Intriguing Instrumentals – Part 1

Your rock n roll Dentist has a love of instrumental music passed on from a father who didn’t care for singers.  Dad loved easy acts like Henry Mancini and Percy Faith with memorable melodies played by strings.  He also loved honky tonk piano (Johnny Maddox) and organ music (E. Power Biggs).  If I had to pick a fave easy instro it would be Ron Goodwin’s theme that was used in all 4 early ’60s Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple movies.  Much to dad’s consternation, however, your Dentist was under the sway of rock and roll and a fave rocker has to be Dave ‘Baby’ Cortez and his “The Happy Organ”.   Just for fun this month we are going to showcase some random instrumental music that has no theme other than you likely have never heard them (or at least these versions).  Certainly the ’50s and ’60s were rife with instrumentals and we will play some of those, but we are also going to move in to later decades to find songs buried on albums and CDs not known to the masses.  Your blogger has a ridiculous collection so hope you find 1 or 2 you enjoy.

1.The Silencers – Peter Gunn Theme

Henry Mancini wrote it, Ray Anthony had the biggest hit version at #8 in ’59, Duane Eddy had the twangiest (#27 in ’60) while The Blues Brothers took it on a “mission from God” in ’80.  Really it would be hard to do a bad version and Pittsburgh’s Silencers didn’t disappoint with their take in 1980.  In the middle eight they snuck in a bit of “The James Bond Theme” for good measure. This gem was tucked in to their otherwise vocal album Rock N Roll Enforcers on the Precision label.

2.The Dave Clark Five – Dum-Dee-Dee-Dum

No other British Invasion band loaded their albums with as many instrumentals as the DC 5 did.  It was hard to pick just one – this song, which feels like Duane Eddy, or “No Stopping” that echoes the “Peter Gunn Theme”.  Another goody was “On The Move” and that was all just from 1 album.  The 1965 Having A Wild Weekend album was one my mom and dad allowed the young me to grab from their Columbia record club order and it was a winner.  The title track rocked like mad and “Catch Us If You Can” was a catchy hit.

3.The Astronauts – El Aguila (The Eagle)

Well I used to grab a burger at the Sink on the Hill in Boulder, with drummer Jim Gallagher who passed in 2021 (along with guitarist Fifield).  He told great stories about his time in the biggest band out of Boulder in the ’60s.  Rich Fifield nails the lead with Bob Demmon and Dennis Lindsey filling in with wet Fenders and Storm Patterson anchoring the bass.  By their 2nd studio album (their 3rd overall) they were moving from surf to cars a la their Hawthorne, CA counterparts The Beach Boys.  Lee Hazelwood had written “Baja”, their first hit, and “El Aguila (The Eagle)” was also from his pen.  It was on their 1963 RCA Victor album Competition Coupe. Tona Byona my late friend.

4.Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids – Pipeline

I’d be in hot water with bassist Warren ‘Butch’ Knight and manager Scott O’Malley if this wasn’t prominently featured.  This Chantays cover wouldn’t be here, however, if it didn’t deliver the goods.  This showed up on their excellent self-titled 1972 Epic records debut album.  The front cover is a vintage t-shirt (they still sell them sans ‘And The Continental Kids’) while Annette Funicello is credited with the liner notes.  The front-line are all gone – lead guitarist Sam ‘Flash’ McFadin, rhythm guitarist Linn ‘Spike’ Phillips III and keys man Kris ‘Angelo’ Moe.  I’m thinking of starting a petition drive to bring back the last part of their name – FREE THE CONTINENTAL KIDS!

5.The Revillos – Secret Of The Shadow

Short and tasty, this opened their 1980 debut Rev Up LP on the import Dindisc label.  The band had started as The Rezillos but had to change names to get out of their Sire contract.  The LP featured some crazy but interesting vocal rock like “Scuba Boy Bop” and “The Rock-A-Boom”.  Eugene Reynolds, Fay Fife, Hi-Fi Harris and Rocky Rhythm were the band on this.  The dopey 45 “Bongo Brain” (1981) is still a fave for your blogger.

6.Link Wray – Switchblade

When “Rumble” hit radio in 1958, it was a sound nobody had ever heard and was even banned in NY and Boston.  It sounds just as primitive today as when Fred Wray, Jr. poked holes in the speaker of his amp to make it raspier.  It was released on Cadence with his Ray Men making it to #16.  It has been lauded as setting the stage for power-chorded rock.  Wray hung around the fringes for years then staged a comeback as guitarist on Robert Gordon’s first rockabilly albums (Robert Gordon With Link Wray in ’77 and Fresh Fish Special in ’78).  This instrumental was from his 1979 Bullshot record which also had vocals by Link.  A wealth of unreleased material has come out on compilations both before and after his death at age 76 in 2005.

7.Brian Briggs – Spy Vs. Spy

John Holbrook released a couple of rock LPs on Bearsville as Brian Briggs that got little attention.  The first one (Brian Damage 1980) was more New Wave and had this fun instrumental which I assume was named after the Antonio Prohias Mad Magazine comic strip.  Another LP highlight is a rockabilly cover of the old Eddie Cochran song “Nervous Breakdown”.  Holbrook’s name can be found as an engineer and mixer with Bearsville records.  His ’82 LP Combat Zone is good if more conventional rock.

8.Dave Edmunds – Black Bill

The ring-tone on my phone, “I Hear You Knocking”, was a U.K. #1 and U.S. #4 in ’70-71.  On the B-side of the old MAM single is a Dave Edmunds composition that is a clear homage to the records of The Bill Black Combo.  Instead of sax, Dave put in some tasty lead guitar licks but the electric piano and metronomish beat is pure Bill Black.  I believe Dave played all the instruments.

9.Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames – Last Night

This is an exuberant cover of the old Mar-Keys Stax single from 1961 (#3).  Fame plays the organ and Mitch Mitchell (later in The Jimi Hendrix Experience) is the drummer.  It was on the 1966 Sweet Things LP in England and Get Away here.  Fame was more jazzy than your Dentist liked (“Yeh Yeh”), but dang if this song wasn’t a constant turntable spin in my bedroom back in the day.  “The Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde” was his biggest hit at #7 in 1967.

10.Paul Revere & The Raiders – You Can’t Sit Down

Another popular platter on my old GE stereo was this hot cover by The Raiders of the 1961 Phil Upchurch Combo instro (#29). It was also a #3 hit for The Dovells in 1963 as a vocal.  As the lead-off song on the 1965 record Here They Come!, it showcased what a hot live rock and roll combo they were and how good Mark Lindsay was on sax.

11.The Beachcombers – Mad Goose

You would have had to collect obscure British records to have known this crazed 1963 rocker.  Pat Wayne & The Beachcombers were from Birmingham (in the U.K.) and without Wayne released this as the A-side (“You Can’t Sit Down” was on the flip).  The original was by U.S. group The Sons Of The Piltdown Men.  The original Piltdown Men were Ed Cobb and Lincoln Mayorga, but I can’t tell you why these were Sons Of….  Ed Cobb is given compositional credit (though it sounds like he sort of borrowed the tune to the old folk song “Blue Tail Fly”).  Ed Cobb was a member of The Four Preps and wrote songs like “Tainted Love” and “Dirty Water”.

12.Laika & The Cosmonauts – Skater Dater

These Finnish instrumentalists were around for 21 years starting in 1987.  They took their name from the Soviet mongrel who in 1957 was one of the first animals to orbit the Earth.  Sadly the little doggy didn’t survive as the capsule he was riding in overheated.  Laika & The Cosmonauts put out some spiffy music including this faithful cover of the old Davie Allan & The Arrows fuzz-guitar classic.  This was from the CD The Amazing Colossal Band (1995 – Upstart records).  Their 1992 album Instruments Of Terror is also worth a spin.  This song (then titled “Skaterdater Rock”) was on the soundtrack to the 1965 indie movie Skaterdater about skateboarders (the LP came out on Mira in 1966).

13.The Beach Boys – Let’s Go Trippin’ (live)

The studio version of this Dick Dale cover is on the 1963 Surfin’ U.S.A. album and is frankly pretty wimpy.  When this came out on the album Beach Boys Concert in 1964 it proved that the guys could rock it up pretty good as a live band.  Mike Love even chips in some rudimentary sax here.  It was recorded live at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, California and was the band’s 1st #1 LP on the U.S. charts.  The songs actually come from 2 concerts.

14.Zal Yanovsky – Last Date

Back in the day, after records were no longer current you could find them later as cheap cut-outs.  They would have a cut in the corner of the cover or perhaps a hole punched through it.  That is how your Dentist grabbed this LP by the ex-Lovin’ Spoonful guitarist Zalman Yanovsky.  Alive & Well In Argentina (Buddah 1968) had some good moments but suffered from not having former bandmate John Sebastian writing.   Zally was also a musical schizophrenic doing good straight material and then some head-scratcher comedic tunes.  The original song was a piano hit for Floyd Cramer (#2 1960).  Zal passed 6 days shy of his 58th birthday in his native Ontario, Canada where he owned a restaurant.

15.The Ventures – The Creeper

Own-up time – my pal DC and I stole this tune when we tried to play rock and roll back in the day.  Mr. D really pounded the skins pretty wildly, but so does Mel Taylor on this Ventures original from their Dolton records 1964 LP Walk, Don’t Run, Vol.2.  Mel also redid this on his 1966 In Action Warner Brothers LP as Mel Taylor & The Magics.

16.Shig & Buzz – Fog City

Shigema Komiyama was the drummer with the Jefferson Airplane offshoot Hot Tuna for a time.  Peter Miller was an early Brit rocker in acts like Peter Jay & The Jaywalkers then apparently moved to San Francisco and opened a studio.  The duo recorded as Shig & Buzz and put out the indie CD Double Diamonds in ’95.  Miller has also recorded as Bonney & Buzz with Bill Bonney from another old U.K. band The Fentones.

17.Ronnie Montrose – Town Without Pity

Town Without Pity was a 1961 Kirk Douglas film.  Dimitri Tiompkin wrote the movie’s score and, with lyrical help from Ned Washington, the title track.  The dramatic singer Gene Pitney was a perfect fit for the song and took it to #13 in the charts.  The 1st instrumental release by guitarist Ronnie Montrose of The Edgar Winter Band was Open Fire from 1978.  Here Winter plays piano under Montrose’s screaming guitar.

18.Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited – The Bossa Nova Squad

From Switzerland, Ernest Maeschi and Karen Diblitz recorded this on their 1997 Plays Lost TV Themes disc.  They have released at least 7 albums of cheesy-great instros.  This track feels like a backwards “Peter Gunn Theme”.

