the schools ‘vocal director’ Donna Buel … Linda Tyra, Nancy Schunk, Janet Miller, Norma Sumner, Shirley Mangold, all 8th graders, Diane Rodenburg, Diane Schwander, Jill Lampe, Mary Schleue, Diane Spencer, all 7th graders, and Jane Labanz, a first grader … An eleventh member was added … in time for the studio ‘take’ … Melody Stinson now a ninth-grader at Oak Hills High School.
The Percussions backed the Sprites for their recording of “Little Latin Lupe Lu” / “On a Slow Boat to China”. The tape was sent to Wakefield Manufacturing in Phoenix, Arizona to be pressed, and the Wakefield code 7234 dates it to 1965.
Even more obscure is their second record, which probably features a different group of children, as the Wakefield number 14360 dates it to 1969 or 1970. “Consider Yourself” (from Oliver!) is about what you’d expect, and features backing by the Percussions (definitely not a rock group). The flip is the gentle and affecting “Jim’s Ballad” featuring guitar by Jim Wenstrup.
This must be the same Jim Wenstrup who played lead guitar with the Electros, a group from nearby Elder High School and Oak Hills High School. The Electros included Frank Luckey on rhythm guitar, Gene Yuellig on drums, Rick Clark on bass and Ed Holloway on vocals. The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a photo of the group on April 8, 1967, and mentioned that the Electros planned to cut a record “Chase Around the World” – but if they did I haven’t seen it.
I would like to know more about how the Sprites came to record what seems to be an original song by Jim Wenstrup.
The Ill Bred Mind were high school students from Sayreville, New Jersey, making their only single in 1969. There are no credits on the label, but I believe “How Can You Be Happy Today?” is an original song. The flip is a fine version of “Walk on By”.
My copy is autographed by another member, possibly Gary Jensen. Another copy (see below) has other names & spellings: including Greg Evigan (who became a well-known actor), Garry Jenssen, George B (?), Jimmy Smokey (?). I would appreciate help with deciphering the names. Youtube comments lead me to the name of another possible member: Bruce Elacqua.
The Ill Bred Mind recorded at Photo Sonics Laboratories at 236 Walnut St. in nearby South Amboy, releasing it on P.S.L. 20171.
Marty Ruszala owned or operated PhotoSonics Laboratories, also known as Triple A studio, where he engineered the Jerry Rivera “Lovin’ Man” single on Kim, and Brian O’Connor “How Was I To Know” / “Missing You” on Sayne Records 20168.
I can find two notices for live shows from the Home News, on August 1, 1969 at the Emma L. Arleth School, and at the Sayreville VFW Post 4699 on August 20.
The Panics started in 1963, formed at Huguenot High School in Richmond, Virginia.
The lineup was
Jimmy Sherwood – lead vocals and rhythm guitar Bill LaRue – lead guitar and vocals Bill Lyell – bass John Herbig – drums
Dwyane Givens was their equipment manager.
Their only single contains two original songs by Bill Lyell and Bill Larue, the mid-tempo “I Pretend” shows some Beatles influence, and the fast-paced “No More” opens with a Lennonesque “Oh!”
It was released on Shoestring Records SHO 107 in 1965, a styrene record from the Columbia Records plant at Terre Haute, Indiana.
Clyde Atkinson of the Wild Ones and Mickey Russell of the Fugitives also went to Huguenot High. The Fugitives had a single on Shoestring.
After the Panics, Bill LaRue would form a three-piece blues band, Blue Alfred. He would have one more record that I know of as Snelson & LaRue “I’m Tired of Getting Put Down” / “Making Your Mind Up it’s Over” with David Snelson and Cynthia LaRue, recorded at Audio Communications in Richmond.
Anyone have a good photo of the group?
A couple of very small photos of the group are in the booklet to Aliens Psychos & Wild Things vol. 2.
The Creations came from Milford, Connecticut, releasing two singles “Crash” / “Chickie Darlin” in July 1964, and “Don’t Be Mean” / “Forty One Willis” in April 1965. Members were:
Chuck Delaney – lead guitar and vocals Howie Plant – rhythm guitar and vocals Danny Gomes – bass and vocals Skip Borden – drums, replaced in late 1964 by Jim Burnham – drums
Danny’s surname is spelled Gomes on the records, but Gomez in some news articles and on copyright registrations.
The first notice I can find for the group comes from the Bridgeport Post on July 28, 1964:
Four local boys, members of a combo billed as “The Creations” in its first recording for Top Hat records, will make a personal appearance at Fladd’s music center in Milford on Friday from 7 to 8 p.m.
The members of the combo are Howie Plant, Skip Borden, Dan Gomez and Chuck Delaney.
The group has appeared locally to play for numerous dances and are currently appearing at the Black Cat in Shelton on Wednesday evenings.
“Crash” is a frantic surf instrumental written by Chuck Delaney without a trace of British Invasion influence. Danny Gomes wrote the ballad flip, “Chickie Darlin”.
The band released it through New York label Top Hat Records, TH 1003. Top Hat had Rite Record Productions of Cincinnati press the records, pressing # 12699/12700.
Publishers Palais Royale Music and Marks Tey Music both seem connected to Top Hat Records, as earlier releases on Top Hat included those publishers.
A notice for a show at the Connecticut Post center for the United Fund from October 21, 1964 also includes Skip Borden in the lineup. By December 5, 1964, Jim Burnham had replaced Skip, as the Bridgeport Post ran a photo of the group with new drummer Jim Burnham after a benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy fund.
For their second record, Danny Gomes and Howie Plant co-wrote the pounding pounding Beatles-inspired “Don’t Be Mean”, while Delaney and Gomes collaborated on “Forty One Willis”, which refers to a ’41 Willys, a coupe popular with hot rodders (tip of the hat to Mike Markesich – I thought Forty One Willis was a street address!)
Released as Top Hat Records 1004, this was again a Rite pressing, using account number 1151 and Rite pressing code 13891/13892.
Like the first single, this came with a picture sleeve, very rare now. The photo on the front can be seen in the video below.
The Bridgeport Post ran a feature on the group on April 11, 1965, written by Barbara Verespey:
Members of the four-man group include Chuck Delaney, 20, who plays lead guitar and organized the original Creations and the present band, Danny Gomes, 18, bass guitarist and his father, Joseph Gomes, the group’s manager. Both boys are graduates of Milford high. Also, Howie Plant, rhythm guitarist, and Jim Burnham, drummer, are seniors at MHS, and aged 17 and 18 respectively. Jim joined the group in October when Skip Borden of Jonathan Law [High School] moved to Indiana, and feels it was his “biggest break.”
All of them sing except for Jim who “occasionally yells.”
Richard Coderre, their personal agent … “the most colorful agent in show business,” said “we’re shooting for the moon” …
Yesterday, The Creations made a return appearance on the Brad Davis show, Hartford. Their first telecast on the show was Feb. 13. Next stop, if plans work out, is a two-week engagement in Bermuda.
“41 Willys” [sic] and “Don’t Be Mean,” which Chuck and Danny collaborated on, were released March 12. The following week, the group cut “And She Lied,” “Wait For Me.” and “Someone New.” Danny and Howie wrote all three.
