1973 documentary Let the Good Times Roll. Shirley Alston left for a solo career in 1975, upon which point Doris Kenner-Jackson returned. Micki Harris died of a heart attack during a performance in Atlanta on June 10, 1982, upon which point the group went into what turned out to be a temporary retirement; the three remaining charter members recorded together for the last time on a 1983 Dionne Warwick record. Different Shirelles lineups toured the oldies circuit in the '90s, though Beverly Lee eventually secured the official trademark. They were officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Doris Kenner-Jackson passed away after a bout with breast cancer in Sacramento on February 4, 2000.
For The Record
Members include Shirley Alston (born June 10, 1941); Addle "MBcId" Harris (born January 22, 1940; died of a heart attack, June 10, 1982, in Los Angeles); Doris Kenner (born August 2, 1941); and Beverly Lee (born August 3, 1941).
Group formed as the Poquellos for school talent shows, Passaic, NJ; "discovered" by Florence Greenberg and signed with her Tiara label, 1958; recorded "I Met Him on a Sunday"; signed with Greenberg's Scepter Records, 1959, and recorded "Dedicated to the One 1 Love" and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" ; scored last chart entry, 1967; recorded and toured on nostalgia circuit; surviving members formed and led separate versions of the Shirelles.
Awards: Three gold records; awards from performance rights society Broadcast Music Inc., U.S.O., Vietnam Veterans of America, and U.S. Army; named best female group in Billboard and Cash Box for five consecutive years; citation in Congressional Record, 1983, in honor of the group's 25th anniversary.
Addresses: Management—Bevi Corp., P.O. Box 100, Clifton, NJ 07011-0100.
In 1968, Kenner left the group, and Alston, Lee, and Harris carried on as a trio, occasionally making new recordings and performing their old hits on the nostalgia circuit. Then, in the mid-1970s, Kenner returned and the group toured again as a quartet, until Harris's untimely death from a heart attack—suffered during a performance—in June of 1982. But even the loss of one of the original members did not bring an end to the Shirelles; by 1990 there were three separate groups touring under the name, each led by one of the surviving members.
Discography
Baby It's You, Scepter, 1962, reissued, Sundazed, 1993.
(With Curtis "King Curtis" Ousley) The Shirelles & King Curtis Give a Twist Party, Scepter, 1962, reissued, Sundazed, 1993.
Anthology, 1959-1965, Rhino, 1986.
Greatest Hits, Impact, 1987.
Lost and Found, Impact, 1987.
Greatest Hits, Special, 1991.
Dedicated to You, Pair, 1991.
Golden Classics, Collectables, 1992.
The Scepter Records Story, Capricorn, 1992.
Million Sellers, Laurie, 1993.
Foolish Little Girl, reissued, Sundazed, 1993.
Sing to Trumpets and Strings, Sundazed, 1993.
BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS
No late-'60s American group ever started with as much musical promise as Blood, Sweat & Tears, or realized their potential more fully -- and then blew it all in a series of internal conflicts and grotesque career moves. It could almost sound funny, talking about a group that sold close to six million records in three years and then squandered all of that momentum. Then again, considering that none of the founding members ever intended to work together, perhaps the group was "lucky" after a fashion.
The roots of Blood, Sweat & Tears lay in one weekend of hastily assembled club shows in New York in July 1967. Al Kooper (born February 5, 1944, Brooklyn, NY) was an ex-member of the Blues Project, in need of money and a fresh start in music. He'd been toying with the notion, growing out of his admiration for jazz bandleader Maynard Ferguson, of forming an electric rock band that would use horns as much as guitarists, and jazz as much as rock as the basis for their music. As he later related, he saw the proposed group coming down somewhere midway between James Brown's Famous Flames and the Count Basie Orchestra. Kooper hoped to raise enough cash to get to London (where he would put such a band together) through a series of gigs involving some big-name friends in New York.
When the smoke cleared, there wasn't enough to get him to London, but the gig itself produced a core group of players who were interested in working with him: Jim Fielder (born October 4, 1947, Denton, TX), late of Buffalo Springfield, on bass, whom Kooper brought in from California; Kooper's former Blues Project bandmate, guitarist Steve Katz (born May 9, 1945, Brooklyn, NY); and drummer Bobby Colomby (born December 20, 1944, New York, NY), with whom Katz had been hanging out and also talking about starting a group. Kooper agreed, as long as he was in charge musically -- having just come off of the Blues Project, who'd been organized as a complete cooperative and essentially voted themselves out of existence, he was only prepared to throw into another band if he were calling the shots.