19.Ron Drand Orchestra – The Orbitus

Boy does this sucker ever sound like “Telstar” by The Tornadoes.  Obviously that was the point and I believe the only track by the Ron Drand Orchestra – actually Bruce Brand who has played drums and guitar for many Billy Childish projects.  This was on the really cool 2003 various artists import album Sympathetic Sounds Of Toe-Rag Studios.  It exposed me to many bands who wanted to get a retro sound so recorded at Liam Watson’s Toe-Rag Studios that became famous when The White Stripes worked there.  Watson’s studio is known for analogue recordings using tape and old Vox, Fender, Farisa and Ludwig gear.  The title likely refers to a 1965 comic from The Dalek World and a robot pet in the year 2612 that Capt. Rod Marlow gifted to his son Roger.

20.The Mustangs – Mandschurian Beat

There are so many other great instrumentals that choosing the last one has been tough (look for part 2 next month), but let’s go to Finland for a change of pace. This seems to be from 1986 and the album Must Twang!.  They formed in 1981 as The Scavengers in Orimattila, Finland northeast of Helsinki.  They appear to have given up the ghost in the ’90s.

Imitation Hollys – Covering Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Had Buddy Holly’s plane not crashed in an field in Iowa Feb. 3, 1959, Charles Harden “Buddy” Holley (Holly) of Lubbock, TX would have been 84 on Sept. 7th.  ‘What if’ is a stupid game, but you do have to wonder what songs we were deprived of with Buddy’s early passing (or John Lennon’s or Jimi Hendrix’s or…).  Buddy and his band signed with Decca early in 1956 and recorded a couple of unsuccessful singles using studio players chosen by Owen Bradley (released under the name Buddy Holly).   Buddy didn’t like the results and next  took his band to Clovis, NM to Norman Petty’s studios to record.  He was released from Decca in Jan. 1957, but to avoid conflict, “That’ll Be The Day” was released as by The Crickets on Brunswick and it became his first big success in the summer of that year.  He also signed with Coral for records under his own name so till his last year of releases when the releases were all labelled as by Buddy Holly, his records were under two names.  In just a short career, he amassed a large catalog of memorable songs that have stood the test of time.  What follows are some of your RNR Dentist’s fave Buddy Holly covers – feel free to respond with your own list.  An attempt was made to only include songs he wrote till the last three on my list which he performed but didn’t compose.  For most of us younger boomers with no older siblings (I was only 6 when he died) it was via cover versions that we first heard most of these songs.  It is a bit sad to realize how much more successful his music has been since he died.  By the way, in the early days of rock and roll, many producers added their names (or even the names of friends) as co-writers to songs they had no part of writing.  This blogger has no clue if Norman Petty wrote with Buddy or not, but his name is on many of the songs and certainly he did help Buddy shape the sound of his records.

1.The Beatles – Words Of Love

Knowing your blogger’s love of all-things Beatles, you likely are not surprised to see this gorgeous three-part harmony Holly cover that appeared on the U.S. LP VI (or Beatles For Sale for you Brits).  Recorded in Oct. 1964, it came out in Britain in December but not till June 1965 in America.  As a Beatles fanatic, by the way, it is interesting that Holly’s widow says his favorite number was 9 which was also John Lennon’s.  Buddy’s original was recorded in April 1957 and was his first single release under his own name on Coral but didn’t chart (Buddy harmonized with himself on tape).  The Diamonds also charted with it at #13 in 1957 as a doowop.

2.The Rogues – Everyday

This nifty rocker on Columbia could only hit #101 nationally early in 1965 so how my astute drummer buddy DC grabbed a copy as a kid was pure kismet.  Mr. D then hipped me to the record and the young GK went ga-ga for it.  The artist is a pseudonym of Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher who recorded under their own names as well as The Rogues and The Rip Chords (don’t believe the pictures of the band on the LP covers).  Melcher sings the lead here, but is better known as a producer for Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Byrds, etc. (as well as being Doris Day’s son).  Johnston joined The Beach Boys and wrote the huge Barry Manilow hit “I Write The Songs”.   Buddy originally released his version on the B-side of the #3 Coral hit “Peggy Sue”.  His version was not a stompin’ rocker like The Rogues’ version, but featured a gentle vocal over celeste (played by Vi Petty – Norman’s wife) and knee-slapping.

3.Bobby Fuller Four – Love’s Made A Fool Of You

Bobby Fuller died under mysterious circumstances (supposedly he committed suicide by drinking gasoline) in October 1966 at age 23. Before that he made some excellent pop records including this #26 charter a few months before he passed.  Buddy wrote the song with Bob Montgomery in 1954 but didn’t record it for four years at which time he did a simple version as a demo for The Everly Brothers.  Posthumously it came out with overdubbed instruments (by The Fireballs) in 1964 on the Showcase LP.  The Crickets did record it after Holly died and had a U.K. hit with it in 1959 with lead vocals by Earl Sinks (imitating Buddy).  Several Buddy Holly compilations have mistakenly included that version.

4.Matchbox – Tell Me How

Matchbox is a British rockabilly revival outfit that started in 1971 and had success in Europe but are unknown in the U.S.  This song was from their 1979 self-titled Magnet records album.  They recorded some nifty Holly covers including “You’re The One” from their album Flying Colours that included their excellent U.K. #30 single version of Holly’s “Love’s Made A Fool Of You”.

5.The Hollies – Take Your Time

Graham Nash says his band with lead singer Allan Clarke took their name from Buddy Holly (disputed by others who say it was after the holly plant).  Late in their recording career with Clarke (long after Nash left) they recorded an entire album of covers (1980’s Buddy Holly).  This song comes from the Nash era and was on the 1966 U.S. LP Beat Group! (U.K. Would You Believe).  Holly wrote it (with producer Norman Petty also given credit on the label).  It was released as the B-side to his #37 1958 single “Rave On”.  His version has a prominent (and cheesy, to these ears) organ.

6.The Rolling Stones – Not Fade Away

As the first song the Dentist ever learned how to play on the old Harmony acoustic guitar, this song has special meaning for yours truly.  Mick and the lads pushed the Bo Diddley beat on their version in 1964 with Brian Jones adding tasty harmonica fills.  It was one of their early U.S. chart records at #48 and opened their first American LP (England’s Newest Hitmakers).  The Crickets’ version was more basic and was recorded the same day as “Everyday” in Clovis.  It was the B-side to The Crickets’ 1957 #10 hit “Oh Boy!” and can be found on their LP The “Chirping” Crickets.  Songwriters on the label are Norman Petty and Charles Hardin (Buddy’s real first and middle names).

7.The Astronauts – It’s So Easy

While Linda Ronstadt had the big hit, make mine Boulder’s own frat rockers The Astronauts for this song.  Pretty ballsy to follow your surf hit “Baja” (1963) with a live album of rock to drink 3.2 beer by recorded at their own Club Baja – Everything Is A-OK!.  Lead vocals are handled by bassist Jon “Stormy” Patterson (and my former Dental supply rep with Smart Practice!).  They were never as big nationally as here in Colorado (except in Japan where for a time they were huge).  While The Crickets couldn’t crack the charts with their 1958 single, Ronstadt had the big hit with it in 1977 at #5.  If you get bored, check out my definitive Astronauts history in my March 2015 post.  https://rocknrolldentist.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/the-astronauts-surfin-the-rockies/

8.Foghat – That’ll Be The Day

It would be hard to top Buddy’s #1 hit recording from 1957, but Foghat gave it a go with a rocked up version on their 1974 Energized album (their third for Bearsville records).  The late Lonesome Dave Peverett sings lead.  Linda Ronstadt had a cover hit at #11 late in 1976 from Hasten Down The Wind.   Holly and drummer Jerry Allison are the writers and recorded it originally for Decca in July of 1956 with Sonny Curtis (guitar) and Don Guess (bass).  Decca hated the song and didn’t release it at the time, but since they held the rights to it, the name The Crickets was used the next year when Brunswick released a new version (instead of Buddy Holly).

9.Peter & Gordon – True Love Ways

Showing a more mature style, Holly recorded this ballad in New York with the Dick Jacobs Orchestra four months before his passing at his last recording session.  It wasn’t released on single till June of the following year and became a #25 U.K. hit (no chart in the U.S.).  You could also find this on the Coral LP The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. II (1960).  British Invasion duo Peter (Asher) & Gordon (Waller) had a far lusher version (dumping the mellow sax) make the U.S. charts (#14) as their second hit single of 1965 (the first was “I Go To Pieces”).

10.Bobby Vee – Down The Line

Before The Crickets there was the country bop of Buddy & Bob (Montgomery) with his Junior High pal.  The 18 year old Buddy saw Elvis and suddenly the Heavens opened and he immediately plunged in to rockabilly with “Down The Line”.  He and Bob wrote and recorded this in June of ’55 in Wichita Falls, TX with no real eye to release it.  Years later it was dug up in the search for anything worth adding to vinyl after Buddy’s death.  Overdubs of The Fireballs were added and it came out on the 1965 album Holly In The Hills with an added songwriter in producer Norman Petty before he and Buddy ever met – odd.  Not even 16 when Buddy’s plane went down, Robert Velline of Fargo, ND fashioned his sound after Holly with his first single “Suzie Baby”.  His career started when he and some of his friends volunteered to fill in at the show Buddy was supposed to play after Iowa – Moorhead, MN (they called themselves The Shadows).  Vee never forgot his break and recorded an album on Liberty in 1962 called Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets.  The following year he had the LP I Remember Buddy Holly and in 1999 he recorded the hot rockin’ album Down The Line: A Tribute To Buddy Holly.

11.The Beach Boys – Peggy Sue

This was a minor hit for the former Pendeltones (#59 1978) from the disparaged M.I.U. Album.  Brian Wilson had originally recorded it in ’76 for 15 Big Ones and Al Jardine spruced it for release.  This version is driving rock and roll with a straight drum beat as opposed to the continuous para-diddles performed by co-writer Jerry Allison on Buddy’s take.  Norman Petty was listed as the only other writer when it came out as a Buddy Holly single in 1957 (#3 chart), but after Holly’s death his name too was also to the credits.

12.Santana – Well All Right

From the 1978 Inner Secrets, this arrangement owes a debt to the fine version done by the short-lived Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood band Blind Faith (1969) which added a minor key Russian-feel riff to the original.  Carlos amps it up with some burning guitar and Latin percussion that drives it throughout.  This version was a minor hit in The Netherlands while Buddy’s original was the B-side to his #82 Nov. 1958 chart record “Heartbeat”.