The four boys, whose hair is styled in the “fad,” released “Crash” and “Chickie Darlin'” last July. The former was written by Chuck, and the latter by Danny, who, incidentally, hasn’t seen a barber in six months.
Since last January, the group has appeared at Milford high dances and records hops at Enfield, Holyoke, Mass., and New Britain. They have played at the University of Bridgeport, University of Connecticut, Yale, Holy Cross, Bay Path and Central Connecticut colleges. The group has also … appeared at the Actors Colony in Derby, the Ambassador in Hamden, the Statler Hilton hotel, Hartford, the Roadside Inn, Fairfield, and the Etcetera Lounge and Golden Slipper in Long Island.
The Creations have just completed a booking at the Villa Rosa in Milford …
Chuck likes … sleeping, and dislikes snobby girls and liver. Danny also is against snobs, and his favorite interest is dating. Howie has no pet peeves and has expressed an interest in medical science. Jim enjoys playing billiards and dislikes liquor.
Head of the group’s fan club at MHS is Mary Gannett, but the Creations have a bigger following at Jonathan Law. Their officers are Barbara Emmons, president; Donna Skinner, vice president; and Gale Anderson, official correspondent.
Three days later the Post ran a notice that the Creations would appear on The Brad Davis Show on Saturday, April 17, 1965, with Gene Pitney. I have seen a photo of the group with Brad Davis, but only have a poor-quality xerox of it.
That’s the last notice I can find for the Creations.
On April 16, 1965, Danny and Howie registered “Don’t Be Mean” and “Wait For Me” with the Library of Congress’s Copyright Office, and Chuck Delaney belatedly registered “Crash”.
On May 27, 1965, Daniel Gomez and Howard Plant registered two of the songs mentioned in the Bridgeport Post feature, “And You Lied” and “Wait for Me”. I have to think the Creations recorded these songs, but if so, no trace of them has turned up so far. Perhaps “Someone New” also exists on a demo acetate.
Paul E. Bezanker’s Connecticut Rocks! has some more info on the band that I need confirmation on: Howie Plant replaced by Howie West of the Realms (“Baby Let’s Wait” / “All I Want” on Melody ME 105). Bobby Sheehan replaced Howie West. Delaney replaced by Frank Woodman, also of the Realms. Fred O’Brien of the Long Island Sounds comes in on bass, and Danny Gomes becomes lead vocalist.
The group changed into the New Creations with Danny Gomes, Fred O’Brien, Bobby Sheehan and Rick Simpson, which became Bone in late 1967. After more lineup changes, Bone had one single “It’s an Easy Thing” / “Everybody’s Gone Into April” on Poison Ring 712 in 1969.
The Ascots hailed from the northern Detroit suburb of Pontiac and lasted from 1964 to 1967. The members were between 14 to 16 years old at the time of recording their only single. Frat Records/Watkins Music is the band’s own label-publishing arm. The 45-rpm/7” has no catalog number; the numbers noted on the label are the matrix codes noted in the run-outs and pressed at Columbia’s Detroit plant. Columbia pressed records for smaller labels, such as fellow Detroit imprint, Hideout. The single was recorded in August 1965, but released in April of 1966. Both sides of the single received airplay on Detroit’s WXYZ-FM and Ontario’s CKLW-AM. The band was managed by Jim Baranowsky, who also managed fellow Detroit teen-rockers, the Kwintels.
Chris Chappell — vocals John Neff — lead guitar Dale Kath — rhythm guitars Bob Pelmear — bass Frank Giglio —drums Jim Steil — bass (replaced Pelmear; doesn’t appear on the single)
John Neff and Bob Pelmear from the Ascots would later regroup, along with the brothers Joe and Paul Felice, to form the Tribe. Signed to Punch Andrews’s Hideout Productions (who oversaw Bob Seger’s career, as well as the early Detroit bands of the Eagles’ Glenn Frey), the Tribe issued Neff’s second-composed single, “Maple Street Park,” recorded at Ralph Terrana and Al Sherman’s Tera Shirma Studios. The Tribe soon changed their name to Pavement, prior to their 1968 break up.
Dale Kath formed the harder-edged Electric Blues Band while John Neff formed the Toad and the Mushroom; the latter recorded but never released an album with Elektra Records; acetates of those sessions aired on local Detroit radio. While EBB opened shows for the MC5 and Bob Seger, T & M opened the Detroit stops of Fleetwood Mac and the Spencer Davis Group.
John Neff’s later career featured award-winning partnerships with Walter Becker of Steely Dan and filmmaker David Lynch, as well as producing the Arnel Pineda-era catalog of Journey. In addition to appearing on 200-plus R&B and soul singles cut at Detroit’s United Sound in the early ’70s, he toured as a guitarist for country cross-over artist Hoyt Axton, proto-metalers Steppenwolf, and ’70s one-hit-wonder country rockers, Redeye.
Dale Kath worked steadily on the Detroit scene into the early ’70s with the house bands Danny and the Zeltones and White Heat. White Heat’s Johnny Heaton was formerly with the West End. You can learn more about Danny and the Zeltones as part of our exploration of the career of the Coronados.
There are no images or online audio available for the releases by the Tribe and the Toad and the Mushroom. The Pontiac Ascots are not be confused with the 29 other Ascots that released local and national singles in U.S. during the mid-to-late 1960s.
Sadly, we lost John Neff in December 2022. You can learn more about his successful, post-Detroit career with an extensive, January 2023 obituary by Clive Young at Mixonline.com. You can also learn more about his BlueBOB project with David Lynch at Wikipedia, and his film career in composition and sound at the IMDb.
The Sincerely Yours was a short-lived studio band hailing from Detroit comprised of Rick Stahl and Erik Dahlgren. The duo never played out live, as the project was intended to establish each as songwriters. As typical of the time—and with all of the artists on the Impact label—studio musicians and arrangers cut the tracks, with the writer-singers themselves regulated to only performing the vocals. By the time of the single’s release, Rick Stahl co-founded his next band, a harder-edged concern known as Wilson Mower Pursuit.
According to singer-guitarist Rick Stahl, the writer of the A-Side/”Plug Side,” the single reached #18 on the Detroit radio charts. The B-Side, “Little Girl,” features the lead vocals of Erik Dahlgren, with Rick Stahl on background vocals.
Issued in January 1967, the single was recorded on October 18, 1966, at Tera Shirma Studios founded by Ralph Terrana and Al Sherman; their chief engineer was Milan Bogdan. The studio is best known for its work with Issac Hayes. The label of issue, Impact Records, was founded by Harry Balk, known for his work with Edwin Starr, as well as co-producing the million-selling single “Runaway” by Del Shannon. (Web repositories place the release of Impact #1020 at either December 1966 and April 1967; we defer to Rick Stahl’s date-of-issue of January 1967. You’ll note the single was issued in both white and red labels; the white-labels were the promotional copies; consumer copies were issued in red.)
John Rhys, who produced both sides, went on to work as an engineer at the world famous Hollywood Sound Studios, which hosted the likes of Earth, Wind and Fire, Jackson Browne, and many others. His own band, John Rhys and the Lively Set, also record a single at Tera Shirma issued by Impact. The singles by Sincerely Yours and the Lively Set appear on The Best of Impact Records compilation issued on compact disc in 1997.
