New York

"Wanna Be With You" was the top side. It starts off cooly as can be and builds, but the chorus comes as something of a letdown after the tension in the verses.

For me, it's "Feelings" that has the magic. The bass floods the opening and I'm immediately hooked. The patented garage rhythm and Farfisa organ kick in and the background chorus repeats what, as far as I can make out, is the phrase "sure enough!" over and over through the verse.

There's a great moment before the chorus as the bass (plugged directly into the board but still so well recorded and mastered) slides down the neck. You couldn't ask for a better scream at the end of the chorus. The guitar break is nicely by the book - four bars of bluesy soloing and four bars of just one note picked in sixteenths until the emphatic return to the rhythm.

My feelings inside are [of?] this day and age
And society.
Those people walking around down there they say
"Alright now, who are you?
You walk around looking like a girl wearing boots up high and pigtails".
What'd I say?

Who are you?
You tell me what I should do,
You got your feelings,
But mine are true - whaah!

My feelings inside are this day and age
And society
Those people walking around down there they say
"Alright now, who are you?"
They tell you how to dress, how to wear your hair,
Not giving you the chance to think for yourself.
What'd I say?

Who are you?
You tell me what I should do,
You got your feelings,
But mine are true - whaah!

The Showcase label was part of Pickwick International based out of Long Island City in Queens. This 45 was produced by Ronnie Eden and Joe Simmons, with publishing by Impeccable Music and Barmour Music. Joe Simmons had a long career dating back to the late '50s as both singer, song writer and producer, with many releases in one of those roles on Josie, Diamond and other labels. He had one other co-production with Ronnie Eden: The Ground Floor People "Walking on Eggs" / "It's All Right Now", (on Parfait 101, from 1966).

Ronnie Eden's name only comes up in Billboard in conjunction with Ted Black. Together they sold masters by John Gary to Cameo/Parkway and were sued for it by RCA (Billboard, November 13, 1965).

Exactly where Yesterday's Children came from and who was in the band was something of a mystery until recently. I'd read them listed as being from Valhalla in Westchester County, but the only basis for that was the fact that Don Krantz also was in a hard-rock group called Valhalla. In actual fact they came from Rockville Centre in Nassau County, Long Island.

I reached Don Howard Krantz who answered some of my questions about the band:

Q. Who else was in Yesterday's Children besides yourself?

Bob Huling - vocals
Don Howard Krantz - guitar
Rich D'Benideto
Dave Natis - keyboard
Joe Delio - bass
Fred Davenport - drums

Q. So was Yesterday's Children your band between the Vibratones and Valhalla? Did you have other bands before Valhalla?

I had many bands thru the years (I won't list them because we didn't last long). The Vibratones included Mike "Eppy" Epstein (my oldest friend) who went on to own Never When (store) and was the owner & manager of My Father's Place, famous club in Roslyn, Long Island. Eppy & I grew up together, his book is coming out in the fall. Yesterdays Children lineup was brand new.

Q. Did the band last long?

Probably three years...with various band members.

Q. How did you get the Pickwick contract?

Ronnie Eden heard me play at a club & approached me, we talk'd & he offered me a recording contract / management and I (being the only song writer) went with it. Remember I was only 17 yrs old at the time. Started playing guitar at 9 yrs. I will  never forget the drive into New York City in the back seat of Ronnie's car...but that's another story.

Q. Do you remember any specifics about the recording session?

After the 45 was released i told the bass player (best friend at the time) to leave the band. We were all changing musically & he couldn't. The sessions were tuff as I recall, get'n the bass right, & if you listen real close to "Wanna Be With You" the bass hits a wrong note.

The president ot Pickwick was in the sound booth with the whole family....wife & kids....& I thought that was killing the moment/feel. I think I ask'd to have the light turned down so have a live club feel.

i have three or four Yesterday's Children tunes that were rough demos done by me & Bobby Huling. I may add some other parts, mix down & upload on YouTube .... but that's way in the future.