13.The Hullaballoos – Learning The Game

After Holly’s death, a tape he recorded of 14 songs (some in multiple versions) in his apartment with an acoustic guitar was found and subsequently overdubbed a couple of different times for release.  This song was found on the 1960 album The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. II.  With everything British being scooped up in 1964 for the U.S., Ricky Knight & The Crusaders dyed their long hair blonde and were renamed The Hullaballoos.  They did appear many times on the Hullabaloo TV show (note 1 less ‘L’ in the name), but only found minor U.S. success with their biggest hit being another Holly cover “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (#56).  “Learning The Game” was on their second Roulette album The Hullaballoos On Hullabaloo (1965).

14.Mike Berry – Think It Over

Buddy and drummer Jerry Allison wrote this song (the single shows Norman Petty as well) in 1958 and it was a hit for The Crickets at #27.  Vi Petty played the piano on his record as well.  English singer Mike Berry (nee Bourne) recorded two different versions of the Geoff Goddard song “Tribute To Buddy Holly”.  The original Joe Meek production (1961) was banned by the BBC as being morbid but hitting #24 in the U.K. with backing by The Outlaws.  Berry redid it in 1975 and included it on a ’76 Sire records LP here in the U.S. (Rocks In My Head) with this driving version of the old Crickets tune also appearing.

15.Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs – Little Baby

Guitarist George Tomsco and his band The Fireballs started in Raton, NM in 1957 and were mainly known for their instrumentals like “Torquay” and “Quite A Party”.  Recording at the same Clovis, NM studio as The Crickets, when producer Norman Petty wanted to overdub more instrumentation to Buddy’s demos and such he turned to The Fireballs in the early ’60s.  When vocalist Jimmy Gilmer joined the band, they changed their name and scored several hits including the #1 1963 “Sugar Shack” and “Bottle Of Wine” (#9 in 1967 again as just The Fireballs).  Buddy recorded “Little Baby” a few days before Christmas in 1957 with co-writer C.W. Kendall on piano.  It was the final song on his 1958 self-titled Coral LP.  While Petty again was added to Kendall’s name as a writer, the LP doesn’t list Holly, but compilations do list him as a writer as well.  Sadly this isn’t available currently on youtube.

16.The Searchers – Listen To Me

With writing credits on the single by Charles Hardin (Holly) and Petty, this was the B-side to Buddy’s single “I’m Gonna Love You Too” in Sept. 1957.  It also appears on his self-titled 1958 LP.  Buddy recorded it at the same July 1, 1957 session that produced “Peggy Sue”.   The Liverpool band The Searchers included this on their second U.K. LP Sugar & Spice in 1963.  In the U.S. they would not become successful till “Needles & Pins” (#8) the following year.  The band took their name from the 1956 John Ford movie The Searchers (1956) in which John Wayne says the line “That’ll Be The Day” which inspired Buddy’s song.

17.Imelda May – I’m Looking For Someone To Love

The three Buddy Holly various artists tribute albums in my collection all seem pretty un-inspired compared to the originals.  That’s not the case with the hot rockabilly of this song by May on the 2011 album Listen To Me: Buddy Holly.  The album was produced by Peter Asher (Peter & Gordon) and also features Ringo Starr and Brian Wilson.  Born Imelda Mary Clabby in Dublin, Ireland, she has been recording since 2003.  With writing credits by Holly and Petty, this was the B-side on the 1957 #1 single for The Crickets “That’ll Be The Day”.  Buddy recorded the two the night of Feb. 24, 1957 (stretching to the next morning) with Jerry Allison on drums and Larry Welborn on bass.

18.The Crickets – Peggy Sue Got Married

The story of Holly sound-alike singer David Box has the same sad ending as Holly’s.  Only 15 when Buddy’s plane crashed, Lubbock resident Box had recorded there with his band The Ravens.  Earl Sinks was the new Crickets lead singer after Buddy, but when guitarist Sonny Curtis was drafted they brought in Box to sing in Buddy’s hiccup style.  He recorded their last Coral single with his (and Ernie Hall’s) song “Don’t Cha Know” as the top side and “Peggy Sue Got Married” as the B-side.   The arrangement sounds just like “Peggy Sue” with Allison’s drum para-diddles.   After leaving The Crickets, Box cut some excellent non-chart Holly-inspired records (i.e. “Little Lonely Summer Girl”).  Box was killed with three others Oct. 23, 1964 when the small plane they were riding in crashed in a Houston field.  Sole writer Buddy included this song on the tape of demos found in his apartment after he died.  Two different attempts were made to overdub it afterwards – on June 30, 1959 (producer Jack Hansen) and a few years later with The Fireballs (producer Norman Petty).  To confuse things, Coral released the Buddy Holly version as single 9-62134 in July of 1959 while The Crickets version was released the next year as 9-62238.

19.Marshall Crenshaw – Crying, Waiting, Hoping

This was the B-side of the posthumous Buddy Holly single “Peggy Sue Got Married” which was taken from the apartment demos and overdubbed to try to cash in by Coral records after his 1959 plane-crash.  Detroit-born pop-singer Marshall Crenshaw (“Someday, Someway”, “Whenever You’re On My Mind”) portrayed Buddy in the 1987 La Bamba movie about Richie Valens who was killed in the same Feb. 3, 1959 crash.   In the movie, Crenshaw as Buddy performs this song at the final concert in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, IA which was nonsense.  By the way, the last song in Buddy’s set-list that night was “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”.

20.Billy Swan – You’re The One

The story goes that when Buddy went home to Lubbock for Christmas in 1958, he dropped by radio station KLLL where someone bet him he couldn’t write a song in 30 minutes.  This song was the result and he recorded it with just his acoustic guitar while at the studio.  It was posthumously overdubbed and appears on the B-side of his last single of ‘new’ material (A-side was “Love Is Strange”).  It was on the 1969 LP Giant as well.  Missouri-born Swan’s first success was as the songwriter of the #7 1962 hit for Clyde McPhatter “Lover Please”.  He was successful mostly as a country music writer plus he also produced Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” (#8 1969).   His first hit as a performer was the #1 (pop and country) “I Can Help” in 1974 that had an retro feel due to the Farfisa organ.  His LPs included many covers of oldies including this Holly tune on his self-titled 1976 Monument records release.

21.Paul McCartney – Maybe Baby

This is a little-known Paul McCartney-Jeff Lynne (ELO) collaboration produced for the 2000 film Maybe Baby.  The Crickets’ version made it to #17 on Brunswick early in 1958 with a Holly and Petty writing credit on the label.  It has a rockabilly feel.  The band was  Buddy Holly on vocals and lead guitar with Jerry Allison on drums, Joe B. Mauldin on bass and Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar.

22.Lee Rocker – Lonesome Tears

Stray Cats bassist Lee Rocker (nee Drucker) has put out some excellent rockabilly albums on his own and frankly your Dentist prefers his vocals to Brian Setzer’s in The Cats.  Lee recorded this on his 2012 album Night Train To Memphis.  The original was the B-side to The Crickets’ Sept. 1958 single “It’s So Easy” that didn’t chart here and sports a Holly and Petty writing credit.

23.Fleetwood Mac – Buddy’s Song

The talented Jeremy Spencer of the early Fleetwood Mac seemed to love ’50s rock as much as he loved the blues.  Here he adopts a perfectly hiccuped Holly delivery from the fine 1970 Kiln House album (yes, there was some great Mac music before Buckingham and Nicks!).  This song is interesting in that the lyrics weave in many titles of Buddy Holly songs.  The tune is an amalgam of “Peggy Sue Got Married” with the middle from “Maybe Baby” and “Rave On”.  Many online sites ascribe the song as a Spencer original which is ridiculous as it actually appeared much earlier on the 1963 Bobby Vee album I Remember Buddy Holly.  The story goes that Waylon Jennings (bassist on Buddy’s last tour) wrote the song and gave Holly’s mom Ella Holley the writing credit to help her out financially.  Whatever the story, it is a fun song.

24.Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Rave On

“Rave On” was a rocker recorded by Buddy after the co-writer Sonny West had recorded it earlier in 1958.  Holly had previously recorded and had a hit with another West song “Oh Boy” (West’s original was titled “All My Love”).  On both songs Petty added his name as a writer.  West says that he took the title of this song from a line in Carl Perkins’ “Dixie Fried”.  While only a minor summer hit in the U.S. at #37 in ’58, it did hit #5 in the U.K. where Buddy was much more successful.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1970 version was on their best album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy (“Mr. Bojangles”, “Some Of Shelly’s Blues”, etc.).  It was sung by Jimmy Ibbotson.

25.Freddie & The Dreamers – It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

There are so many other great covers of songs that Holly recorded but didn’t write like “Raining In My Heart” (Dave Clark 5), “Rock Around With Ollie Vee” (Gary Busey), “Heartbeat” (The Knack), “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (The Hullaballoos) and “Oh Boy” (The Stray Cats).  Let’s end this thing with the single Buddy had out at the time of his passing which he did perform at his last concert.  The single climbed to #13 in the wake of his death while in the U.K. it hit #1.  Paul Anka wrote the song for Holly and is said to have donated the royalties to his widow Maria Elena.  Freddie & The Dreamers were one of the first music acts the young Dentist became a fan of (long before falling under the sway of The Beatles).  It must have been the choreography and indeed they headlined the first concert I attended (thanks to old pal Rick Steele and his dad who drove us).  The late Freddie Garrity’s band hit #36 in early ’65 here in the U.S. with this cover version.  Linda Ronstadt also charted with it at #47 as the B-side to her 1975 single “When Will I Be Loved”.

25 Musical Hidden Treasures That Deserved A Better Fate

   

I collect 45 rpm records as does a good friend of mine Ted Scott and we often have music playing sessions with the vinyl we have found.  Some of the best records we have latched on to over the years either never charted in the U.S. Hot 100 or barely managed to dent the charts which is often confusing (and vice versa – there are some pretty awful records that did chart).  Ted worked as a disc jockey and can attest to the fact that back in the day there were simply too many records coming across a program director’s desk to give each one a fair shake.  Many factors played into getting a record on the air.  A nationally successful act or a known label had a leg up over an unknown though often local records could chart quite high while never making any impact in the rest of the country (the KIMN charts here in Denver had many ’60s Astronauts records at #1 as an example).  Another problem was simply bad timing – a great rock record during the height of disco (or in the current hip-hop era) didn’t stand much of a chance chart-wise for instance which is why so many rockers have tried country.  In the early days of rock and roll, especially, there also was a now illegal practice called payola where deals were made between dishonest record companies/pluggers and radio stations/programmers to play a record in exchange for money/drugs/sex/you-name-it.

I’ve wanted to pay tribute to many of those sadly forgotten records over the years and am now getting around to the first installment of it.  As an Anglophile, many of my faves over the years made a big impact in the U.K. but not here in America (Slade, Shakin’ Stevens, the Move, etc.).  I don’t intend to list many of those records as at least they were hits somewhere if not here (the Shadows, Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard all come to mind).  I further admit that I could fill one entire post with nothing but great Colorado records that never broke out nationally, but I am going to defer and ask you to go back to my September 2015 entry if you wish to read about bands like the Boenzee Cryque or the Rainy Daze.

