Monthly Archives: October 2007

Categories: Alabama, Birmingham, Cougar, Ed Boutwell Studios, Vaughn Ltd

The Bassmen and the Candy Store Prophets

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The Church Keys (Bassmen) playing live in Birmingham circa 1965

The Bassmen have the very first 45 released on the Vaughn-Ltd label, the excellent original song “I Need You”.

The Bassmen originally formed as the Church Keys in 1962 while in the ninth grade in Birmingham. Original members were Rob Hackney guitar, Chuck Butterworth keyboards, Mike Easter on bass and Tom Allison on drums. Over the next year they added Charlie Feldman as lead singer and Vaughn Rives on rhythm guitar, and Steve Gilmer replaced Butterworth on keyboards.

By 1965 they had changed their name to the Bassmen, and they went into Ed Boutwell’s studio in English Village to record their 45, “I Need You” / “Leigh Anne”, the first release on the Vaughn-Ltd label. Both songs are credited to B. Van Santte, perhaps a fictitious name as it doesn’t match any of the band members.

The single garnered the Bassmen appearances at shows produced by local DJs Papa Don Schroeder and Duke Rumore, and the band toured colleges in the area as well.

At the start of college in 1966, singer Charlie Feldman, bassist Mike Easter and drummer Tom Allison found new members Jamie Grant and Tommy Johnson. They renamed the band the Candystore Prophets and released one very fine Beatles-esque 45 on Andy Anderson’s Cougar label of Jackson, Mississippi, “The Time of Day” b/w “You’re a Teaser” (both written by Jamie Grant).

Note, this is not the same Candy Store Prophets led by Boyce and Hart who wrote and recorded the backing tracks for all the early songs of the Monkees.

Source: Info for this story and the photo at top are taken from the Bassmen’s site. Check it to see more photos and updates on the band.

Categories: Laurie, New Jersey, Providence, Wildwood

The Statesiders

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There’s an interesting story behind this record by the Statesiders. The band, better known as first the Redcoats and then the Sidekicks, almost hit the big time until managerial difficulties crashed their plans.

John Spirt was the creative force behind the group. He had been in the Randells, charting with “The Martian Hop” in 1963, a record produced by John’s cousin Steven Rappaport. John Spirt decided to form a band in imitation of the Beatles, based around his songwriting. With Steven as manager and producer, John on drums and his friend Mike Burke on lead guitar, they spotted Zach and Randy Bocelle of Absecon, NJ at an audition, and brought them in to fill the ‘roles’ of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, respectively, on rhythm guitar, bass and lead vocals.

After intensive rehearsals in John Spirt’s family home in Wildwood, NJ, the Redcoats signed with Laurie for a 45 in the style of Herman’s Hermits, “The Dum Dum Song” / “Love Unreturned”, which did fairly well on a local level. It was released in October, 1965.

Prior to “The Dum Dum Song”, the Laurie subsidiary, Providence released a single by the Statesiders “She Belonged to Another” / “Patterned the Same” in the first half of 1965. The Statesiders name is an oblique reference to their being the US counterpart of the Beatles / Redcoats. The single was produced by Steve Rappaport and both songs were written by Carnaby & Shakespeare: pseudonyms for John Spirt and Michael Burke according to the BMI database. The songs have enough originality to overcome the Beatles influence, and are more than competently performed by the group.

Zach Bocelle doesn’t mention the Statesiders or either song title in his long history of the group. It’s possible the songs were recorded prior to Zach and Randy joining the band. The songs are also not included on the collection of the Redcoats’ recordings for Laurie Meet The Redcoats…Finally released by Dionysus in 2001. But I think it likely that most of the band played on this record, making it a forgotten part of pre-Redcoats history.

Things were looking up for the band when Steve Rappaport left for Europe during the summer of ’66. Looking to record more original songs on their own terms, they found a manager and investor in a wealthy woman from Philadelphia who financed their next demos.