The Sincerely Yours featured:
Vocals — Rick Stahl Vocals — Erik Dahlgren Whistling — John Rhys (on “Shady Lane”) Bob Babbitt — bass Uriel Jones — drums Joe Hunter — piano Ron Koss — lead guitar Dennis Coffey — guitars
Babbitt, Jones and Hunter were known for their work with Motown’s the Funk Brothers. Ron Koss—known for his Motown session work—recorded two albums for Reprise with Savage Grace. He was a one-time member of Detroit’s the Lazy Eggs.
Dennis Coffey culminated his Funk Brothers-era session work on numerous Motown-cut R&B and soul recordings with the instrumental “Scorpio” by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band. Featuring ex-Funk Brother Bob Babbitt on bass, the Gold-selling single landed in the U.S. Top 10 in 1971.
Rick Stahl’s next band, Wilson Mower Pursuit, is remembered in Detroit for its many live appearances at the Grande Ballroom, as well as for their opening shows for the MC5, the Stooges, and Ted Nugent’s Amboy Dukes. After failed offers from Capitol and Kit Lambert’s Track Records, Wilson Mower Pursuit independently recorded their lone album, Last Night Out: Live at the Silverbell. The band’s final live show in the fall of 1968; it was captured-on-tape by Bill Julius, one of the band’s roadies (the album has since been reissued on compact disc). WMP’s Shawn Murphy joined the cast of Hair alongside Meatloaf, formerly with Detroit’s Popcorn Blizzard. Together, they formed the duo Stoney and Mealoaf in 1971.
Concentrating on a songwriting career and retiring from live performances, Rick Stahl returned to Detroit stages in 1981 with Pendragon. After releasing two, private-press 45s in 1983, Pendragon disbanded. A live version of one of their songs, “Queen of Air,” appears on the radio promotional album Live at Hart Plaza issued by WRIF radio. Rick Stahl then retired to Colorado Springs, where he produced music and designed album art for local indie artists.
You can enjoy more of the music of Rick Stahl with this You Tube playlist.
In the summer of 1974, Carl Douglas’s disco anthem “Kung Fu Fighting” was shipped just as the chopsocky film craze was taking hold. Initially, the single struggled for airplay, but later that year it stormed to the top of the UK and US charts, eventually selling over 11 million copies worldwide.
In 2014, to mark the 40th anniversary of his global chart topper, Carl Douglas was preparing a new CD for release, his first collection of new material since 2008’s Return of the Fighter.
Although the long-awaited release never appeared, fans were treated to a superb compilation from revered collectors’ label Acid Jazz, issued on 30 June 2014. Pulling together much of Carl Douglas’s recorded work during the mid-late 1960s, including a cache of previously unreleased tracks, the collection finally casts a light on the singer’s little known, formative years.
To trace Carl Douglas’s rise to international superstardom, we need to go back to an afternoon in mid-1965 when the young Jamaican ventured from his home on Copleston Road, East Dulwich to his local football club’s party, and stumbled across the musicians that would come to form his first backing group – The Charmers.
Formed in West Dulwich around late 1963 by multi-instrumentalist Tony Charman (the only musician to appear in most of the many iterations of Douglas’s Sixties bands), Sounds 5 originally comprised Charman on lead guitar; Johnny Johnson on rhythm guitar; Roger Simms on bass; Nick Baxter on drums; and Tony Fuller on lead vocals.
A regular fixture at local schools and youth clubs in south London, Sounds 5 decide to adopt a new name after the band’s manager Bob Charman (Tony’s father) invited Carl Douglas to join the musicians on stage.
“Carl came up and sang with us,” remembers Tony Charman. “Our singer at the time was my brother-in-law and he was leaving, so my dad said to Carl, ‘If you want to join a group, here’s the phone number’.”
Born and raised in Jamaica, Carl Douglas had spent part of his youth in southern California staying with relatives before joining his mother and stepfather in south London where he pursued a scholarship in engineering at Southeast London Technical College from 1959-1962.
While the plan was to qualify as an engineer and return home to take over his father’s family business, Douglas had secret ambitions to become the first black professional football player at Tottenham Hotspur and was a keen and proficient player. But as fate would have it, the afternoon he attended his football club’s party at Flodden Road in Camberwell, south London changed his destiny forever.
Encouraged by his football mates to go up and sing with The Charmers, Douglas impressed the young musicians with his raucous renditions of “Long Tall Sally” and “Tutti Frutti”.
“Bob had given me his number but I didn’t call because I wasn’t quite certain how to tell my mum,” admits Douglas. “One day while I was out at football training, he called and talked to my mum and asked if I’d decided yet.”
Despite his mother’s protestations over his decision to put his engineering career on hold, Douglas called Bob Charman back and agreed to try out at a rehearsal. It didn’t take long for everyone to realise that it was a winning combination.
Rechristened Carl Douglas & The Charmers, the musicians soon established a foothold in the Brixton/Streatham/Tulse Hill area, playing pubs, youth clubs and schools.
Early on, lead guitarist Mick Patel and bass player Lee Hall took over from Johnny Johnson and Roger Simms respectively, while Charman (who’d adopted the stage name Tony Webb) moved from lead guitar to organ.
The band’s drummer then introduced his cousin Ken Baxter, who worked as an engineer at a recording studio in Crystal Palace.
“When Carl joined us, we needed some demos,” says Tony Charman. “Ken had this little recording studio, which he’d just started, so we recorded in there and then Ken was asked to be our manager.”
Impressed by Douglas’s singing, Ken Baxter oversaw the recording of a six-track demo, mixing soul standards like Otis Redding and Steve Cropper’s “Mr Pitiful”; Naomi Neville’s “Pain In My Heart”; and Wilson Pickett and Steve Cropper’s “In the Midnight Hour”, together with Carl Douglas originals – “Going Out of My Mind”, “Why Hurt” and “You Are the One I Love”.
Having assumed the band’s management from Tony Charman’s father, Ken Baxter then hawked the demos around London in a bid to secure a recording deal. The tracks ended up with A&R scout Pierre Tubbs, who had connections with the small indie label, Strike Records. Tubbs offered the band some studio time to hone its act, in preparation for some further recordings.
Around early 1966, the band’s personnel underwent another reshuffle with Ray Beresford taking over from long-standing drummer Nick Baxter. At the same time, a brilliant guitarist called Ron Bryer (aka Ron Spence), succeeded Mick Patel. A former member of The Loose Ends, the house band at Lewisham’s El Partido Club, Bryer had recently been working with another local outfit, The Revellos.
Interestingly, Mick Patel would end up joining Bryer’s former band The Loose Ends in late 1966, initially as a horn player, but in spring 1967 moved back to lead guitar and briefly joined The Canadians with a very young David Foster. Foster and Patel would subsequently join The Warren Davis Monday Band in the summer of 1967 for the single “Love is a Hurtin’ Thing”. Patel later moved out to British Columbia, Canada to work with Foster in a new band but nothing has been heard about him since.
The reconfigured line up (often billed as The Carl Douglas Set) began gigging further afield, landing a regular gig at Tiles on Oxford Street, and playing a series of shows at the Goldhawk Social Club in Shepherd’s Bush.
Back in Tubbs’s studio, and with Ken Baxter at the helm, the new formation cut two new tracks – a gritty version of Hayes and Porter’s “You Don’t Know”, coupled with a soulful rendition of “I (Who Have Nothing)”, a song taken into the US charts by Terry Knight & The Pack.