There is no attempt to place these songs in any order or even keep them to any one era so scroll through and understand that I am a big fan of guitar-based pop music and my credo is every song is better with handclapping and/or lotsa percussive (cowbell, anyone?).

1.Thomas & Richard Frost – She’s Got Love

This 45 on the Imperial label did manage to crawl to a peak placement of #83 in late 1969.  Why it didn’t do better is a bit of a head scratcher except perhaps it needed to come out a year or two earlier stylistically.  The California brothers’ real last name was Martin and they had previously been in the group Powder.  They recorded the LP Visualize which sadly wasn’t released back in the day as it fell into the cracks of Imperial being sold to United Artists.  The tunes did finally see the light of laser with a great now out of print CD.  Their 1972 LP on Uni didn’t have the same energy as these earlier pop/rock sides, by the way.

2.The Searchers – Hearts In Her Eyes

Boy was it ever a pleasant surprise when this excellent British Invasion band returned to release two truly outstanding rock and roll albums on the Sire label in 1979 and 1981 (if you love 12-string guitar jangly-pop records you need to pick them up on CD).  The only change from the ’60s band was a new drummer, otherwise you still had Frank Allen (bass), John McNally (guitar) and lead-singer/guitarist Mike Pender (who I was lucky enough to see in concert with my pal Dan Campbell in D.C. a few years back). This was a cover of a song by the group the Records that had the same feel as early Searchers hit “Needles & Pins”.

3.The Monkey’s Uncle – Annette (with the Beach Boys)

By 1965 it had been four years since Annette Funicello had placed any record in the charts while the Beach Boys were red-hot so combining them on the theme from a popular Disney movie seemed like a way to get Annette back into the charts.  It didn’t happen and perhaps that was due to the innocuous lyrics (all written by long-time Disney writers the Sherman brothers), but it also could have been that during the Beatles/folk-rock era Annette’s name on a record label was chart death.  Today, the bigger act would have been plugged instead so the credits would have likely read The Beach Boys ft. Annette which might have generated more interest.  Either way, I like this tune from Annette’s and Tommy Kirk’s last Disney movie.

4.Ford Eaglin – Travelin’ Mood

James “Wee Willie” Wayne originally wrote and recorded “Travelin’ Mood” for Imperial in 1955 after which it became an R&B standard.  Blind guitarist/singer Fird Eaglin, Jr. recorded his version in 1961 for the same label under the name Ford though he would revisit the song with a heavier blues feel years later as Snooks Eaglin.  This arrangement eliminated Wayne’s whistling and makes it more of a New Orleans piano shuffle in the realm of Lee Dorsey’s “Ya Ya” from around the same time.

5.Billy Lee Riley – Red Hot

This was a 1957 rockabilly raver covering a rockin’ blues original from two years earlier by Billy “The Kid” Emerson – both on Sun records.  Perhaps Riley’s delivery on this (and the equally great “Flying Saucers Rock & Roll”) was too raw for radio, but that doesn’t excuse neither record from at least sniffing the lower rungs of the Hot 100.  Riley always blamed Sun owner Sam Phillips for neglecting to promote any record not by his primary artists (first Elvis then later Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and at the time of “Red Hot” Jerry Lee Lewis).  Riley found more success as a session player then dropped out of music for construction till he was rediscovered and had some sporadic minor success till his death in 2009.  In 1977, Robert Gordon with Link Wray took a nearly identical version of “Red Hot” to the lower rungs of the chart (plus also recording “Flying Saucers Rock & Roll” to equal rockin’ goodness).

6.Clairette Clementino – He Don’t Want Your Love Anymore

Would this record have been a big charter if it had been recorded by the nearly identical sounding Lesley Gore?  I think it would have charted as it was a catchy melody over an excellent arrangement by Stu Phillips (The Hollyridge Strings).  For some reason this and Clairette’s other eight 45s never made any headway.  Clementino was a California teen who perhaps would have been better served changing her name to a less unwieldy one (Clair Tino?).  She did some radio jingle work in Nashville after that then quit music to raise a family back in Marin County.  I think pal Turntable Ted Scott was the first one to play this for me so thanks!

7.Bobby Fuller Four – Let Her Dance

Oh my, what a brilliant but tragic figure was Bobby Fuller.  In 1965 this record came out a bit before Fuller finally found success with “I Fought The Law” and might have had too quirky a rhythm for hitsville.   Fuller either committed suicide or was murdered – we will never know.  His records were pure pop confections full of jangling guitars and blasting percussion.  The late power popster Phil Seymour did a fantastic if more polished cover in 1981 that was equally star-crossed chartwise and could have been in this list instead.  I decided to go with the original as the guy who first wrote and conceived of the song deserves the nod.

8.Caravan – Love To Love You (And Tonight Pigs Will Fly)

Richard Coughlan, Pye Hastings, Richard Sinclair and Dave Sinclair were collectively the Canterbury, England progressive band Caravan.  Their 1971 album In The Land Of The Grey And Pink was always my favorite of their albums and featured this uncharacteristic pop song written by Hastings.  This was the era when a cool album cover could attract me to buy a record and this one didn’t disappoint.  Had this single come out in 1968 I think it would have fared better, but by 1971 the charts were rife with singer/songwriters like James Taylor, Carole King and their ilk.

9.The Astronauts – Main Street

I know I promised not to fill this list with Colorado artists, but that doesn’t mean I can’t slip in one or two along the way.  By their 11th single from their final RCA Victor LP (Travelin’ Men) you know these guys were looking for any way to get a hit outside of the Rocky Mountains.  This record didn’t do it (however it did place at #1 here in Denver), but deserved to. I was as good a Gary Lewis & The Playboys record that was not actually by that band.  Producers Snuff Garrett and Leon Russell had worked wonders creating a string of hits for Lewis and at the height of their run in 1966 added their touch to this fine song by Mike Gordon and Jimmy Griffin (later of Bread).  Rich Fifield delivered a sincere lead vocal over some excellent harmonies and a Playboys-like production.  It didn’t happen and the band broke up after one more fine single as Sunshineward.  Drummer Jim Gallagher still tells some fun stories about touring Japan while we nosh on Sink Burgers in Boulder plus Jon Storm Patterson sold me Dental supplies for years till his retirement.

10.The Pierces – Glorious

I enjoy this record so much it gives me goose bumps every time I listen to this piece of gauzy pop perfection from 2011 by the beautiful Pierce sisters (Allison & Catherine).  In a perfect world for the Rock & Roll Dentist this sort of music would be popular, but that it isn’t tells me how old and in the way I truly am (it did chart in the U.K. albeit only at #176).  This to me is the best record released in all the 2000s.  It featured on their fourth album (titled You & I) and was originally by James Levy (who played guitar on the Pierces version).  The echo-laden production was by Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman and that band’s producer Rik Simpson (known as the Darktones).

11.Hilly Michaels – Calling All Girls

The period between 1979 to 1982 was one of my favorite eras – maybe even better than the ’60s for me as I could actually afford to buy the records I heard and loved (back in the ’60s it took a lot of baby-sitting money to come up with the 60 cents or so to buy a single).  With the out-of-nowhere success of “My Sharona”, record labels where ditching disco discs and pumping out great gobs of grinding guitar-pop that ultimately wouldn’t chart.  A look at the hits of 1980 when this single came out shows Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand and Kenny Rogers – not Hilly Michaels which was a pity as this record rocked with great sound by Cars producer Roy Thomas Baker.

12.The New York Rock Ensemble – Beside You

When assembling this list I had to look at both my singles and album chart books to confirm that nothing by this talented group ever troubled the Hot 100 – amazing and shows a true lack of taste by the American record buyers.  This gorgeous ballad by the late Michael Kamen was from their fourth (and best) album Roll Over – 1971.  For this Columbia records album, guitarist Clif Nivison was joined by a trio of Juilliard students in Kamen, Dorian Rudnystsky and Martin Fulterman – now known as Mark Snow (who composes TV songs like the X-Files Theme).  I had the pleasure of seeing this band with the Denver Symphony in ’71 and (as a former oboe player myself) was thrilled to see a rock band where two musicians played the double-reed and one played cello.

13.The Everly Brothers – The Price Of Love

Don and Phil Everly were proof that genetics could breed vocal harmonic greatness.  I have always assumed that this self-penned gritty rocker was a big hit back in 1965 and was shocked to see that while it did do well in the U.K., it never made it in the States.  Very uncharacteristically, country-rock band Poco did a decent cover on their Cowboys & Englishmen LP in 1982.  Next to the brothers, the best version is by Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music.  Perhaps the problem in 1965 was that folk-rock, Motown and British Invasion records dominated.

14.Ian Hunter – Cleveland Rocks

Proof again that 1979 was a cool year for music, former Mott The Hoople man Hunter with the late/great guitarist Mick Ronson put out the fine rock and roll LP You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic.  The only Hunter single to chart in the U.S. was from that album (“Just Another Night”) so it seemed possible that as a follow-up if every person in Cleveland bought the new single, it might have charted – but it didn’t.  The song has actually had quite a long life in spite of no chart presence.  It was used for a time as the theme-song to The Drew Carey Show (by the Presidents Of The United States Of America) and has continued to be played at Cleveland sporting events.  It may inspire me one day to travel to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (if I can think of another reason to go to Cleveland).  I actually prefer musically the more driving (and more obscure) U.K. single he did called “England Rocks”.

15.The Guitar Ramblers – Surf Beat

When we were youngsters in Broomfield, my pal Dan Campbell had a Capitol records compilation with “Surf Beat” by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones on it – a great record that I remember fondly.  This 1963 more stately cover of that song by the faceless studio band The Guitar Ramblers really doesn’t sound like hit material, but I always loved the single anyway – plus I dig instros.  The LP says it was under the direction of Jack Marshall who was a jazz guitarist and composer of cool music for The Munsters and Thunder Road.

16.Eric Andersen – Is It Really Love At All?

Back in 1972 when I was in the thrall of Humble Pie, Foghat, the Faces, etc., I remember hearing this gentle ballad on Denver radio and really liking it not knowing the long folk history of the performer.  I now know that his most famous ’60s composition was about civil rights – “Thirsty Boots” (covered by Judy Collins, John Denver, etc.).  This song was from his most successful LP Blue River which fit well with the singer/songwriter era of the early ’70s.  Stan Soocher and I saw him in a very intimate concert in a barn-like structure in Elizabeth, CO.