This became the group that Kooper had visualized; it would have a horn section that would be as out front as Kooper's keyboards or Katz's guitar. Colomby brought in alto saxman Fred Lipsius (born November 19, 1944, New York, NY), a longtime personal idol, and from there the lineup grew, with Randy Brecker (born November 27, 1945, Philadelphia, PA) and Jerry Weiss (born May 1, 1946, New York, NY) joining on trumpets and flügelhorns, and Dick Halligan (born August 29, 1943, Troy, NY) playing trombone. The new group was signed to Columbia Records, and the name Blood, Sweat & Tears came to Kooper in the wake of an after-hours jam at the Cafe au Go Go, where he'd played with a cut on his hand that had left his organ keyboard covered in blood.
The original Blood, Sweat & Tears turned out to be one of the greatest groups that the 1960s ever produced. Their sound, in contrast to R&B outfits that merely used horn sections for embellishment and accompaniment, was a true hybrid of rock and jazz, with a strong element of soul as the bonding agent that held it together; Lipsius, Brecker, Weiss, and Halligan didn't just honk along on the choruses, but played complex, detailed arrangements; Katz played guitar solos as well as rhythm accompaniment, and Kooper's keyboards moved to the fore along with his singing. Their sound was bold, and it was all new when Blood, Sweat & Tears debuted on-stage at the Cafe au Go Go in New York in September 1967, opening for Moby Grape.
Audiences at the time were just getting used to the psychedelic explosion of the previous spring and summer, but they were bowled over by what they heard - that first version of Blood, Sweat & Tears had elements of psychedelia in their work, but extended it into realms of jazz, R&B, and soul in ways that had scarcely been heard before in one band. The songs were attractive and challenging, and the arrangements gave room for Lipsius, Brecker, and others to solo as well as play rippling ensemble passages, while Kooper's organ and Katz's guitar swelled in pulsing, shimmering glory. The group's debut album, Child Is Father to the Man, recorded in just two weeks late in 1967 under producer John Simon, was released to positive reviews in February 1968, and it seemed to portend a great future for all concerned. It remained one of the great albums of its decade, right up there with Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited and the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet. The only thing it didn't have, which those other albums did, was a hit single to get radio play and help drive sales. Child Is Father to the Man was out there on its own, invisible to AM radio and the vast majority of the public, awaiting word-of-mouth and whatever help the still fledgling rock press could give it, and the band's touring to promote it.
Even as their debut was being recorded, however, elements of discontent had manifested themselves within the group that would sabotage their first tour and their future. At first, these were disagreements about repertory, which grew into issues of control, and then doubts about Kooper's ability as a lead singer. With Colomby and Katz taking the lead, the group broached the idea of getting a new vocalist and moving Kooper over exclusively to playing the organ and composing. By the end of March 1968, with Child Is Father to the Man nudging onto the charts and sales edging toward 100,000 copies and some momentum finally building, Blood, Sweat & Tears blew apart - Kooper left the lineup, taking a producer's job at Columbia Records; at that same point, Randy Brecker announced his intent to quit. Ironically, at around the same time, Jerry Weiss, who'd actually favoured Kooper's ouster, also headed for the door as well, to form the group Ambergris?, which lasted long enough to cut one album in 1970.
That might've been the end of their story, except that Bobby Colomby and Steve Katz saw the opportunity to pull their own band out of this debacle. Columbia Records decided to stick with them while Katz and Colomby considered several new singers (including Stephen Stills), and actually got as far as auditioning and rehearsing with Laura Nyro before they found David Clayton-Thomas (born David Thomsett, September 13, 1941, Surrey, England). A Canadian national since the age of five, Clayton-Thomas at the time was performing with his own group at a small club in New York. He came aboard, with Halligan moved over to keyboards, Chuck Winfield (born February 5, 1943, Monessen, PA) and Lew Soloff (born February 20, 1944, Brooklyn, NY) on trumpets, and Jerry Hyman (born May 19, 1947, Brooklyn, NY) succeeding Halligan on the trombone. The new nine-member group reflected Colomby and Katz's vision of a band, which was heavily influenced by the Buckinghams, a mid-'60s outfit they'd both admired for its mix of soul influences and their use of horns - toward that end, they got James William Guercio, who had previously produced the Buckinghams, as producer for their proposed album.