Presented to Strike Records, the label was impressed by the raw energy of the recordings to sign Douglas to a one-off single deal. However, as Baxter recalls, arranger/producer Alan Tew was sceptical that the musicians had the experience to produce “a professional, economical sound behind Carl at the time”.
Handing production duties to Pierre Tubbs, Tew decided to bring in top session players like guitarist Big Jim Sullivan, organist Harry Stoneham, trumpet player Kenny Baker and bass player John Paul Jones to provide the instrumental support for Douglas’s first single, the frantic, infectious soul number “Crazy Feeling” (credited to Tubbs-Douglas), coupled with “Keep It To Myself” (attributed to Tubbs), which was cut at Pye’s studios in Marble Arch.
Ken Baxter notes that the group almost landed a record deal with EMI Records after an encounter with producer Tony Macaulay (who would work with Douglas’s friend Clem Curtis in The Foundations) prompted a one-off session. The whereabouts of the two tracks cut remains a mystery.
While this was happening, Ray Beresford put in a good word for his neighbour – lead guitarist Del Grace, who stepped into Ron Bryer’s shoes in early July 1966.
Standing at six foot five, Grace had started out in the early 1960s with Carl Lee & The Epitaphs in the Bexley, Kent area. The band subsequently became known as The Epitaph Soul Band and then The Epitaphs. Of historic note, Grace also did several sessions with maverick producer Joe Meek at his studio on the Holloway Road during this period.
In late 1965, Grace formed Big Wheel, a local soul/R&B band, which opened for the likes of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and The Graham Bond Organisation at the Black Prince Hotel in Bexley. They also played at the Berlin Jazz Festival in February 1966 and undertook a short tour of West Germany, including Aachen, and Switzerland in early June.
In an entirely unplanned, albeit fascinating twist of fate, Big Wheel’s keyboard player Andy Clark (later of Clark-Hutchinson and Upp fame) decided to recruit Ron Bryer as Grace’s replacement!
When the rest of the band returned to England, Bryer stayed and joined the highly-rated Basel-based soul band, Berry Window & The Movements. Bryer later recorded with cosmic rockers Brainticket before returning to England and joining One with former Loose Ends’ singer Alan Marshall. Tragically, the guitarist died on 25 June 1973 of an accidental drug overdose.
With Del Grace in place, The Carl Douglas Set performed at George Harrison’s new nightclub Sibylla’s in central London from 22-26 August.
That same month, Strike brought out “Crazy Feeling” but inexplicably the single failed to chart, even though, according to Tony Charman, it was voted a hit on Juke Box Jury.
A few days after completing the Sibylla’s residency, bass player Danny McCulloch took over from Lee Hall. Originally from Shepherd’s Bush, McCulloch had first come to prominence with Frankie Reid & The Casuals (alongside drummer Mitch Mitchell) before landing a gig with Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages.
After recording a lone single with The Plebs – “Bad Blood” c/w “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”, McCulloch worked with Tony Sheridan in West Germany before returning home.
He was at something of a loose end, however, when the opportunity came to join Douglas; most likely after running into the band at the Goldhawk Social Club on his home turf.
The new bass player, however, did not hang around too long. Barely a week after opening for Otis Redding at Tiles on 18 September, he was poached by one of the England’s leading R&B singers.
“[Danny] was a talented bass player and had his own entourage of musicians in close proximity,” recalls Ken Baxter.
“It wasn’t surprising that he was soon to be poached from us by Eric Burdon, who used to visit the Cromwellian and witnessed Danny’s talent and offered him a job in his soon-to-be formed ‘New Animals’.”
Inspired by McCulloch’s bass style and unhappy on keyboards, Tony Charman took up the bass. Just prior to McCulloch’s departure, Baxter placed an advert in Melody Maker for a sax player. A number of horn players responded, including recently departed Manfred Mann member Lyn Dobson, but the band settled on north Londoner, Dave Brooks.
“We auditioned loads of sax players but with Dave Brooks he seemed to click straight away,” says Charman. “We all liked him and if you’re pro, you’ve got to get on with each other.”
Around the same time, Del Grace brought in his former band mate from the original Big Wheel (and Andy Clark’s predecessor) – Mike Manners on Hammond organ and as musical director.
Renamed Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede, after a very descriptive LP cover by US jazz band Woody Herman, the new line up’s first notable booking was Tiles on Oxford Street on 26 September.
Around this time, the musicians shared a bill with Eric Clapton’s band, Cream. Mike Manners has fond memories of the evening in question, a joint (no pun intended) booking at a university somewhere in the north of England. (Ed. Beresford says this was Nottingham University and Cream played in the city on 23 October, so this is the most likely date.)
“We were in an interval and had the same dressing room. He [Ginger Baker] handed me this huge joint and I said, ‘I’ll pass it round’ and he said, ‘No, no, no, that’s for you. I’m making one for everybody’. It was huge.”
A few days later Ray Beresford left to subsequently form Lewisham band, The National Existence. With road manager Nick Baxter briefly subbing, the musicians were photographed in Trafalgar Square.
Within a week, however, the drum stool was filled permanently by another Big Wheel member – Derek ‘Del’ Coverley, who returned from Switzerland where he was playing at the Hotel Hirschen in Zurich’s red light district.
Inspired by Jack Parnell, the drummer in the house band at the London Palladium, and jazz musicians Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa, Coverley had started playing drums in his early teens. After working with his school band, The Scimitars for several years, he signed up with Big Wheel at the tail end of 1965, taking over from original drummer Rick Dyett.
With only lead singer Paul Stroud and Del Coverley remaining from the original line up in July 1966, Big Wheel (Mark 2) now included bass player Mick Holland and organist Andy Clark from The Epitaph Soul Band and Del Grace’s predecessor in The Carl Douglas Set, Ron Bryer.
The new configuration developed quite a following in Switzerland and even issued a hopelessly rare (Swiss-only) mod single, Andy Clark’s “Don’t Give Up That Easy” c/w “You’re Only Hurting Yourself”, released on the Eurex label in February 1967.
With Coverley assuming the drum position in Carl Douglas’ band, the final piece in the jigsaw was West Norwood-based jazz trumpeter Verdi Stewart, a family friend of the Baxters, who agreed to try out after failing to land a gig with Hamilton & The Hamilton Movement (where he befriended future member Mel Wayne).
The son of a boxer, and christened Verdun Tristram Higham, Stewart was a colourful character who had learnt his trade from The Happy Wanderers’ William Longman and had previously played trumpet in a rumba band at the Astor Club in Berkeley Square.
Around this time, the band received some handy press coverage after Go Records picked up “Crazy Feeling” and re-issued the single on 4 November. This time around, the ‘45 became a hit, climbing to #21 in the British charts, perhaps helped by Radio London’s incessant plugging. In the US, it was issued on the Okeh label in the following month.
Having signed up to the Rik Gunnell Agency a few months earlier, work started to pour in. It was through the band’s association with Gunnell that Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede landed a prestigious 14-night residency at the Gunnell brothers’ latest West End acquisition, the Bag O’ Nails nightclub in Kingly Street, kicking off on 21 November.