17.Paul Collin’s Beat – That’s What Life Is All About

Boy was it hard to choose just one song by the most criminally overlooked band from the skinny-tie power-pop era when bands like The Knack and the Romantics kicked leisure-suited disco aside – if briefly.  From 1979 it could have been the cowbell-driven “Workin’ Too Hard” or the snotty “Don’t Wait Up For Me” from their first album titled The Beat.   I ultimately settled on this more mature song with gorgeous harmony vocals over a driving strummed guitar passage from their second LP released in 1982 (The Kids Are The Same).  My old friend G Brown treated wife Aimee and me to a fantastic Boulder double bill back in ’82 with these guys backing The Stray Cats – great stuff (thanks G!).  Paul Collins is still out there touring and recording though with a lot less hair (though I guess I am not one to talk).

18.The Millennium – It’s You

There was a loose group called the Millennium that recorded the 1968 album Begin that spawned this sunshine-pop single that also put out music as the Ballroom and Sagittarius.  The exquisite 1967 first Sagittarius album (Present Tense) was producers Curt Boettcher and Gary Usher with studio men like Glen Campbell and also included tracks from their earlier band the Ballroom.  They then recorded the Millennium album with friends like Michael Fennelly, Sandy Salisbury, Joey Stec and Lee Mallory which became the most expensive flop ever for Columbia records up to that point.  Later, Usher would start his own label (Together) and issue another Sagittarius album (The Blue Marble).  Over the years music by these artists have gained a loyal cult following with pop fans.

19.The Delroys – Bermuda Shorts

Coming from 1956, the Delroys called Long Island, NY their home and managed to cut this hot doo-wop rocker the next year for the small Apollo records label.  There were too many small regional labels back in the day who all found it hard to gain distribution outside of their local area.  If they did get distributed wider, you knew that there was not going be a good accounting for sales figures either which inevitably would mean little or not payment to the artist on the record.  One can assume that poor distribution is what kept this ode to short pants from breaking out nationally as it has the sound of a hit otherwise and did manage some success in a few markets.  These black kids, like so many, were a faceless outfit that never saw any money from their records but at least got to live out the rock and roll dream – if only for a short time.

20.Freddie & The Dreamers – A Windmill In Old Amsterdam

For some reason I was bitten by the Freddie bug for a short time back in 1965 and can thank my friend Rick Steele and his thoughtful dad for getting to attend my first rock and roll show at the Auditorium Theater in Denver to see the Dreamers.  While the band declined in national popularity, I continued to buy their records for a bit including this cover of a novelty written by Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge.  Freddie Garrity always had a streak of ‘silly’ on-stage and this song about a clog-wearing Dutch mouse fed in to that perfectly (and gave him a chance to use his dopey laugh).  Needless to say I played it for daughters Brenna and Hilary as kids since that is the main reason you have kids – to torment them with your music and old jokes.

21.B.J. Thomas & The Triumphs – Never Tell

This song was issued on three different labels and was originally the featured side over “Billy & Sue” which was on the flip.  This is a very catchy pop single (with handclaps on the chorus) first released on the small Bragg record label in 1964 then picked up nationally on Warner Brothers that same year.  The record was not a hit and eventually Thomas made it to Scepter records in 1966 to start a long and successful music career with a cover of the old Hank Williams ballad “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”.  Hickory records then acquired the rights to the 1964 release and flipped the record to make the more country flavored “Billy & Sue” the top side over the poppier “Never Tell”.  Their plan worked as the record hit #34 in 1966 meaning my preferred side never got airplay nationally.  Mark Charron wrote both sides of the single (he died in his early 50s).

22.Baja Marimba Band – Portuguese Washerwoman

Well it is time to own up to a guilty pleasure and admit that back in 1966 when I was buying Beatles and Stones records I also grabbed the LP Watch Out! by the Baja Marimba Band when I heard this song.  It was a cover of the #19 hit from 1956 by pianist Joe “Fingers” Carr.  While the Jewish Julius Wechter’s Hispanic image for his band traded on politically incorrect stereotypes, the music was great and mostly played by the same musicians who recorded the Tijuana Brass records and so many others  – the Wrecking Crew.  While the record did chart top 20 on easily listening stations, nationally if only hit #126.

23.Kip And Ken – Trouble With A Woman

Fred Darian and Al DeLory wrote the novelty record “Mr. Custer” (a hit for Larry Verne).  A keyboard player with the Wrecking Crew backing musicians, DeLory later was the arranger/producer behind a string of great Glen Campbell hits in the ’60s.  Al DeLory is listed as the arranger on this 1965 record while Fred Darian is the producer.  Joseph Van Winkle and Darian are listed as  composers.  If you go back to the first appearance of this song on vinyl (1963 – The Camptown Singers), you will see that DeLory was the arranger, Darian was the producer, but the composers were listed as Van Winkle and Dobie Gray.  That version doesn’t sound awfully different than this slightly more polished and vocally superior take by the unknown Kip and Ken.  Billboard back in 1965 had a capsule review saying it was a Righteous Brothers sounding pulsating rocker.  It wasn’t a hit for either act.  I’m struck by how similar one for the singers sounds to the late great Sam McFadin (Flash Cadillac).

24.Traffic – You Can All Join In

This track was from the self-titled second Traffic album that was released in 1968.  Dave Mason had left the band just as their first album was released, but returned in time to contribute some great songs to the next album before quitting once again.  This very catchy pop song from Mason has gentle commentary about issues of the day.  Chris Woods plays a very basic sax that sounds almost like a duck call, but it works over the acoustic guitar strums and lyrical lead guitar breaks.  The word is that this wasn’t released as a single in the U.S. as the band didn’t want to play up the pop tunes over the direction of the rest of the album.  I would wonder if there wasn’t some competition between Steve Winwood and Mason over the direction of the band.

25.Poco – A Good Feeling To Know

Here is one more song with Colorado ties.   That it broke the heart of the man who wrote and sang lead on it (Richie Furay) is frustrating, but it doesn’t take away that it was perhaps the peak of his time in Poco.  For my story about the band, you are referred to my extensive blog post of April 2017.  The clip I chose to link to cuts off the intro to the song, but it is the only one that shows a promo of the band doing their tribute to the state that they had recently moved to – Colorado.  Back when I interviewed Furay for my article, he was just emerging again as a performer while trying to fit it in with his commitments as Pastor of Calvary Chapel in Broomfield.  He obviously still had pain over the lack of success on the charts for the song he thought would make him a true star.  That failure ultimately lead him to break away from Poco, but thankfully he has always returned to their music in concert and has often guested with them.  At the time I told him how much a wanna-be and never-was rock musician like me would have given their right arm to have had even a piece of the success he had seen in his time and I sure hope he has come to grips with what a great career it has been.  Chart success or no, in concert the song still gets the crowd up and cheering every time.

The Astronauts – Surfin’ The Rockies

This is an update of an article I wrote for Discoveries Magazine in July of 1999.  Hope you enjoy it.

The second that the fat wet Fender guitar pulse hits your speakers, you want to duck and cover to keep from getting drenched by the foamy ocean spray.  That’s the sound of “Baja,” a surf instrumental classic from 1963 that seems to be on all the CD compilations of that particular musical style.  The amazing thing about the group who waxed this song, the Astronauts, is that they had never been a surf band prior to these sessions.  Indeed, they were not even from the beaches of California, but rather from the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado where skis, not surfboards, dominate.  Even more amazing is that while they barely dented the U.S.charts, in Japan they were considered mega-stars for a time.

In the late ’50s, Jon Patterson (or Stormy, from his middle name-Storm) was a Boulder, Colorado high school student and state wrestling champ.  He was also an aspiring guitarist/singer and showed this facet at a school talent show impressing fellow Boulder High student Bob Demmon in the process.  Demmon convinced Patterson to teach him guitar which naturally lead to the formation of a band.  With the addition of future Boulder Sheriff Brad Leach on drums the Stormtroupers came into being.  Note the spelling was “troupe” not “troop” though sometimes is seems to have been misspelled that way or as one or two words.  The dictionairy definition of troupe is “a group, especially of the performing arts” which fit quite well as the band was Storm’s troupe.  Being only a decade or so removed from World War II and the Nazi atrocities committed by stormtroopers, the name of the band quickly created controversy in conservative Boulder.

When Patterson and Demmon started college, the group lay pretty much dormant till Boulder drummer Jim Gallagher (several years younger than the other two being still a high school junior) convinced them to reform to play at a beer joint in the mountain resort town of Estes Park.  To play the Rock Inn, Gallagher had to conceal the fact that he was still a minor since you had to be 18 to get into a 3.2 beer place.  As a three-piece, the Stormtroupers were then in demand for dances, parties and store openings as there were few rock outfits in Boulder.

As the ’60s dawned, Patterson switched to bass guitar (borrowing one at first from the University of Colorado) and added a new member to the band, guitarist Dick Sellers.  As the act got better, they acquired steady work at Boulder’s Olympic Lanes (a bowling alley) and the town’s best club-Tulagi (on the Hill, the section just West of the university campus).  Other early highlights were playing a benefit for the 1960 Olympic Ski Team and being flown to Dallas to play a debutante ball for the daughter of John D. Murchison who owned Boulder’s biggest hotel, the Harvest House (in addition to his part ownership of the Dallas Cowboys with his brother Clint).

A1962 article in the Sigma Nu Fraternity magazine Delta by future Sports Illustrated writer Doug Looney talking about the band came to the attention of Stan Zabka  in Chicago who was impressed enough by what he read to write to the boys suggesting a recording session (Demmon and Looney were both in the frat at CU).  The band jumped at the idea and hopped on the Denver Zephyr for the day and a half trip to Chicago where they stayed with Gallagher’s aunt while recording.  The Patterson original rocker “Come Along Baby” was chosen for the A-side with the R&B standard “Trying To Get To You” on the flip.  While Palladium 45 B-610 certainly didn’t get even a glimpse at the popular music charts, it stands up as a raw document of what an early ’60s party combo sounded like.  Both sides of this rarity can be heard on the 1991 German import CD Rarities (Bear Family BCD 15556).

These first recording sessions contributed more than just a record as Zabka prevailed on the guys to finally change their name to avoid further controversy.  After rejecting names like the Button Downs, the name the Astronauts was chosen to reflect the current interest in the fledgling space program.  An interesting tie-in is that the second U.S. Astronaut to orbit the Earth, Scott Carpenter, was also from Boulder (he did it May 24, 1962).

The only real Boulder competition for the Astronauts in the early ’60s were the Spartans led by Rich Fifield -a guitarist and singer from Ogallala, Nebraska.  Fifield asked if he could sit in with the more established band one night and was told that he could only if he would wear a tie and a white shirt (the Astronauts were, after all, a classy bunch).  When he later turned up dressed to the nines with his guitar, the guys let him on stage and were impressed enough with the resulting sound to expand to a quintet with his addition.

