Starting in February, 1966, KHJ radio (930 AM) in Los Angeles hosted a battle-of-the-bands called the Big Boss Battle, sponsored by Pepsi. According to their program, over 100 bands competed, with semi-finals at the club It’s Boss, and the finals at the Hollywood Palladium on May 10. After I saw the front cover to the program on Ray Randolph’s excellent blog 93/KHJ Boss Radio: a Look Back, Ray sent me the inside of the program at my request.
Judges included Charlie Green and Brian Stone of York-Pala just before they began managing the Buffalo Springfield, Len Waronker and Russ Regan from Warner-Reprise, Fred Rice and Jack Schnyder from Capitol, along with Danny Hutton and Dick and Dee Dee. The DJs included Gary Mack, Johnny Mitchell, the Real Don Steele and Johnny Williams.
Prizes were substantial and included cash, plus Fender guitars and amplifiers and St. George drums. Sonny & Cher, Bob Lind or the Blossoms did the trophy presentations. Unfortunately, recording time was not included, so I’m not sure how many of these groups cut records.
Are any of these bands familiar?
The competing bands were:
Randy Pitzer – St. Monica’s High
The Young Men – Lathrop Junior High
Ron and and the Jumping Beans – Loyola High
Bobby and the SenSaShuns – El Monte High
Los Reyes del Ritmo – Bishop Montgomery High
The What – Stevenson Junior High
Sheilagh and the Trio – Mater Dei High
The Spydres – Eagle Rock High
The Donnybrooks – Bakersfield High
The Teen Turbans – Los Angeles High
plus the Generations, who won the San Diego Pepsi Boss Battle.
Check out this page on Ray’s site to see the front cover of the program and a ticket to the show. Does anyone have flyers or posters for the semi-finals at It’s Boss, or photos from any of the shows?
Update January 2015: check out photos of the Teen Turbans performing at the contest.
Since Limey & the Yanks were the featured act, I’ll include below two photos of the group from a 1966 yearbook sent to me by Barry Kazmer.
I was lead guitar for The Spydres ( Eagle Rock High ). Any photos or posters available from this event ?
They had a contest, Battle of the bands on Boss city back in the 60′ I played in one of those bands, called Bill and the Bishops. Does anyone remember those days?
In February, 1966 I was not yet in the army, so I was playing drums with the Spydres for this event. However, I have no memory of the gig or the result so I guess we didn’t win. There is a Facebook page: “Spydres & Belladonna Nightmare Blues Band with authentic garage band recordings from the Spydres and from the Belladonna demo disc. Check it out and take a trip down memory lane if it doesn’t say “Road Closed” like mine.
How about The Second Time? Third place finish at the Palladium.
My father was lead singer for The What. He was about 14, I think. They recorded one side of a album because that was all they could afford, is the story I remember. We have a copy that was transferred to a tape cassette. Today I was cleaning and found a Finalist Ribbon from the Big Boss Battle at the Palladium!