Though Kooper was gone from Blood, Sweat & Tears, the group was forced to rely on a number of songs that he'd prepared for the new album. The resulting album, simply called Blood, Sweat & Tears, was issued 11 months after Child Is Father to the Man, in January 1969. Smoother, less challenging, and more traditionally melodic than its predecessor, it was ambitious in an accessible way, starting with its opening track, an adaptation of French expressionist composer Erik Satie's "Trois Gymnopedies" that transformed the languid early 20th century classical work into a pop standard.
Clayton-Thomas was the dominant personality, with Lipsius and the other jazzmen in the band getting their spots in the breaks of each song - equally important, and rather more telling the singles drawn from the album were all edited down, abbreviating or removing most of the featured spots for the jazz players. The first single by the new group, "You've Made Me So Very Happy," quickly rose to the number two spot on the charts and lofted the album to the top of the LP listings as well. That was followed by "Spinning Wheel" b/w "More and More," which also hit number two, which, in turn, was followed by the group's version of Laura Nyro's "And When I Die," another gold-selling single.
When the smoke cleared, that one album had yielded a career's worth of hits in the space of six months, and the LP had won the Grammy as Album of the Year, selling three million copies in the bargain. So much demand was created for work by Blood, Sweat & Tears that the now 18-month-old Child Is Father to the Man, with the different singer and very different sound, made the charts anew in the summer and fall of 1969 and earned a gold record. The group soon faced the problem that every act with a massive success has had to confront - where do you go from up?
By fall 1969, with ten months of massive success behind them, the record company was eager for a follow-up album. The group began recording Blood, Sweat & Tears while the second album was still selling many tens of thousands of copies every week. This time, the group would produce the album themselves, an unusual arrangement for what was still essentially a new group, but one the label agreed to, in the wake of the previous album's sales. And then issues of image and politics entered into the picture.
When Al Kooper led the group, there was no question of how hip and tuned in Blood, Sweat & Tears were, to the rock culture and the counterculture - by his own account, Kooper was a resident "freak" wherever he went in those days, and they were a daring enough ensemble to speak for themselves with their music. But the new group's music, and their use of horns, in particular, was more traditional, and it made them a little suspect among rock listeners. "Spinning Wheel," especially, was the kind of song that invited covers by the likes of Mel Tormé and Sammy Davis, Jr., and was the sort of "rock" hit that your parents didn't mind hearing. And "You've Made Me So Very Happy," for all of the soulfulness of David Clayton-Thomas' singing, also had a kind of jaunty pop-band edge that made the group seem closer in spirit to the Tonight Show band than, say, to the Rolling Stones.
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Compounding the uncertainty of just who and what Blood, Sweat & Tears were, and how cool they were, was a decision that they made in early 1970, to undertake a tour of Eastern Europe on behalf of the U.S. State Department. A few other rock bands had played Eastern Europe before, but never on behalf of a government, much less one that, at that particular time, was singularly unpopular with a lot of Blood, Sweat & Tears' potential fan base over the war in Vietnam. There was something horribly wrong with this picture in May 1970, but the group was oblivious to it.
The reason for the tour was a practical one, according to some sources. Clayton-Thomas was a Canadian with very uncertain visa status in the United States, and the State Department indicated that it would be a lot more agreeable about their singer working here if the band did them this favour. It was a coup for the administration, getting one of the hottest rock acts in the world to represent the government in the Eastern bloc nations - but it also took place just at the time of the Kent State massacre, in which four students were shot to death by National Guardsmen, an event that Nixon chose to capitalize on politically. And it got worse when they came back, after seeing the police in Bucharest, in particular, take a violent hand to any audience spontaneity; a statement was issued on the group's behalf, upon their return, trumpeting the virtues of American freedom - this, one month after Kent State, with the murders of the students still an open wound and the reactionary rioting that had ensued in cities like New York (where the police had done nothing to stop a mob of construction workers from attacking anyone with long hair and invading City Hall) still fresh in peoples' minds.
In June 1970, Blood, Sweat & Tears were the only act hipper than the Johnny Mann Singers putting out feel-good messages about the United States government. It was on their return to America, amid these dubious career moves, that Blood, Sweat & Tears was released. Under the best of conditions, it would have been too much to hope that it could match its predecessor, and the truth was that it didn't. Despite some attractive songs, the album never achieved the same mix of accessibility and inspiration displayed by the earlier album. The album shipped gold and topped the LP charts for two weeks in mid-1970, and the single "Hi-De-Ho" made it to number 14, but the edge was off and the numbers didn't keep soaring week after week as the sales of their prior two LPs had. More troubling, the group was starting to get criticized in the rock press, not directly for their State Department tour - though that couldn't have made a lot of reviewers and columnists too predisposed to go easy on the band - but over who and what they were (and that was where the infamous tour did enter into the picture).