The classic Astronauts lineup was completed when Sellers abruptly enlisted in the Navy and was replaced by Dennis Lindsey who had been working in a laundromat (though he had to be asked to cut his hair a bit shorter).  They continued to work local shows and even backed up acts like Del Shannon and Dick & DeeDee for Colorado engagements.  Still, this was not enough of a taste of success for the guys and since the time away from studies didn’t exactly help their college careers it was decided that a direct appeal to a record label was in order before giving up on music.

From an earlier contact with RCA Victor distributor Ward Terry, a meeting was set up with A&R man Steve Sholes and over spring break (1963) Gallagher and Demmon flew to Hollywood with a scrapbook and a demo tape which included the standard “Lil’ Liza Jane.”  Sholes was interrupted during the meeting by a call touting the big sales of the Beach Boys’ new Surfin’ U.S.A. album for the Capitol label.  Covering the phone, he asked if the Astronauts played surf music.  Sensing an opportunity Gallagher and Demmon lied a bit and said that of course they could play surf music even though the band had relied on rock and blues standards up till now and really had no clue if they could play this foreign form of music.  An audition on the band’s home turf was set up and then Gallagher and Demmon beat a hasty retreat back to Colorado to inform the rest of the band that they had but three weeks to learn how to be RCA’s answer to the Beach Boys.

Al Schmitt, who would later become their producer, flew to Colorado and was treated to a barbeque at Demmon’s house (what with him being the only married man in the band).  Then, it was off to Tulagi for a regularly scheduled show with the crowd knowing to cheer extra loud in hopes of securing a contract for their hometown heroes.  In an amazing show of confidence, when the houselights came up the guys lurched into a slow and out of tune first song while Schmitt pondered a quick getaway back to Hollywood.  The charade mercifully ended quickly with a laugh and then the Astronauts got down to business and proceeded to blow Schmitt away with their self-assurance.  A contract was signed that night and a recording session set up for April 1963 in Hollywood.

On May 6 and 7, the Astronauts convened at RCA’s Studio 2 and over nine hours layed down the tracks that would become their first album.  Their white Fender Jazzmaster guitars lined up with Demmon on the bottom, Lindsey fleshing out the sound and Fifield playing brilliant underrated lead lines over Patterson’s bass throb.  RCA essentially already had the album planned out and only needed a group to play on it.  Patterson did get to contribute the cool original song “Kuk” to the lineup though writing credit went to the whole band (as were most group original songs as a gesture to band contributions in arranging their individual parts).  The lyrics make light of the band’s difficulties in understanding the peculiar language of surfers.  In addition to this song, they did several of the current surf songs such and “Misirlou” (with Demmon on trumpet), “Pipeline” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.  The highlights, however, were three instrumentals written by Duane Eddy’s mentor Lee Hazelwood.  Eddy was also on RCA during the early ’60s, it should be noted.

“Batman” was decent, but “Movin'” and “Baja” really cooked and would reward the boys with sizable hits (if not in the U.S. – more on that later).  Of the 12 songs picked for the Surfin’ With The Astronauts album, “Baja” with “Kuk” on the flip side was chosen for single release.  In late July of 1963, the first Astronauts single managed to dent the Billboard chart for one week at #94 while back home in Colorado it splashed quickly to #1 and was cause for much celebrating that the local boys had made it to the big time.

The LP faired a bit better.  According the Whitburn’s Top Pop Albums book, Surfin’ With The Astronauts managed to climb as high as #61 in its 14 week chart run beginning Aug. 3, 1963.  The cover showed a moody blue hued picture of a lonely surfer dude carrying his board out of the sea.  Interestingly, the original of this scene was of a surfer girl not a dude, but with a little airbrushing out of curves and ponytail, it became the cover we know today.

This was not a bad chart placing for a debut LP, but still a bit disappointing in terms of the quality of the record.  To cement the style of this debut, two new band originals were quickly waxed and released as a non-LP single with a nice (and now rare) picture sleeve.  The a-side “Hot-Doggin'” may actually be the best instrumental they ever recorded with its complex up and down the fretboard runs by Fifield’s deft fingers.  With the vocal number “Everyone But Me” on the flip, this single was again relished by local Colorado fans who mustered a top of the chart placement in October of ’63, but this didn’t matter to the national charts.

At this point the band’s schizophrenic nature started to show itself as a second album was prepared for release.  Rather than solidify the surf instrumental image, the band recorded three nights of shows (Sept. 19-21) consisting of vocal covers at their newly opened Club Baja on 14th and Stout in Denver.  Frankly, live is where the Astronauts always excelled, but in retrospect it seems a bold move to release a live album as a second LP and have it sound 100 percent different then what fans of their first record would expect.  The songs chosen were certainly what they would have played at a frat party and must have sounded great reverberating off the kegs of 3.2.  Songs like “Bo Diddley,””Big Boss Man,” Shortnin’Bread,” etc. were good, but missed the dynamic fun of their visual stage show.  The closing “What’d I Say” clocked in at an unheard of six plus minutes for this era of the two minute single and featured a great Gallagher drum solo.  In Feb. of 1964 the album Everything Is A-OK managed a respectable #100 placing on Billboard’s album chart.

Everything, however, was not A-OK in Feb. of 1964 if you were an American music act as the charts were being swept by a British Invasion spearheaded by the Beatles.  Back in December, the Astronauts had recorded another studio session for album release in 1964 not aware of the massive changes the coming months would foment on the U.S. charts.  With the Beach Boys showing the way, the next direction for the Astronauts was to be an LP of car songs.  Another Duane Eddy alumnus, saxman Steve Douglas had recorded an album entitled Rev-up as the studio-only group the Vettes.  As that album didn’t set the world on fire, Douglas brought seven of those songs to the Astronauts for their next record, even playing sax on them himself.  Songs like “Devil Driver’s Theme” and “Little Ford Ragtop” sounded great but were equalled by another band original, “Our Car Club” an ode to all the band members and their female named cars.  Hazelwood contributed two more exceptional instrumentals in “The Hearse” and “El Aguila (The Eagle).”

The 45 from this set was the title track “Competition Coupe” written by car song veterans Gary Usher and Roger Christian.  The B-side, “Surf Party” was the title track to their first movie appearance and accompanied “Firewater” on the soundtrack for 20th Century Fox records.

On Feb. 15, 1964, “Competition Coupe” managed to bubble under at #124 and could make no headway against the likes of “She Loves You” and “Please Please Me” by the Beatles.  A month later, the album Competition Coupe managed to place in the charts at #123 for the last chart entry by the Astronauts.  While Patterson today barely remembers several of the songs on this LP (since they learned them quickly strictly for the record), he recalls vividly the cover photo shoot.  Two hotrods had been borrowed from a California girl and the Astronauts went cruising the Hollywood hills with photographer in tow only to be stopped by a motorcycle cop who was afraid they were drag-racing.  Luckily he was persuaded that the band was shooting an album cover and let the boys go.  His picture, however, did turn up in the CD booklet for Rarities.

If the band were not obscessing over the U.S. charts in January of 1964 they could be excused, however, as only a few weeks before the Beatles invasion, Astronauts-fever was sweeping through Asia. They were at #1 on the singles and LP charts and in demand for a concert tour.  The Japanese had embraced the surf instrumentals recorded earlier by the band with Victor Japan changing several of the titles for the foreign audience. For example, “Baja” became “Surfin’ #1” and “The Hearse” features the sound of an overdubbed car and is retitled “Gear Is Screaming.”  The biggest hit of their 19 Japanese singles was “Movin'” or “Over The Sun” as it was dubbed (it was never released as a U.S. single).

When the guys flew in for their first Japanese tour, they were greeted by perhaps 10,000 screaming fans at the airport who hounded their every move in an attempt to rip the clothing off their backs for a souvenir.  This, coupled with the language barrier, conspired to keep the guys close to their hotel, but managed to help them sell a few million records over their careers.  The Astronauts found themselves playing huge arenas filled with screaming fans who drowned out the music and threw oranges at the stage as a gesture of affection.  It must have been strange to be considered superstars in Asia and Colorado, but to be struggling for any sort of recognition everywhere else.

Records were not the way bands paid the bills back in the early ’60s, but via incessant touring.  Such was the case with the Astronauts who made alot of money for RCA, but had to play constantly (sometimes two shows a day) to keep eating regularly.  It seemed the guys played every college campus in the midwest which may explain why album number four Astronauts Orbit Kampus was yet another live set  This  was recorded in Boulder back at their old haunt Tulagi from Feb. 27 to March 1, 1964.  The sound on this record was noticeably fatter and rocked a bit more then the first live effort.  The twelve songs again were vocals and covered mostly traditional rock territory such as “Johnny B. Goode,””Linda Lou” and “Good Golly Miss Molly.”  The album cover has a great band photo with Boulder in the background as seen from Flagstaff Mountain (where your’s truly first learned to drive).

Patterson remembers some crazy, but good times playing in concert such as the time a guy came in to the ‘Tule’  waving a very threatening machete at the crowd till Demmon wacked the wierdo in the gut with his guitar.  Another time in an unplanned attempt to invent crowd diving decades before alternative rock, Patterson managed to fall off the end of a dark stage while singing then climbed back over a startled couple’s table without missing a beat.  One outcome of playing was getting in trouble with the law and while playing in Hawaii at Betty’s a-Go Go, the boys managed to get themselves banned from the islands.  It would be interesting to find out if Hawaii 5-O is still on the look-out for any Astronaut to brave the ban and try to return.

On the vinyl frontier, no singles were pulled from the live record.  Another non-LP 45 was instead sent out with “Go Fight For Her” and “Swim Little Mermaid” in the grooves.  The top side was a heavily produced mid-tempo rocker whose basic intent was to remind every red-blooded American male that in order to win and keep the girl-next-door, he’d better be prepared to spill some of that blood.  Through May and June of ’64, this record pumped up towards the top of Denver’s KIMN chart, but as usual the rest of the home of the brave turned a deaf ear to RCA 47-8364.  Julius Wechter, later of the Baja Marimba Band, supplied the vibes while piano was pounded by one Russell Bridges aka Leon Russell.

The next record was also a 45 of no 12″ parentage coupling the Chuck Berry rocker “Around And Around” with the orchestrated and long titled plug side “Main Title From: Ride The Wild Surf” which was a cool beach movie with Shelley Fabares and a pre-Jeanie Barbara Eden frugging madly to Jan & Dean tunes.  Needless to say, this movie made a large impression on your intrepid author, but the 45 only made an impression in Japan under the title “Surf In The Sun.”