An original of John’s, “Suspicions” caught the ear of RCA, who renamed the band the Sidekicks and re-recorded the song with a full orchestra. Released in the spring of 1966, “Suspicions” was a fair-sized national hit, and the band soon followed up with an LP of mostly very pop-oriented material.

Within a year, though, their new manager’s shameless exploitation alienated both the group and RCA, and the bitterness of the experience led John Spirt to quit the business altogether.

Thanks to Euphonic for his comment below with the approximate release date and Laurie ownership of Providence – I’ve revised this post to reflect that new info. Thanks also to Mike Markesich for the release date of the Laurie 45.

Categories: Indonesia

Lilis Surjani

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Lilis Surjani (aka Suryani) was very popular in Indonesia and neighbouring countries from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. President Soekarno of Indonesia made life difficult for musicians and singers in the early to mid 1960s because he wanted to rid Indonesia of Western influences and wanted rock ’n’ roll to be outlawed. Lilis found herself in trouble in mid 1965 because of her stage attire, presentation and choice of songs.

In a newspaper article in August 1965 Lilis promised that she would no longer sing ‘Beatles-like’ songs and apologised for her previous ‘mistakes’. Lilis made her amends and produced a number of songs with an Indonesian nationalist theme that were more likely to be approved by the ruling regime. One of those songs is Pergi Perjuang (Depart Warrior), where Lilis is backed by guitarist Zaenal Arifin and his Zaenal Combo. This song is as about as close as you can get to rock ’n’ roll and not call it that. The song’s theme though is one that would have appealed to Soekarno with Lilis singing that she hopes the young warriors going to battle perform their duties as ‘defenders of the nation’ and return victorious.

This song reflects the fact that Indonesia and Malaysia were involved in an undeclared war from 1963 to 1966 as Soekarno viewed the newly created state of Malaysia as a British colonial plot and vowed to ‘crush’ it. Soekarno was particularly peeved that the former British colonies in northern Borneo had become part of Malaysia as the rest of the island was Indonesian territory. Indonesian troops carried out covert operations in north Borneo throughout the period, but were repulsed by Malaysian, British and Australian forces. Although Soekarno was sidelined politically in late 1965 the Crush Malaysia policy took a bit longer to wind back, but friendly relations between Indonesia and Malaysia had been fully restored by the late 1960s. What may seem surprising is that Pergi Perjuang was also released in Malaysia and seems to have been quite popular. It is the Malaysian release I feature here.

I also include Lilis’s post-Soekarno era song Perahu Bertolak (Ship Departs), probably from late 1966 or 1967, which has some good guitar work. This Malaysian release has no liner notes, but I have read that Lilis’s backing band here was Band Arulan led by Jarzuk Arifin.

Lilis Surjani went on to record numerous other songs in rock, pop and regional styles. She still performs regularly although she has been battling cancer for the last few years.

Categories: Malaysia

S. Mona Rita & the Kingstons

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Lilis Surjani’s Pergi Perjuang is only one of many songs from Indonesia that relate to the conflict with Malaysia. There must have been songs made in Malaysia with the same theme, but I haven’t come across many.

One that I do have, however, is a good one. The song Bekalan Satria (Warrior Skills) by S. Mona Rita and the Kingstons from late 1965 or 1966 has the singer worrying that her soldier boyfriend (or husband) returns safely from the battlefield, but that he does his duty as ‘defender of the nation’. The nationalist theme is continued cryptically in the song Buat Tatapan (Observation) as the singer complains about a cheating lover and laments that she had ever forgotten her responsibilities to the homeland. What does it mean? I don’t know.

The Kingstons were Ungku Safian – Lead Guitar, Mokhtar – Rhythm Guitar, Rahman – Bass, Ungku Fadzil – Organ, and Kamar Dean – Drums.S. Mona Rita is a good singer and the vocal is mixed very high in the mix. The Kingstons are more than competent and add many flourishes to the sound. Buat Tatapan has an unusual drum and organ interlude towards the end that at first hearing doesn’t seem to belong there, but presumably it is meant to reflect S. Mona Rita’s thoughts that ‘love is false’. The other two songs on the EP are good too, but are slower and much more subdued.