A lot of rock critics felt that Blood, Sweat & Tears were a pretentious pop group that dabbled in horn riffs, while others argued that they were a jazz outfit trying to pass as a rock band - either way, they weren't "one of us" or part of who we were. Oddly enough, some members of the jazz press liked them, but that was small help - at any time after the early '40s, jazz reviewers in America reached no more than a small percentage of listeners. And regardless of what the critics said, a lot of serious jazz listeners who were the same age as the bandmembers thought the group was fluff, jazz-lite. Their image problem grew only worse when the group accepted an engagement to appear at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas - the gambling mecca had never been known as friendly to current rock acts, and the group felt it was doing journeyman service by opening up Caesar's Palace to performers under 30. Instead, it multiplied their difficulties - Vegas and what it represented were almost as bad as Nixon.
In the meantime, another act, Chicago, produced by James William Guercio, broke big in 1970, also on the Columbia label, and avoided all of these pitfalls and internal problems and ended up stealing a huge chunk of Blood, Sweat & Tears' audience. It seemed as though, after an extraordinary run of luck, the group couldn't catch a break; their musical contribution to the Barbara Streisand film The Owl and the Pussycat did nothing to enhance their image. The group's fourth album, begun in early 1971, was the first that ran into real trouble in the making, which showed from the presence of three producers in the credits, and even Kooper was represented in the songwriting and arranging department. The fourth album, issued in June 1971, peaked at number ten on the charts, nowhere near the top, and none of its singles cracked the Top 30.
It was around this time that the membership began shifting and splintering. By 1971, the group was basically divided into three factions, the rock rhythm section pitted against the jazz players, and the singer between them both, and no one happy with what anyone else was doing. Clayton-Thomas no longer enjoyed working with the rest of the band and chose to exit after the release of the fourth album to pursue a solo career. Despite this loss, the group carried on, and the label was willing to carry them a bit longer - after all, Blood, Sweat & Tears had sold a lifetime's worth of LPs, and the two subsequent albums, though disappointing in its wake, were respectable successes by any conventional standard, and one always hopes that lightning will strike twice.
Bob Doyle took the vocalist spot for a few months, and was then replaced by Jerry Fisher; elsewhere in the lineup, Fred Lipsius, who'd been there from the start and had put the original horn section together, finally called it quits and was replaced by Joe Henderson, who, in turn, was succeeded by Lou Marini, Jr., and Dick Halligan, who'd replaced Kooper on keyboards after the first band's breakup, was succeeded by Larry Willis, while Steve Katz got a second guitarist to play off of in the person of George Wadenius. All of these personnel changes led to an extended period of inactivity for the band, which Columbia Records made up for by releasing Blood, Sweat & Tears’ Greatest Hits in 1972 - this was probably a little sooner than they might otherwise have done it, under ideal circumstances, but the album became a Top 20 album and earned a gold record award and was a very popular catalogue item for many years; one advantage that its original LP version offered the casual fan was that its songs were all the shorter, single edits of their hits, which were otherwise only available on the original 45 rpm records.
In September 1972, this lineup released an album, appropriately enough called New Blood, which never made the Top 30 despite some good moments, accompanied by a single, "So Long Dixie," which didn't crack the Top 40. By this time, they'd turned more toward jazz, recognizing that the rock audience was slowly drifting out of their reach. Founding members Jim Fielder and Steve Katz called it quits during this period, Katz preferring to work in the more rock-oriented orbit of Lou Reed.
With replacements aboard, Blood, Sweat & Tears continued performing, but their next LP, humorously (or was it ominously?) entitled No Sweat, released in 1973, never rose higher than number 72 on the charts, and that was a hit compared to its successor, Mirror Image, which peaked at number 149. By this time, people were passing through the lineup like a revolving door, and even Jaco Pastorius put in some time playing bass for the group, all without leaving much of an impression on the public. The plug might've been pulled right about here, but for the return of Clayton-Thomas, whose solo career had fizzled. Now fronting an outfit billed officially as Blood, Sweat & Tears Featuring David Clayton-Thomas, they released a modestly successful comeback album, New City, in 1975, which - despite a few lapses in creativity and taste, and a range that encompassed Allen Toussant ("Life") and Randy Newman ("Naked Man," complete with a Mozartian digression) - featured some of the group's best jazz sides in years as well as superb performances by Clayton-Thomas.