The Astronauts were at an impasse as every surf instrumental they recorded shot up the Japanese charts, but were labeled as passé in the rest of the world.  The answer was to record music in Japan specifically for release there.  On the next Asian tour, the guys quickly learned and waxed Yukio Hashi’s “Che Che Che” which was released with “If You Are In Love” on the flip.  The next Japanese-only record was a pairing of two songs by John Barry from the new hot James Bond movie “Goldfinger”/”007 Theme.”  The James Bond vault would be mined later for the single “Thunderball” which was paired with “A Taste Of Honey” both done instrumentally.

For the English speaking audience, the Nov. 1964 single was one of their strongest vocal records with “I’m A Fool” on top and “Can’t You See I Do” underneath.  “I’m A Fool” was an obviously commercial production with handclaps and driving drums pushing the song along.  The song was a hit, but it would take seven more months and a recording done by Dino Desi & Billy to place it in the charts.  A side by side comparison of the two versions reveals that the better of the versions ended up the hit as DD&B revved up the tempo a bit and really emphasized the basic “Louie Louie” three chord riff with a prominent 12-string guitar.  Still, the Astronauts version had hit potential as did the strongly Merseyish B-side.  With a bit more of the production style of “I’m A Fool” it may have been that the great band original “Can’t You See I Do” should have been the plug side.

For 1965’s first Astronauts single, the Chuck Berry rocker “Almost Grown” was coupled with another band original “My Sin Is My Pride” another British sounding ballad.  RCA Victor then released a new album by the band pairing the last two 45s with eight more songs under the title Go…Go…Go!!!.  This may well be the strongest non-surf style LP the guys ever released and saw them write two thirds of the songs.  The record lead off with an outside bluesy rocker in “Hey Sugarfoot” and ended with the most overtly British Invasion song they ever wrote in “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind” which strongly recalled the Beatles’ “You Can’t Do That.”  Another band original “You Gotta Let Me Go” could very well have passed for a Billy J. Kramer record.  In an astute move, the guys included two instrumentals that were quickly paired for a Japanese single.  They double-timed it through Les Baxter’s easy listening gem “Quiet Village” then added their own rocker “Gouch” which was named after the bar manager at the Club Baja (Stephen) Ken Taniguchi.  If the guys had any hope of confusing record buyers that the U.K. invasion sound-alikes in the grooves were by a new British sensation called the Astronauts they should have ditched the cover photo.  Bands like the Sir Douglas Quintet found that pretending to be English helped their chart chances, but required long hair and silhouetted faces on the cover.  For the Astronauts, the look was clean-cut All-American boy and probably doomed the album.

One of the problems faced by bands during the Viet Nam ‘conflict’ was the increasing call for young men to be drafted into the Army.  Hoping to delay the inevitable, Patterson had enlisted in the National Guard which kept him as a reserve for some time, but early in 1965  the Astronauts finally ended up losing their bass player and soul for six months.  Patterson was forced to heed Uncle Sam’s call to arms and would report in March.  Prior to his call-up, another single was recorded from the outside source of another struggling RCA artist Tommy Boyce. Boyce had managed a small hit in 1962 with “I Remember Linda” and was now making the rounds as a songwriter.  The Boyce/Steve Venet song “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day” was selected to be recorded for a single release and was given an assist by Toni Wise on piano and future Raider Keith Allison on harmonica.  The flip side was merely an instrumental version of the top side yet adds Allison to the writer’s credit perhaps since his harmonica is so prominently featured.  This is one of the songs Boyce took with him to the Monkees the following year and a comparison of the two versions shows the Astronauts’ to be alot tougher sounding and Fifield’s vocal to be punkier than Micky Dolenz’s.  Please note that the version on the Rarities CD and Varese Sarabande’s disc The Songs Of Tommy Boyce And Bobby Hart is not the single version, but a very bizarre sounding edit (though it at least appears in stereo for the first time).

To promote the single the still five piece band went on the national TV show Hullabaloo for one of their two appearances and mimed to “Roll Over Beethovan” along with “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day.”  Four of the guys looked clean-cut and All-American, but Fifield had that dangerous Brian Jones/Rolling Stones look with his long blonde hair nearly falling over his eyes.  The rest of the show was pretty darn lame save for Jr. Walker & The All Stars who were just hitting with “Shotgun” and Gene Pitney promoting his new record “I Must Be Seeing Things.”  Baby boomers certainly remember how music shows from that era would mix in terribly unhip acts with rockers and this show must have set some record for squareness.  The host was Dean Jones best known for starring in Disney’s That Darn Cat, Leslie Uggams who was a fine if mainstream singer, Shanie Wallace (who?), the Young Folk (ditto?) and an awful dance number by the Hullabaloo Dancers.  The show exposure couldn’t push the new single into the charts which is a pity as it was a pretty fair rocker.

In 1965, RCA also released a promotional album titled Rockin’ With The Astronauts which sported a pretty bland cover.  This ten song LP had several early hits (“Baja,””Competition Coupe”) alongside standards like “Let The Good Times Roll” and “Crawfish Song.”

Boyce took an even more active role in the next recording session with his new partner Robert Harshman (Bobby Hart).  Of the three Boyce/Hart songs recorded, only “The La La La Song” was ever released during the band’s lifetime with “The Tables Have Turned” and “I’m Gonna Buy Me A Dog” sitting in the vault till the Bear Family Rarities CD rescued them from oblivion.  Hart helped out on percussion and vocals while Boyce played the piano.  With Paul Anka’s (via Buddy Holly) “It Doesn’t Matter Any More” as the B-side, “The La La La Song” stands out as the most overtly commercial single ever released by the Astronauts.

While many still loathe its sweet bubblegummy sing-along chorus of “la la la la la la, etc.”, Colorado loved it and bought truckloads of the 45 placing it at # 64 on the 1965 singles chart for the entire year (on 950 KIMN Denver’s most important top 40 station of the ’60s).  Frankly this reviewer has always been a fan of bubblegummy pop and counts this as the best record they ever did (no accounting for taste, I realize) and the biggest disappointment in terms of national chart failure.  A look at the national charts, however, probably reveals the reason the song didn’t hit. This genre of music really didn’t hit its stride till a few years later with Tommy Roe, the Ohio Express and the Archies so “The La La La Song” was simply before its time.

“I’m Gonna Buy Me A Dog” is the same song done by the Monkees a year later and in both cases the song should have remained unreleased as it’s one of the more embarrassing songs written by Boyce & Hart.  The version by the Astronauts is pretty much an up-tempo blues while the Monkees joked their way throughout the song.

At the same time a new album was released though it did not include the last two singles.  For You From Us was somewhat of a return to their earlier live albums as most of the songs were covers of rock standards.  Chuck Berry contributed two songs in “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and “Reelin’ And Rockin'” plus they covered Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me To Do.”

The Astronauts also covered two British invasion U.S. songs with “Twist And Shout” (the Beatles) and “Ain’t That Just Like Me” (the Searchers).  The three originals on this LP are credited solely to Fifield and are again very British Invasion in sound.  Of these the strongest and the best shot as a single (though never released as such) was “I Still Remember.”  No U.S. singles were pulled from this album though at least the Japanese recognized the strength of “Unchain My Heart” which was coupled with “Twist And Shout” on 45.  While this may not be one of the strongest Astronauts albums, it boasts the best band picture ever with the guys looking a bit moody in grey suits and black ties against a screaming red backdrop.  Fifield has his Stones long hair and Demmon’s is getting dangerous too.

Patterson remembers missing out on the movies Wild On The Beach which featured “Little Speedy Gonzales,””Rock The World” and “Pyramid Stomp” (titled “Leave It To Beat” in Japan) and Wild Wild Winter which included “A Change Of Heart.”  The Decca soundtrack for this last movie shows a four piece band on the cover with Demmon on bass, but lists them as a five piece on the back and without having seen the movie, it’s hard to know which is right.  The notes on the soundtrack state that in addition to Hullabaloo, they had also done the TV shows 9th Street West, Hollywood A Go-Go and The Lloyd Thaxton Show.

The next LP recorded by the Astronauts was Down The Line and Patterson remembers contributing his parts after the record was finished by the rest of the band.  To serve out his reserve time with the National Guard, Patterson was assigned to a special entertainment unit which allowed him to return to his position behind the Fender bass and allowed him to not miss the LP.  For the first time there were no band compositions present with side one having a very bluesy feel.  The ‘Nauts took a stab at Willie Dixon’s “Seventh Son,” Rufus Thomas’ “Walkin’ The Dog” and “John Lee Hooker’s “Dimples” to name a few.  Chuck Berry received two more covers on his songs “Memphis,Tennessee” and “Sweet Little Rock And Roller” while Roy Orbison contributed the title track. Perhaps the oddest and most interesting sounding song is the Boyce/Venet written “Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire” which for all the world sounds identical to a Dick and Dee Dee song.  The single B-side “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” turned up again, but no other singles came from this LP which is a pity as several songs might have been excellent candidates.  Either the Addrisi brothers song “It Could Never Be The Same” or the Alquist/Stuart (Chad of Chad  & Jeremy) tune “Only Those In Love” deserved a better fate.  The former could have been Freddie & the Dreamers and the latter had some great stompin’ drums.  Maybe they could have hit under another group name like Storm & the Bedbugz, but this was not to be.

One of the most interesting ‘might-have-beens’ for the band occurred in 1965 when the band interviewed to play a group on a new TV show to be called The Monkees.  It’s legend that there was a huge casting call for this show, but Patterson felt that at one time the Astronauts had the inside track to be this group for the show.  The guys had gotten impatient while waiting in the office for their interview and had not only re-arranged all the furniture, but had then stripped down to their skivvies to greet their interviewer.  After making a favorable impression, they were told that the main impediment to their getting the part was that they were a five piece band and that the show called for a four piece.  It was felt that the shows could be re-written, but Patterson feels that the thing that scotched the deal was RCA not letting them out of their contract.  Whether this would have happened is hard to say, but it’s interesting to speculate what might have happened if the guys would have gotten the clout of TV exposure and all the production and songwriting talent later used for the Monkees.

With Patterson back in the fold several songs were recorded but left unreleased till Bear Family raided the vaults in 1991.  Of these Oct. 1965 songs, the best may be “Buy Me A Round” which features Lindsay on vocal and would not have sounded out of place on the radio next to bands like Music Machine and the Syndicate Of Sound.

Over in Japan Victor managed to find the time to record and release two albums that would never find U.S. record players.  The first of these was titled Instrumental Album and was precisely that.  Side one was made up of Elvis Presley numbers like “Heartbreak Hotel,””A Big Hunk ‘o Love” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky.”  The other side ran from “The House Of the Rising Sun” to Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line.”  In between they hit Duane Eddy’s “40 Miles Of Bad Road” plus “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,””Honky Tonk” and “Tequila.”  This was a uniformly excellent LP though this author has never forgiven the guys for substituting a drum flourish for the only word on this last song – “Tequila!” which to this day is shouted every time the Champs’ version comes on the radio.  The gatefold jacket features the heads of the band members superimposed on a fairly rough drawing of a band in a green jalopy playing red, pink and orange guitars as opposed to their usual white Fenders.  The back cover repeated the For You From Us picture and the rest of the front side drawing which showed a dog with his leash wrapped around a female tree; very strange indeed!