Bob Huling & I (best friends) went on to start Euphoria with Mark Mangold later to become Valhalla. Mark went on to play with many bands & co-wrote with Michael Bolton for Cher. For a long time I was teaching guitar & producing some & doing the unplugged thing on acoustic guitar. The Don Howard Band - Poet's Road came next & was mixed & mastered by Jack Douglas who won a grammy for John Lennon's last album. The DHBand is now "Poets Road" and we work on a new album in 11/12

I've seen photos of the Vibratones from 1963 and Valhalla from 1967 on, but none featuring Yesterday's Children. If anyone has any please contact me at chas_kit@hotmail.com.

A partial discography shows the styles and production credits to be all over the map, with soul, folk, and even show tunes. As Mop Top Mike wrote in his comment below "The S400 series was the 1965 release numbering for Showcase. They switched it to 98xx in 1966; 99xx in 1967."

S-401 Gary Burghoff - As I Am / Rainbow
S-402 - Little Freddie & the Gents - Betty / Push, Kick & Shout (group from Ft. Lee, New Jersey)
S-403 - The Wouldsmen - What's The Use Of Crying / Summer's Over
S-404 - Shan Dels - Please Stay / Treat Me Like a Man

9800 - Mat Matthews - Milk and Honey / Shalom
9801
9802 - Sonny Stevenson - Night Stroll (parts 1 and 2)
9803
9804
9805 - Beverly Ann - Great Pretender / We Got Trouble
9806 - Adam & Eve - The game of war
9807 - Johnnie Shepherd - Coming Home / Mr Weather Man
9808
9809 - The Parris Mitchell Voices featuring Chips Murphie - We Need a Little Christmas / Mame
9810 - Henry the IX - Don't Take Me Back, Oh Nooo! / Don't Take Me Back (part 2)
9811 - Lost In Sound - You Can Destroy My Mind / Stubborn Kind Of Fellow (August 1966)
9812 - Yesterday's Children - Feelings / Wanna Be With You (September 1966)
9813
9814 - Don Goldie - Popcorn / Summertime

9901 - Maurice Bower - What's More American / America The Beautiful
9902 - Beechnuts - Nature’s Company / My Iconoclastic Life

The Beech-Nuts (not the Lou Reed group the Beachnuts - even though he did plenty of work for Pickwick) cut their Showcase 45 at Majestic Studios in Manhattan, a studio also used by the Lovin' Spoonful. I've read the Beechnuts record was bootlegged years ago.

There were at least two other Showcase labels, unrelated to the Pickwick one. Davie Gordon writes, "The 2500 series was from Nashville ... the label changed its name to Sound Stage 7 and became Monument's R&B subsidiary. There was another Showcase label using a 10xx series but it has no connection to the others. It's from the early sixties."

2500 - Barbara Grindstaff - Have Mercy (Mr. Lonely) / Where the Red Roses Grow
2501 - Delcos - Arabia / Those Three Little Words (Distributed by Monument Records, Nashville)

Sources include: Beech-Nuts info from Beyond the Beat Generation. Special thanks to Mop Top Mike and Davie Gordon for help making sense of the Showcase release numbering, and to Rich and Ad Z. for their help.

Raunch were from Ossining with the exception of Sandy Katz, their lead vocalist and songwriter, who was from Briarcliff Manor. Raunch's great cover of Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Hungry" leads off the fabulous Ren-Vell Records Presents Battle of the Bands Vol. 1 LP. I had left it off my original post on the LP because my copy has a skip in that song, but I'll include that flawed transfer here.

Even better is a 45 they cut for Bazaar Records, "A Little While Back" / "I Say You're Wrong". The A-side is a great song featuring heavy fuzz guitar and a blistering solo by Jay Manning. Jay kindly provided the photos here, including the first I've seen of Ren-Vell's studio, and the story behind the band:

The Synners was the first band I had, while still in high school. It was myself (lead guitar) and my two best friends David Perugini (rhythm guitar) and Alan Raycraft (drums), and later another high school friend, Curt Mienel(bass guitar). We played at our high school a couple of times and parties. I don't think we ever got paid, but in those days the motivation was impressing girls, not financial rewards.

I have a recording from 1965 of us playing at an Ossining High School Spanish Club banquet. Dave's dad got a hold of an old Wollensak reel to reel and, unbeknownst to me, recorded three songs.