“We were cheap and cheerful [and] they got their money’s worth with us,” confides Brooks on the arrangement. “Although Rik Gunnell liked Carl, he thought we were a bunch of wallies really, which were for the money we were playing for. But that’s the way things were. We were just glad to play.”
During those eventful two weeks, notable guests dropped in during the evening. One afternoon (25 November is the most plausible date), the musicians turned up to find a future rock legend on the stage.
“We’d been playing at the Bag O’ Nails the night before and had left the gear there,” remembers Charman. “When we went in [the next day] all of our gear was off the stage to one side. We didn’t know it at the time but this guy who we now know was [Jimi] Hendrix and his three-piece band was playing onstage with photographers. We were more annoyed that our gear had been taken off the stage!”
“Jimi Hendrix was having his press reception and we were all laughing at him,” adds Brooks. “He had lighter fluid and was setting his guitar alight for the press. We’re all going, ‘Oh, flash in the pan, he won’t last five minutes’…we were really slagging him off.”
However, a few days later, the guitarist returned to the club and joined the musicians on stage, as Charman continues. “This particular night we were playing and Hendrix come up to me and said, ‘Can I play your bass?’ Remember, he’s left handed and I’m right handed so he was playing my bass upside down. Big Del was playing beside him on guitar. Then I got back up on stage and Hendrix played Del’s guitar and we done another couple of numbers.”
Carl Douglas finishes the story: “That night the bass player from The Animals [Chas Chandler] comes up and says he’s got a wicked guitarist and he’s going to be a personality. Could he come up and jam with us? He joined us on this Otis Redding song, ‘Try A Little Tenderness’. What a night!”
Despite hobnobbing with future stars like Jimi Hendrix and personalities on the scene like Chris Farlowe, Eric Burdon and Long John Baldry, who all used to sit in with the group after hours, The Big Stampede were flat out gigging virtually every night.
In the run up to the Christmas period, the group had a packed schedule of bookings. The relentless one-nighters, however, soon took its toll as fatigue set in. Returning home from a gig at the Dancing Slipper Club in Nottingham late on the evening of 13 January 1967 (sans Douglas who’d stayed behind with a female fan) the band’s converted Bedford ambulance came off the road.
“We rolled down this embankment… and I got thrown out of the back and landed in a cow pat,” recalls Manners. “It was pitch-black, deep in rural England and there was a thunderstorm brewing in the distance, so that distant rumbling of thunder and the fact that we were in shock was very spooky.”
Four days later, the still-shaken band headed off for its first European jaunt – a booking at the New Inn Club in Liege, Belgium, where Ken Baxter met his future wife.
“All that I can remember is that the owner of the club took Tony, I think it was, and I for a spin in his Ferrari at five o’clock in the morning down the main high street at 150 mph,” says Manners. “I remember him saying, ‘I’ve got to take it in to get it tuned properly’.”
Back in London in late January, Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede honoured an important showcase gig at the Gunnells’ Flamingo nightclub in Wardour Street. The booking had been lined up a few months earlier thanks to top London disc-jockey Johnny Walker.
“We had [had] a gig at the Wimbledon Palais where the M.C. was Johnny Walker. He was impressed by our performance and asked me after the show to keep in touch,” remembers Ken Baxter.
“He invited the band to appear on a live broadcast show [for Radio Caroline] from the Flamingo. Johnny was very encouraging to Carl and the band and from that we got a booking at the Marquee and a helpful introduction to Mr Ronan O’Rahilly, which produced top draw bookings and appearances.”
Del Grace remembers one occasion when he met singer Nat King Cole and blues guitarist John Lee Hooker at the Flamingo. “They’d been in the club and they come backstage to talk to the band,” he says.
As winter turned to spring, the band kept up its frantic schedule of gigs, interspersing appearances at London hot spots like the Bag O’ Nails, Paddington’s Cue Club, Burton’s in Uxbridge, west London and Eel Pie Island in Twickenham, southwest London with shows further afield, such as the Student’s Union at Newcastle University and the Bird Cage in Hull.
It was also during this time that the musicians joined a star-studded bill at Loughborough University with The Move and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (Ed: I’ve not been able to find this gig).
“I remember The Move; they were very professional,” says Coverley. “They went straight through the audience, all carrying their guitars high in a line, on the stage… and bang straight into the first number. I think it was ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’.”
However, with the musicians spending long periods of time together, conflicts were inevitable. In mid-April, sax player Dave Brooks bailed out (his deteriorating relationship with Del Grace the main cause) and briefly joined Felders Orioles.
Searching for a replacement, Verdi Stewart suggested west London-based sax player Mel Wayne, who’d recently left Hamilton & The Hamilton Movement after the band’s Bill Wyman-produced single, “I’m Not the Marrying Kind”, had bombed.
Originally from Twickenham, Wayne had an impressive pedigree, having started out with local outfit, The Shannons in 1962/1963. Progressing on to Mike Dee & The Prophets and then Simon Scott & The All Nite Workers (cutting a lone single, “Tell Him I’m Not Home” and an unreleased album), Wayne next found himself working with future Sweet producer Phil Wainman in a short-lived band at the tail end of 1965.
By early 1966, the renamed Sound System was backing soul acts Jackie Edwards, Millie and Owen Grey before future Island Records founder Chris Blackwell linked Wainman’s band with Jimmy Cliff and they became The New Generation. The partnership lasted six months before the musicians hooked up with singer Gary Hamilton.
Debuting at Klook’s Kleek in Hampstead (ironically Brooks’s home patch) on 13 April, Wayne had barely learnt the repertoire when he landed a cameo appearance (alongside Del Grace, Tony Webb and manager Ken Baxter) in the Desmond Davis-produced movie Smashing Time, starring Rita Tushingham, Lynn Redgrave and Jeremy Lloyd.
As Mel Wayne recalls, road manager Nick Baxter was working as a film extra and it was through this association that several members got the opportunity to star in the studio recording scene, which features Ken Baxter and Mel Wayne miming on drums and guitar, alongside Del Grace and Tony Charman on their usual instruments.
Later that same month, on 23 April, Go Records finally brought out a second Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede single, once again recorded with the cream of London’s session players – Douglas’s “Let The Birds Sing” coupled with “Something for Nothing” (credited to Tubbs but in fact a co-write with Douglas).
Produced this time by Peter Richard, both tracks capture Douglas’s soulful vocals to perfection but unfortunately the record sank without a trace.
“Some of them [the singles] we didn’t even know that Carl had done them,” confesses Charman. “We found out he’s been in the studio and obviously the band weren’t pleased about it because we were his band.
“But what could we do? When we started out as Sounds 5 it was a group but when Carl came along everything revolved around him because he’s the singer. We ended up as Carl’s backing band.”
When it came to the photo shoot for the single’s picture sleeve cover, Del Coverley was absent and manager Ken Baxter had to don a pair of shades and impersonate the missing drummer to an unsuspecting public.
Less than a week after the single’s release, the new line up piled into the group’s repaired converted ambulance and took the ferry across the channel, driving down to the south of France for an extended-tour of the coastal towns.
Based at a villa in Valbonne, a village about 12 km north of St Tropez, the group kicked off with a short residency at the Valbonne Club where Mike Manners celebrated his 21st birthday on 2 May.
The French tour had been set up through British businessman John Bloom, who had met Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede at Sibylla’s the previous year.