The latter included a rare venture (for this group) into acoustic guitar blues on their rendition of John Lee Hooker's "One Room Country Shack." The accompanying single, a version of the Beatles "Got to Get You Into My Life" (which, peculiarly enough, anticipated the single release of a remixed version of the British band's own recording) never made the Top 40, but the album did well enough to justify an ambitious tour that yielded a double-LP concert album, Live and Improvised, that was issued in Europe (and, 15 years later, in America). Columbia Records dropped the group in 1976, and a brief association with ABC Records led nowhere. The group was caught between their former Columbia rivals Chicago, who continued to get airplay and chart regularly with new releases, and purer jazz ensembles such as Return to Forever and Weather Report, who had captured the moment in the press and before the public.
In the end, even Bobby Colomby, who had trademarked the group's name very early after Kooper's exit in 1968, gave up playing in the band, taking a corporate position at Columbia. Clayton-Thomas has kept the band alive in the decades since, fronting various lineups that continue to perform regularly and record sporadically, mostly updated renditions of their classic material. The advent of the CD era, and the release of expanded versions of their first two albums, fostered new interest in the group's early history, which was furthered by the 1990s release of Kooper's Soul of a Man, which presented new concert renditions of the 1967-era group's repertory. During the first decade of the 21st century, Wounded Bird Records also belatedly reissued the band's post-BST4 albums on CD, with surprising success – New Blood and, even more so, New City, sounded quite good musically, divorced from their origins by almost 30 years. The group name remains alive behind Clayton-Thomas, and their recordings through 1972 - especially the first album - still elicit a powerful response from those millions who've heard them. ~
Discography:
Source: Bruce Eder, All Music Guide; eNotes
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THE NICE
The Nice were a late Sixties progressive / psychedelic rock band. While they did not last more than three years, they were a major influence in bridging the gap between the psychedelic rock of the Sixties and the progressive rock of the Seventies.
Led by keyboard maestro Keith Emerson, who was greatly influenced by the work of Mozart and Tchaiovsky, (later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer) they were one of the first bands to fuse rock with an orchestra. The group began as the backing band for British soul singer P.P. Arnold, and also featured guitarist David O'List, drummer Brian "Blinky" Davison, and bassist Lee Jackson.
The band were infamous for being banned from playing the Royal Albert Hall in 1968 when Emerson set fire to an American flag when playing the song ‘America’, originally by Sondheim and Bernstein.
After The Nice dissolved, bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson and drummer Brian Davison formed Refugee with Patrick Moraz on keyboards (later of Yes).
In 2003 The Nice reformed and toured with Keith Emerson’s solo band.
Brian Davison passed away on 15th April 2008.
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ELP
Greg Lake
King Crimson
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WAYNE FONTANA
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders first emerged out of apprentice telephone engineer Glyn Geoffrey Ellis' daydreams of becoming a successful pop performer.
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Rechristening himself Wayne Fontana after Elvis Presley's drummer, DJ Fontana, Fontana's first band was the Jets, a staple on the Manchester circuit through 1961-1962, but one which was doomed to failure. According to legend, the original Jets broke up when Fontana and bassist Bob Lang alone turned up for the most important audition of their young career, at the famed Oasis club. Hurriedly, Fontana press-ganged a couple of other local musicians, bystanders in the bar, into service -- drummer Ric Rothwell and guitarist Eric Stewart. Stewart was already an old hand on the Manchester music scene, having played with local heroes Gerry Lee and the Stagger Lees and Johnny Peters and the Jets (unrelated to Fontana's combo). That was still his regular band that evening at the Oasis, a situation that changed immediately after this ad hoc combo left the stage and was offered a Fontana label contract. Renaming the band after Dirk Boarded's then-recently released hit movie The Mindbenders (Fontana, of course, was allowed to keep his name!), the quartet's first release, in June 1963, was a cover of one of the aforementioned stage favorites, Fats Domino's "My Girl Josephine," retitled "Hello Josephine."It was not a major hit, peaking at number 46, and two further singles, "For You, For You" (October 1963) and a cover of the Diamonds' "Little Darling'" (February 1964), were even less successful. But the label did not lose faith. After all, what sort of headlines would "Fontana drop Fontana" make?