The second Japanese-only LP was The Astronauts In Japan, yet a third live album in under three years.  The ten songs on this April ’66 LP where recorded on one of their  three Asian tours and was released on a Japanese CD.  The only instrumentals are an opening medley of “Surf Party,” “Movin'” and “Pipeline” followed by “Hot-Doggin'” in its entirety.  The rest of the album consists of the Beatles’ “I’m Down” and a sampling of classic rock covers like “Money” and “This Little Girl Of Mine.”  The closing number, as on their second live album, is Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” with a wild Gallagher drum solo as the highlight.

The last of the movie appearance by the Astronauts was Out Of Sight with an all-star lineup featuring Freddie & the Dreamers, the Turtles and Gary Lewis & the Playboys.  The guys once again turn to the blues and cover “Baby, Please Don’t Go” for the Decca soundtrack LP.

1966 saw some shakeups in the Astronauts camp which portended an eventual end to the group.  Uncle Sam finally claimed another band member and Lindsey departed to be replaced by keyboardist and soul fan Mark Bretz.  Lindsey will eventually find his way to Viet Nam where he breaks his ankle jumping out of a helicopter on his first mission.

The other change was in the producer’s chair where Schmitt was replaced by the team of Snuff Garrett and Leon Russell who had been having success with Gary Lewis & the Playboys.  The first fruits of this collaboration rocketed to #1 in Denver during July and August of 1966 when the single “Main Street”/”In My Car” came out.  The latter is a decent ballad, but the brilliant top side is where the new production showed.  “Main Street” sounded just like a Gary Lewis record with a better singer (Fifield) and the lack of U.S. chart success is baffling even today.  Perhaps radio programmers simply had gotten used to ignoring Astronauts records or perhaps RCA Victor was too busy collecting Elvis royalties to promote the band properly, but no matter – the song again flopped nationally.  Undaunted, the team released the album Travelin’ Men which featured these two single sides plus the last single to bear the name Astronauts on the label in 1967’s “Better Things”/”I Know You Rider.”  The former again should have hit as it sounded precisely like every other Gary Lewis single which had scored.  The only problem was perhaps an overly long slow intro which should have been excised.  The B-side is a real treat with Demmon arranging a return to his and Patterson’s folk roots and coming up with a stunner.  Patterson’s vocal shows a toughness that resembles Barry McGuire with the New Christy Minstrels.  The rest of the album includes two of Lewis’ hits “She’s Just My Style” and “Count Me In” plus a nod to Bretz’s soul leanings in “Let’s Go Get Stoned” and “In The Midnight Hour.”  The Astronauts also made one last return to their surf instrumental roots for this LP in covering the Marketts hit “Out Of Limits.”

Another of the band became literally a travelin’ man soon after as Gallagher was also called up to military duty to be replaced by Rod Jenkins as drummer.  Demmon soon threw in the towel to take a teaching position in San Diego.  With this change, Patterson switched back to his old Stormtrouper position of rhythm guitarist and a friend of Fifield’s from his old band the Spartans came aboard on bass – Rob McLerran.  This version of the band managed one last Asian tour leaving only a few pictures of the guys backing Timi Yuro (at a party) in Patterson’s scrapbook as lasting mementoes.

With all these personnel changes, a name change was eventually decided on with this new group called SunshineWard after the psychiatric wing of a hospital.  An album’s worth of material was recorded under this name for RCA but the only songs ever released were the old Jaynettes song “Sally Go ‘Round The Roses” and a Stephen Stills song “Pay The Price.”  Production was handled by Rick Jarrard who also helmed Harry Nilsson’s early albums.

Both songs were excellent and again sank without a trace.

With no success in sight Bretz, Jenkins and Patterson finally gave up and left Fifield and McLerran to carry on.  Rather than throw in the towel they recruited Peter Wyant on guitar and Tony Murillo on drums while changing their name once again.  This new group cut the self-titled Hardwater album for Capitol which was released in the fall of 1968 to little notice (today available on import CD).  With production by David Axelrod, the LP sounds very much like a Buffalo Springfield record.  Seven of the ten songs were band originals including one side of their 45 “Not So Hard.”  The other three songs came via the songwriting team of Tim Gilbert and John Carter who had written for Gilbert’s group the Rainy Daze (a great Colorado band on Uni who hit with “That Acapulco Gold” in ’67).  Their biggest success together was “Incense And Peppermints” for the Strawberry Alarm Clock, though Carter has been a successful writer and producer to this day for the likes of Sammy Hagar and Tina Turner.  Fifield had for a short time been the manager of the Rainy Daze and this lead to the inclusion of “Sanctuary,””Good Ole Friends” and the other single side “City Sidewalks” on his LP.

While Capitol wanted another album from Hardwater, they were not willing to make a long-term commitment to the band.  Fifield wasn’t interested and had been unhappy with a lack of artistic control over the first record.  For this reason he took this opportunity to disband the group.  While he briefly managed Boulder rockers Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids, it was a calling to Eastern mysticism that caused Fifield to ‘drop out’ for the next decade.

Of all the former Astronauts, only Fifield continued to play the music scene, if sporadically, around the Boulder-Denver area.  The old band was reunited twice.  First at a Boulder concert organized by Pat Downey at the old Harvest House.

The last reunion was in 1989 up in Boulder for a couple of shows (one on the hill and the other at the Boulder Theater).  Needless to say the fans packed the clubs and went crazy, but there is no going back.

Lindsey died of heart failure in 1991.  Demmon taught on Coronado Island near San Diego later having major lyringial surgery and finally succumbing in 2010.  Gallagher returned to Boulder after the military getting in to restauranting for a time and then fronted a seasonal writing business.  After an all too brief return to Colorado, Patterson sold Dental supplies while based in Arizona.

In 2012 the Astronauts (plus KIMN radio, Sugarloaf and Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids) were inducted in to the Colorado Music Hall Of Fame at a gala concert at the Boulder Theater completing a journey of fifty plus years.

One is left to ponder what might have been.  Should the Astronauts have concentrated on the instrumentals and carved out a career as the Ventures did?  Would a company other than RCA have been able to change the group’s image and promote the Beatle influenced side of the band?  Without a visionary like Brian Wilson to drive the band and make decisions, were they doomed to always be chasing that elusive hit?

Changing the past is a futile impossibility, but with Collectables’  release of all eight U.S. LPs as four CDs plus Bear Family’s German releases and Victor’s Japanese CDs it is at least possible to enjoy their musical legacy anew five decades later.

***The author wishes to thank Rich Fifield, Jim Gallagher, Midori Johnson, George Karras and Jon Patterson for their invaluable contributions in the writing of this article (thanks to Pat Downey, Jon Patterson and Ted Scott for the graphics).

As an addendum to this post, Nov. 18, 2021 saw the passing of guitarist/singer Rich Fifield.  Two days later drummer Jim Gallagher passed at his Boulder, Colorado home.  On Tuesday May 24, 2022 the last of the original Astronauts Jon Storm Patterson passed away in Arizona.

U.S. Discography

Singles

as THE ASTRONAUTS

Come Along Baby/Tryin’ To Get To You                             Palladium       B610               1962

Baja/Kuk                                                                                 RCA Victor     47-8194    1963

Hot-Doggin’/Every One But Me   (plus picture sleeve)        RCA Victor     47-8224    1963

Competition Coupe/Surf Party                                              RCA Victor     47-8298    1964

Go Fight For Her/Swim Little Mermaid                               RCA Victor     47-8364    1964

Main Title From: Ride The Wild Surf/Around & Around    RCA Victor     47-8419    1964

I’m A Fool/Can’t You See I Do                                              RCA Victor     47-8463    1964

Almost Grown/My Sin Is My Pride                                       RCA Victor     47-8499    1965

Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day/Razzmatazz                 RCA Victor     47-8545    1965

The La La La Song/It Doesn’t Matter Anymore                    RCA Victor     47-8628    1965

Main Street/In My Car                                                           RCA Victor     47-8885    1966

Better Things/I Know You Rider                                           RCA Victor     47-9109    1967

as SUNSHINEWARD

Sally Go ‘Round The Roses/Pay The Price                            RCA Victor     47-9227             1967

as HARDWATER

Not So Hard/City Sidewalks                                                       Capitol                        2230                1968

Albums-Vinyl

as THE ASTRONAUTS

Surfin’ With The Astronauts                                                  RCA Victor     LSP-2760    1963

Everything Is A-OK!                                                              RCA Victor     LSP-2782    1964

Competition Coupe                                                                RCA Victor     LSP-2858    1964

Surf Party – Original Soundtrack                                           20th Century Fox   3131    1964

(contains:  “Surf Party” “Firewater”)

Astronauts Orbit Kampus                                                      RCA Victor     LSP-2904    1964

Go…Go…Go!                                                                          RCA Victor     LSP-3307    1965

Rockin’ With The Astronauts                                                 RCA Victor     PRM-183      1965

For You, From Us                                                                  RCA Victor     LSP-3359    1965

Wild On The Beach – Original Soundtrack                           RCA Victor     LSP-3441    1965

(supposedly contains:  “Pyramid Stomp” “Little Speedy Gonzales” “Rock The World”)

Down The Line                                                                       RCA Victor     LSP-3454    1965

Wild Wild Winter – Original Soundtrack                             Decca              DL-74699  1966

(contains:  “A Change Of Heart”)

Out Of Sight – Original Soundtrack                                       Decca              DL-74751  1966

(contains:  “Baby, Please Don’t Go”)

Travelin’ Men                                                                         RCA Victor     LSP 3733    1967

as HARDWATER

Hardwater                                                                               Capitol                        ST-2954    1968

 

Astronauts Compact Discs (selected)

Surf Party (a best of CD)                                                       RCA Victor     8557-2-R         1988

The Songs Of Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart                         Varese Sarabande VSD-5670    1995

(contains:  “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day”)

Cowabunga The Surf Box                                                      Rhino              R2 72418  1996

(contains:  “Baja”)  several other CDs contain this song

Surfin’ With/Everything Is A-OK!                                         Collectables    COL 2707    1997

Competition Coupe/Astronauts Orbit Kampus                     Collectables    COL 2708    1997

Go…Go…Go!!!/For You, From Us                                         Collectables    COL 2709    1997

Down The Line/Travelin’ Men                                               Collectables    COL 2710    1997

Hardwater (by Hardwater)                                                     Tune In               005                  2011