“The Valbonne had this beautiful Olympic-size swimming pool outside and we used to jump in at night to cool down after the dance,” remembers Douglas.
Using the Valbonne as a base, Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede next played the Voom Voom nightclub in St Tropez. On one occasion French beauty Brigitte Bardot turned up and danced after meeting the musicians at her husband, Gunter Sachs’s home.
After completing the French tour at the Whisky A Go Go in Nice, the musicians started the long journey home, stopping off in Lugano, Switzerland to play an American girls’ school in early June.
Incidentally, while staying in the south of France, Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede were also engaged by the producers of the British film Blow Up to perform at the opening night of its presentation at the Cannes Film Festival with its stars David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave and director Michelangelo Antonioni in attendance.
“The south of France was one of the places I enjoyed the most,” recalls Del Grace looking back on his time with the band. “We’d just finished doing Smashing Time with Jeremy Lloyd and he came down [to the Voom Voom] and joined us with Mike D’Abo from Manfred Mann.”
Back in the England, the band resumed its heavy workload, honouring a brace of shows in Southampton, Derby and Bradford before returning to London for a two-night stand at the Bag O’ Nails on 11-12 June.
Yet, with little money to show for their efforts and a punishing schedule, it was inevitable that further cracks would appear. After playing his final gig at the Cue Club in Paddington on 7 July, Mike Manners became the next member to bail out.
“We’d had a long, hard slog on the road,” explains the organist. “We were a touring club band if you like and we’d been exploited in my view by our agency.”
Initially hiring several stand-in players via the Rik Gunnell Agency, the group turned to Verdi Stewart’s mate, organist Ian Green, who’d spent a short time with Tony Jackson & The Vibrations. Green’s first engagements were two gigs at St Birinus School in Didcot and Rasputin’s on Bond Street in central London, both on 14 July.
“Ian Green was very good and was married to this blues singer who was at the High Tower,” says Douglas. “He didn’t stay long… He was a bit more advanced than we were. He was in the Georgie Fame class.”
Green was also on hand the following day to honour three gigs that kicked off with a show at the California Ballroom in Dunstable. Also on the bill was The All Night Workers whose bass guitarist Doug Ayris had previously played with Mel Wayne’s younger brother, Brian Hosking, in The Legend.
Borrowing a lead guitar from his band mate Brian Sell, Ayris returned with Carl’s group to London and a second show later that evening at Paddington’s Cue Club before the exhausted musicians headed south of the river for their final gig that evening at the Ram Jam in Brixton during the early hours.
While all of this was going on, former member Mike Manners was busy in the studio working with Australian singer Johnny Young, having answered an advert that Polydor Records had placed in the music press looking for backing musicians.
Joined by fellow Englishmen Rob Alexander (lead guitar) and Peter Piper (bass), plus Young’s long-standing drummer from Australia, Danny Finley, the band, Danny’s Word cut four tracks in the studio, all Gibb brother compositions, with Barry, Robin and Maurice also providing backing vocals.
The first single, “Craise Finton Kirk” c/w “I am The World” was issued on 30 July but failed to chart despite the Bee Gees association and a plug on the Dee Time TV show. A second release, coupling “Every Christian Lionhearted Man Will Show You” with “Wonderful World”, also flopped and, disillusioned by his reception in Britain, Johnny Young returned to Australia that December.
Manners wasn’t the only band member to get itchy feet. In early August, shortly after a gig at the Ram Jam in Brixton on 29 July, Del Coverley also departed.
“I thought flower power was going to be big because it was happening and the soul thing was dying,” explains Coverley on his decision to leave. “Andy Clark [from Big Wheel] got in touch with me and said, ‘a band is reforming with the old members of Bern Elliot & The Fenmen’, so I joined that.”
Linking up with guitarist Alan Judge and bass player Eric Wilmer, who’d carried on with The Fenmen name when Wally Allen and John Povey joined The Pretty Things in late March 1967, the new four-piece became Kindness.
After touring the country extensively, playing Byrds and Love covers, Kindness folded when Andy Clark left to join Sam Gopal’s Dream with guitarist Mick Hutchinson, bass player Pete Sears and drummer Viv Prince.
“Of course it [flower power] died. It had its lifespan,” says the drummer. “I should have hung around with Carl really and seen where it went.”
Next, Coverley was involved in a reformed Big Wheel with original members Mike Manners and Del Grace but by late 1968 he had re-joined Andy Clark (and Mick Hutchinson) in Dogs Blues. When this folded in February 1969, he formed the equally short-lived Fat Daughter.
Coverley then briefly worked with singer John Thomas in a new version of Rust with bass player Alex Alexander and guitarist Eric Lindsey (today the owner of a music shop chain in southeast London). Thomas’ original band had cut an ultra-rare German-only LP, released in January 1969, and the new line-up promoted it on the road that summer.
After failing to land the drum position with Mark Bolan and Mickey Finn’s second version of T. Rex in early 1970, Andy Clark got back in touch.
Together with Mick Hutchinson, the keyboard player had formed the progressive rock outfit, Clark-Hutchinson. Cutting the highly-acclaimed album A=MH2 in 1969, the pair next decided to expand and brought Coverley in on drums for two more albums – 1970’s Retribution and Gestalt the following year.
In later years, the drummer very nearly landed a job with singer Kate Bush. He later worked as a drum tutor and occasionally played with his reformed school band, The Scimitars and his own group, Stardust.
Stumbling across red haired drummer Colin Davey via the music press, Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede returned to the south of France during August 1967 with veteran keyboard player Iain Hines added to the formation.
Hines had spent the early 1960s in Hamburg where he worked with The Jets at the Top Ten Club.
However, on the group’s return to London in late August, Verdi Stewart added to the exodus and returned to France. Over the next few years, he hired out his services as a jobbing musician on London’s session scene. Tapping into his other talent as a singer, he even entertained Frank Sinatra at a private party held at the Hilton on Park Lane in 1969.
In the early 1970s, Stewart assumed the stage name Johnny Fontane and sang with The Ray MacVay Band and then The Cyril Stapleton Band before returning to session work. He also worked extensively with the BBC’s B1 and B2 orchestras.
By the mid-1970s, Stewart had landed a regular gig with the Mecca Organisation and its house band at Purley’s Orchid Ballroom. Reuniting with Mike Manners, the group, which also included trombone player/singer Terry Martin and drummer John Snow, signed up with Dick James Music to work as session players.
When that band fell apart, Stewart did TV and live work with Georgie Fame and then became an integral member of Alan Price’s support band from 1978-1983. He later rehearsed a double act called The Dangerous Brothers to play the south London scene.
With his former band mates from The Big Wheel gone, Del Grace, who’d alerted Manners to the Johnny Young position advertised in the music press but missed out on the Australian singer’s band, decided he also wanted out.
In September 1967 he signed a solo deal with Liberty Records. Linking up with future Wombles producer Mike Batt, Grace laid down a handful of recordings at Marquee Studios, including a cover of John Sebastian’s “Younger Generation” and Jeff Lynne’s “Follow Me, Follow Me” with session musicians.
Forming a backing group called The Rifle with singer Malcolm Magaron, Grace landed a prestigious gig in the Swiss Alps and saw out 1967 in style.
“We played at the Farinet Hotel in Verbier, which is still there strangely enough,” he recalls.