We graduated in 1965 and in the fall David went to college, in New Paltz, New York, so the band evolved. Alan and Curt stayed, I think we called ourselves the Invaders. I don't really remember all the iterations of the bands. I do remember that Alan was still playing drums when we met Sandy Katz. I don't remember how we found him, but he and I clicked. He had a great voice and wrote decent songs. His dad was in business for himself so was very savvy about copyright and publishing rights, so all of Sandy's songs were copyrighted.

Alan finally quit, we replaced him with another Sandy, whose last name I don't remember. Curt left and eventually we added Frank Taxiera as bass player. He couldn't play and didn't have equipment, he was just cool and he fit. He became a really good bassist and now plays some great blues lead, in Colorado, with some renowned bluesmen.

That's when Raunch was born. Sandy's dad wanted us to be The Four Seasons (clean cut, stylish), I had very long hair for 1966 and was not interested in being clean cut.

Raunch played all over Westchester County. Ossining, of course, Tarrytown, Yonkers, White Plains, Armonk, Briarcliffe Manor (that's where Sandy lived). "The Cellar", the Ossining Recreation Department's teen hangout had live music almost every weekend. I can't remember all the places we played, but it was a lot. Just about every weekend and some weeknights all over the place. I don't remember playing any bars at that point, but we did banquets and lots of dances and teen clubs.

We were very egocentric. We considered ourselves the best band in the area and thought of all the others as pretenders to the throne, at least I did.

There were a lot of "battle of the bands", at high schools. recreation departments, clubs, all over the place. We won most of the ones we were in, so didn't really pay attention to second place.

The two I remember not winning was one for all of Westchester County, NY in the summer of 1966, at the base of Kensico Dam, in Valhalla, NY, we came in 4th. Not really a "battle of the band" but a tryout to open for the Beach Boys, at Iona College in New Rochelle. The best bands in Westchester, New York City and from Connecticut were there. We lost out to a band called The Young Savages, really great band and they lost out, in a second round of tryouts, to a band called Chain Reaction. The lead singer was Steven Tallarico (later Steven Tyler - Aerosmith). I remember them playing "I'm Not Talking", by the Yardbirds.

Marty Katz, Sandy's dad, really got into it. He knew his kid was good, but he had never been in a really good band before that could showcase his music. Marty Katz owned a corporation already, so he just created a record label, Bazaar Records, he paid for everything. The actual name of the band was Raunch Inc. and we really were part of a small corporation.

We recorded everything at Ren-Vell. We were, I believe, Joe Renda's first project. I really don't remember the other bands on the album, there were so many bands at that time and so many places to play.

Sandy Katz wrote "A Little While Back", and on the record, sang the harmonies. I sang the harmony when we played it live.

Sandy is playing the Vox [in the photos], he also had the 12-string model. I had a Phantom, the odd, irregular hexagon shaped guitar, but it was a real pig. Thick neck, weak pickups, tinny sounding. Unfortunately that's what I played at the battle of the bands, because it was "cooler" than my Hagstom, which was a much better guitar.

I was a terrific guitarist, for the time, if I do say so myself. That was really all I lived for, that and girls of course. I learned everything by ear and watching better players, never had any lessons, still haven't and I still play quite a bit. Now it's classical and fingerstyle jazz.

Jay Manning

Raunch - A Little While Back
Raunch - I Say You're Wrong
Raunch - Hungry

Thanks to Jay for his help with this article. Scan of the Raunch 45 from David Perugini. Thanks to Patrick Lundborg for his help.

Anyone have a scan of the picture sleeve for the Bazaar 45?!

Moondog in front of the Underwriters Trust Company,
1340 - Sixth Ave?

Jimmy Nottingham on trumpet in Harlem, late 1960's

Unidentified group in front of Chock Full o' Nuts - 125th St?

Unidentified guitarist

Unidentified guitarist in Central Park

Unidentified musician in (I believe) Washington Square Park

Many thanks to all who have helped with IDs.