The band plugged on, and in May 1964, their version of Ben E. King's "Stop Look and Listen" made number 37. Again it was a tiny drop in the ocean, but this time the Mindbenders were able to capitalize upon it. By early fall, they were riding the Top Five with a spellbinding take on Major Lance's masterpiece of incoherence, "Um Um Um Um Um Um." The Mindbenders' original recording of the song was produced by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham -- their label rejected it and insisted on a re-recording, cut with Fontana's own Jack Baverstock. The first recording remains unreleased; the remake soared to number five. An EP titled after the hit followed it to number seven, while the band's eponymous debut album reached number 18. As was standard at this time, the entire LP was recorded in one day, crammed in to a schedule which included their first major British tour, supporting Brenda Lee.
Meanwhile, back in the singles chart, the band was busy confirming their ascendancy with a skillful adaptation of Clint Ballard's "The Game of Love," featuring a moonlighting member of the Spinners folk group on backing vocals and a devastating Stewart guitar solo, played on a Les Paul borrowed from Jimmy Page. It reached number two in Britain and number one in America, despite being not only the Mindbenders' first Stateside release, but also one of the first releases on the American Fontana label. The band set off for America almost immediately and ran straight into trouble. Visa difficulties had forced the band to cancel a couple of shows at the start of the tour -- immigration officials actually demanded statements from both Billboard and Cashbox to prove that the band's Stateside success actually justified their presence here. Then, the moment they stepped off the plane, the Mindbenders were served writs for one million each. They were being sued for not making two gigs in New Jersey. Thankfully, the threat came to nothing and the remainder of the tour passed off happily.
A new version of their debut album, featuring several cuts not on the U.K. album was released, making a respectable number 28; unfortunately, the moment the band's back was turned, their fortunes began to dip. Their next single, "Just a Little Bit Too Late," only reached number 45 in the U.S. (and number 20 in Britain) and when "She Needs Love" halted at number 32 in the U.K., at the same time as their second album, Eric, Rick, Wayne and Bob, stiffed, it appeared as though the Mindbenders' magic had dissipated already. Certainly Wayne Fontana, the Fontana label, and the Kennedy Street Enterprises management label, thought so. The singer had always entertained visions of eventually graduating to a solo career and, in October 1965, everybody concerned realized the time had come; everybody, that is, aside from the band. They remained in the dark until, midway through a live show, Fontana simply walked off stage, turning to Stewart as he left and saying, "It's all yours." It was not the first time the band had played on without their frontman; back in March, nervous exhaustion had confined Fontana to bed, midway through a 21-date, twice-nightly British tour with Herman's Hermits. So, with Stewart taking lead vocals, the band finished the set themselves; the audience seemed to enjoy themselves and the decision was made to carry on as a three-piece, which was precisely what their label and management had been planning all along. And, overnight, one fading chart act became two promising newcomers, singer Wayne Fontana and band the Mindbenders.
Albums:
Source: Dave Thompson
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Elvis Presley
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THE FORTUNES
English beat group, The Fortunes formed 1963 with the original line-up of Rod Allen (vocals and bass), Glen Dale (guitar), Shel Macare (vocals and guitar), Barry Pritchard (guitar), Andy Brown (drums) and David Carr (keyboard). They first came to fame when the 60s was in full 'swing' with their hit "You've Got Your Troubles" making the top 10 the UK and US. In 1966 the band's manager, Reginald Calvert, was shot dead in a dispute over pirate radio stations.
The band enjoyed a string of successive hits including "Here it Comes Again", "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again", "Freedom Come, Freedom Go" and "Storm in a Teacup". They were also the voice of Coca Cola in the US recording "It's the Real Thing" for an American advertisement which can still be heard today. In 2008 the band regrouped with a new line up and released the album "Play On".
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Cliff Richard
Everly Brothers
Journey
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Dave Berry
Dave Berry was born in Sheffield, England in 1941. A pop singer from the 1960s he was popular in Britain and Europe and was supported by his band The Cruisers. Berry's hits include "The Crying Game" (1964),"This Strange Effect" (1965) and "Mama" (1966). "This Strange Effect" became a top hit in Holland and Belgium. In 1965 "Little Things" reached number 1. His track "Don't Give Me No Lip Child" was later covered by the Sex Pistols.
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His albums included "The Special Sound of Dave Berry", "The Crying Game", "This Strange Effect" and "Hostage to the Beat". He released most of his albums through Decca Records, Blues Matters Records and See for Miles Records.
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