“We played there right through Christmas and New Year. I got a really tight harmony band together. I asked Del [Coverley] to come with me but he didn’t come and we had a different drummer. They even sent a private aeroplane for us to Heathrow to pick us up and take us out there.”
Back in London, the guitarist renewed his ties with Pierre Tubbs and cut two further solo recordings for United Artists at Olympic Studios in Barnes with session players. One of these was the Tubbs penned “Gotta Get Back”, featuring the guitarist on banjo.
Grace subsequently moved into production and opened a studio with Tubbs, working with people like Steve Harley, Eddie Reader, Steve Hackett, Brian Poole and comedian Lenny Henry. Since the late 1990s, however, he lived in Marbella in Spain and released four solo CDs, recorded at his Pink Lizard Studio. Sadly, he died 28 May 2022.
In urgent need of new musicians to join Carl Douglas, Tony Charman and Mel Wayne, road manager Nick Baxter came to the rescue by recommending his wife Caroline’s cousin, Martin Pugh, who’d narrowly missed out on the French tour.
Originally from Cornwall, Pugh had spent the past few years working with local band, The Package Deal before moving up to London in search of fame and fortune.
Around the same time, Ken Baxter recruited Kilburn-based sticks man Dave Richards via the music press as a permanent replacement for Del Coverley.
A few weeks later, the band also auditioned organ players at the Ram Jam in Brixton, including Mick Fletcher, Mel Wayne’s former mate from Hamilton & The Hamilton Movement. However, on 17 September, the position was given to northerner Rod Mayall, who turned up (on his 21st birthday) for an audition after his half-brother John Mayall had put a good word in for him.
A veteran of Middleton, Greater Manchester band Ivans Meads (another Rik Gunnell Agency signing), Mayall added a unique touch to The Big Stampede, explains Baxter.
“He was a very talented Hammond organist, who brought not only professionalism to our band but also boyish good looks. For the fans, he was shy and never pushed himself forward because he was not comfortable with the obvious charisma and stage presence he had.”
Formed in 1963, Ivans Meads had issued a clutch of superb Mod singles with Mayall’s Hammond to the fore, kicking off with a cover of P F Sloan’s “The Sins of the Family” c/w bass player Keith Lawless’s “A Little Sympathy”.
This was followed by a second, and final, single, Toni Wine and Carole Bayer’s “We’ll Talk about It Tomorrow” c/w band composition, “Bottle”, issued in September 1966. Having cut a final, unreleased track, “Sitting on Top of the World” with John Mayall producing, the band shortened its name to The Mead and spent a brief period in West Germany.
Rod Mayall’s debut with The Big Stampede was the Shanklin Beat Cruise around Portsmouth Harbour on 20 September.
While the line-up changes were being made, Pierre Tubbs was poached by the United Artist’s label and with greater clout than the smaller Go, Carl Douglas was offered a two single recording deal.
With the new line up still finding its feet, session musicians were once again employed for a recording session on 21 September to cut the first single – “Nobody Cries” c/w “Serving a Sentence”. Released on 16 February 1968, and credited to Carl Douglas, the single failed to chart.
However, the band remained unsettled and in mid-December 1967, The Big Stampede’s most longstanding member, Tony Charman handed in his notice on the eve of another foreign trip, this time to Biarritz and Perpignan in the south of France.
Tony Dangerfield, a one-time member of Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages and more recently part of Rupert’s People, assumed the bass position (albeit until spring 1968 when Charman agreed to return).
Mel Wayne also bailed out at the same time (but not before posing for some promotional shots with Ken Baxter filling in for Charman) to spend more time with his newly married French wife.
“Every time we were to go abroad, there was some member of the band who couldn’t or wouldn’t want to go, so we’d have to quickly rehearse and put somebody in,” says Douglas on the revolving door of changing personnel.
While Wayne would briefly abandon a career in music, he would resurface over a year later with Calum Bryce. He currently performs with The All Night Workers, the band that had once shared the bill with Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede at Dunstable’s California Ballroom.
In an incredible turn of events, his predecessor, Dave Brooks landed the job of replacing him for the French tour, which kicked off in Biarritz on 20 December 1967. By then, Brooks had moved away from rock music circles.
“I re-joined when the band went to Biarritz,” he recalls. “I got a train down from London. I think I went to the Rik Gunnell office… and [the agency] sent me off. I got a train that day to Biarritz.”
On his arrival in the French town, Brooks discovered that the group had undergone a complete make-over since his departure back in April 1967. Other than Carl Douglas, he didn’t know any of the other musicians.
With money tight and Tony Dangerfield keen to put his personal stamp on the band, Brooks says that only the group’s front man seemed keen to welcome him into the fold. The sax player had to work hard to be accepted.
“Carl Douglas wanted me on sax but they didn’t want a sax player and Tony Dangerfield kind of engineered this barrier to me,” remembers Brooks.
“Carl wanted me because it made it into a soul band. With Tony Dangerfield, it was turning kind of into a rock ‘n’ roll revue… He was all right [but] he was a bit of a showman.”
Back in the England, the musicians continued to intersperse London gigs with treks into the Home Counties and further afield. The Rik Gunnell Agency lined up plenty of bookings but thanks to other contacts, Baxter also landed some important engagements overseas.
On 29 April 1968, Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede (with Tony Charman back in the fold) drove down through France to Spain to play at the Stones Club in Madrid for 31 nights where they were joined towards the end of the engagement by singer Geno Washington minus his Ram Jam Band.
For Rod Mayall, the Spanish excursion would ultimately lead to his departure; the keyboard player returned to Spain later that summer to work with a Spanish/Portuguese outfit called Los Buenos, whose entire recorded output is available on CD from Spanish label, Rama Lama Music.
Before this happened, however, the musicians left Madrid and drove all the way to Rome to perform at the Titan Club for 15 nights, kicking off on 7 June.
With the gigs honoured, Mayall returned to Spain and hooked up with Los Buenos. He then joined a South American outfit called La Pipa to back Venezuelan singer Henry Stephen, who’d already enjoyed two gold records back home, including “El Limon El Limonero”. La Pipa recorded a lone Spanish single for RCA in early 1970 – “Your Daddy Won’t Do It” c/w “Take Him Back”.
While Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede were playing in Italy, United Artists released the group’s final single – “Sell My Soul to The Devil”, coupled with “Good Hard Worker”, arguably one of Carl Douglas’s finest efforts on disc. Credited to Tubbs/Douglas, the two tracks were, in fact, entirely written by the singer.
“The only two recordings that we all played on live is the new Stampede,” says Charman. “‘Good Hard Worker’ is my favourite. I know that I am playing bass on it but I really like the song. I think we done that about three o’clock in the bloody morning and then we went off to Spain. That’s totally live [that track]. We were only allowed one take and then they overdubbed the strings on that.”
Issued on 28 June 1968 and credited to Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede, the single should have been the group’s long overdue breakthrough.
However, despite the single’s great potential, any progress on the recording front was soon dashed when Rik Gunnell’s Agency was handed to the Robert Stigwood Organisation in July/August 1968. As Ken Baxter recalls, the band’s new employer didn’t feel that The Stampede fitted with the company’s portfolio and live work dried up.