Dan Morgenstern reported on the funeral for Down Beat's September 22, 1966 issue:

In the lead was Harlem's own Jazzmobile, appropriately draped for the occasion, and carrying a jazz band ... the members were Benny Green, trombone; John Gilmore, tenor saxophone; Barry Harris, piano; Don Moore, bass; Billy Higgins, drums, and at the last moment, Lee Morgan, trumpet. First came "Now's the Time" and then, perhaps more appropriately, "'Round Midnight", followed by two Powell tunes, "Bud's Bubble" and "Dance of the Infidels".

The music stopped when the cortege reached the church. The pallbearers, including musicians Max Roach, Tony Scott, Eddie Bonnemere, Kenny Dorham, Willie Jones, Hayes Alvis and Claude Hopkins, brought Powell's coffin into the church where, many years before, he had been an altar boy.

If anyone can help identify anyone in the photos below, I'd appreciate it.

Bud Powell's funeral procession, August 8, 1966,
Which avenue is this?

Sam Price in tie walking next to cop car
- which street are they walking down? What theater in the background?

Which intersection is this?

Pallbearers: on right, back to front, Kenny Dorham, Willie Jones, unknown; on left, unknown, Tony Scott, unknown.

On the Jazzmobile: Benny Green trombone, Barry Harris on piano and Don Moore on bass. John Gilmore (face not seen) is on tenor.

From left: John Gilmore (with back to camera), unknown, Don Moore on bass, Billy Higgins on drums, unknown on right.

Detail from the above photo.

Bud Powell's funeral procession, August 1966
- Church of St. Charles Borromeo on W. 141 St. in Harlem

Much thanks to all who have helped with IDs.

Besides the ones below there are many others, especially of street scenes, and more at the Apollo - Ben E. King, Miriam Makeba, Cal Tjader, Dionne Warwick, Roberta Flack and others, and also of Machito at Town Hall.

I've had help in identifying most of the musicians in these photos, but there are still a couple I don't have IDs for and I'd appreciate any help you can give. Please do not reproduce any of these without permission.

B.B. King at the Apollo, March 1963

The Shirelles at the Apollo, March 1963

The Shirelles at the Apollo, March 1963

The Cookies, with Earl Jean, the Apollo, March 1963.

Unknown singer or emcee at the Apollo, March 1963

Bobby Byrd and Anna King with James Brown's group at the Apollo, early-mid 1960s.

Leo Wright and Dizzy Gillespie at the Apollo, during the week of April 27- May 3, 1962.

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Larry Ridley, bass (probably subbing for Jymie Merritt),
Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and Blakey on drums, same show as above

The Jazz Messengers with Larry Ridley on bass and Curtis Fuller, trombone, same show as above.

MC or speaker at the show with Gillespie and the Messengers

I was able to date the photos of the show with Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey to 1961 or 1962 by the overlap between Freddie Hubbard joining the Jazz Messengers in 1961 and Leo Wright's tenure with Gillespie ending in 1962. There are also photos of Cal Tjader from this show.

According to the Chronology of Art Blakey, the Messengers with Hubbard played at the Apollo for some dates in beginning September 14, 1961, as well as a benefit show on September 13, 1962.

Chris Sheridan informs me that Leo Wright only played with Gillespie at the Apollo during the week of April 27 - May 3, 1962. An ad in the Amsterdam News includes both Gillespie and the Messengers on the bill for this week of shows.

Freda Payne at the Apollo, date unknown

Unidentified singer/guitarist at the Apollo, sometime in 1971

Unidentified duo at the Apollo, sometime in 1971

Many thanks to all who have helped with IDs.

The chanted vocals and echoing chords give "Time to Say Goodbye" a downcast mood, brightening momentarily during the chorus where the singer gives the boot to the girl holding out on him.

On the flip is the uptempo "I'm Tired", with more fine harmonies and a good guitar solo.

These songs were originally released on the Cousins label, produced by Mike Barbiero. It was picked up for a December '65 release on Mercury, but doesn't seem to have made much chart impact.

The Elegant Four - Time to Say Goodbye
The Elegant Four - I'm Tired

Sources: photo from Pete Santora's site. Thanks to Tom for clarifying the photo IDs.

A couple other photos are available on Tom Walsh's site Bronx Bands of the Past (warning: Angelfire sites like this one always have pop-up ads).