Having resumed gigging on the London circuit that summer, Tony Charman dropped out again just before he got married on 14 September. His departure precipitated another mass exodus as the musicians in the current formation looked for new opportunities.
Looking back on his time with the band, Dave Brooks has this to say: “The second line up was much racier. It was a rock/blues band, playing Carl’s numbers. We used to stretch out to long solos. It was better musically. It was a much better group [than the first incarnation] but it still wasn’t what Carl wanted. He wanted a tight soul band, which he never got.”
While most of the musicians would retire from the music scene, several members went on to notable acts soon after.
Martin Pugh immediately landed on his feet and joined blues-rock band Steamhammer. The group’s eponymous debut yielded a minor European hit, “Junior’s Wailing”, and was followed by three more albums before disbanding. During his time with Steamhammer, Pugh also guested on Rod Stewart’s debut solo album alongside fellow band member Martin Quittenton.
In 1975, the guitarist joined former Yardbirds/Renaissance singer Keith Relf’s band, Armageddon whose lone album received favourable reviews. He currently resides in the United States where he works as a solo artist.
After nearly two years in Spain, Rod Mayall returned to the England and joined his half-brother John Mayall to back former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green at the Bath Festival of Blues & Progressive Music in June 1970.
The keyboard player also worked with future Genesis drummer/singer Phil Collins in Flaming Youth.
“The band was getting a fiver a week from the management,” recalls Mayall. “They paid me a tenner because I was living in a flat and they were living with their parents. Then Phil got offered a job with Genesis for fifteen quid a week, which he took.”
Rod Mayall then moved into session work. He contributed celeste to Thin Lizzy’s “Dublin”, a track on the E.P. “New Day” and also appeared on a recording by Iain Matthews. He currently lives in Macclesfield and continues to play and record.
Tony Charman also kept his hand in, albeit briefly, and worked with a south London band whose name he has long forgotten in early 1969. The group recorded some early Pink Floyd tracks before disbanding. Charman later moved to the West Country where he gigged with a succession of local outfits before opening a music shop and a recording studio.
While Dave Richards subsequently played with City Road from the early 1970s into the early 1980s, and reportedly died around 2010 (Dave Brooks says Richards later joined the Gas Board), the sax player threw himself into touring and session work, spending six weeks backing American soul band, The Vibrations after making a cameo appearance on George Harrison’s Wonderwall album.
In mid-1970, Brooks undertook some sessions with Manfred Mann Chapter 3 and then participated in the band’s US tour. Throughout the early to late 1970s, Brooks kept incredibly busy, playing with a myriad of artists, including Flaming Youth, The Greatest Show on Earth, Kokomo and Graham Bond.
Brooks also made a habit of popping up on recordings by artists as diverse as Patto, Vinegar Joe, Jo Anne Kelly, Screaming Lord Sutch and Joan Armatrading.
After working with Jools Holland on the alternative comedy circuit and Buddy Bounds among others, Brooks embraced his Scottish heritage and eschewed the sax for bagpipes. His mother played the instrument and Brooks was keen to play music from the British Isles. In 2001, he released a CD, Piper on the Heath. Sadly, the sax player died in May 2020.
“At the time we didn’t know that it was a golden era,” says Brooks when interviewed for this article. “To us, it was just the now. We had no comprehension that it was the time.”
Judging by gigs, it does look like Carl Douglas kept a new version of The Big Stampede on the road until mid-October 1968 before finally laying the group to rest and exploring solo options. (Ed. There is a gig for The Big Stampede at St Albans City Hall on 14 December but this might be another group.)
The ever loyal Ken Baxter (who died in February 2016) remained firm friends with Carl Douglas. “I was able to negotiate a new contract for him with a businessman from Majorca, Spain [called] Peter Newman, who engaged Carl to front his Spanish band,” says Baxter.
An international group that drew together musicians from Argentina, Colombia, France, Spain and Morocco, alongside British Caribbean expats (and Links members) Tony Ellis (guitar), Ronald Simmonds (bass) and Danny Evans (drums), Carl Douglas & The Explosion spent the best part of 1969-1970 touring Spain, France, Italy and Portugal.
The multi-national outfit also cut two rare Spanish-only singles for Polydor – Ross Bloodhall-Brown’s “Eeny Meeny” c/w Barry Despenza and Carl Wolfolk’s “Can I Change My Mind” and Ronald Simmonds’ “Beggar For Your Loving” c/w Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper’s “Knock On Wood” (credited to just The Explosion, which may have been recorded sans Douglas) during 1969 before folding the following year.
Back in London, Carl Douglas’s next move was to sign up with another promising, yet commercially unsuccessful, outfit, Gonzales, which he joined in June 1971. Over the next two years, Douglas gigged with the band, opening for soul legend Curtis Mayfield on one occasion, but abandoned Gonzales in 1973 to pursue a solo career that took him into the stratosphere.
Three years after Douglas had struck gold with “Kung Fu Fighting”, the singer remembers playing in Montreux, Switzerland when he unexpectedly ran into his old employer Rik Gunnell, who was putting a surprise party on for him at his club, The Londoner.
“He gave me a hug and said, ‘Why didn’t you do this [become a megastar] when you were with us?’ I said, ‘Because you never supported me,’” laughs Douglas.
“You supported Georgie Fame, you supported Zoot Money, you supported Long John Baldy… you supported John Mayall, whose brother we took. He said, ‘Shit, Carl… I remember when your old manager Ken Baxter was asking for more money. He said, ‘he’s worth it, he’s worth it’… I wish I’d bloody listened to him. You’ve gone from £10 a night to £100,000 a night. You’re having a laugh, ain’t you?’”
Del Grace, who took part in one of The Big Stampede reunions (2009), has fond memories of working with Carl Douglas. “He was a great guy. I never saw him put a bad show on. He was always one hundred percent. He was a great showman.”
Many people helped piece this incredible story together. I’d like to personally thank Carl Douglas, Tony Charman, Ken Baxter, Del Grace, Danny McCulloch, Mike Manners, Del Coverley, Verdi Stewart, Dave Brooks, Mel Wayne, Rod Mayall and Iain Hines. Thanks to Ken Baxter and Tony Charman for the use of their photos.
This article was originally published on the Nick Warburton webpage on 29 June 2014. An earlier version appears on the Strange Brew website. This version has been significantly updated.
Gez Lee – rhythm guitar (replaced by Raymond Thompson on keyboards)
Eddie Richards – drums
Malcolm Sargeant very kindly provided the following information and photos about the group, which included future Sweet member, Steve Priest.
I started singing with the school band at Mellow Lane, Hayes, west London and when I left I joined The Countdowns around 1962/63. I was always known as “Sadge”.
Their singer Bernard Powell was leaving. I auditioned at Eddie Richards’ (the leader of the band) house in Hayes and got the job. I joined Eddie who played drums, Richard Herring on lead guitar, Steve Priest on base and Gez Lee on rhythm (later replaced by Raymond Thompson on keyboards) who all sang backing vocals. Raymond Thompson was with us until the group disbanded around mid-1966.
Steve went on to join The Army and later Sweet with Brian Connolly (Mac) and Eddie went with First Class and then later Edison Lighthouse.
Gez Lee had left to continue his studies and Richard went on to work with many different bands (including reuniting with Priest in The Army) and the last I heard he was still gigging.
Ray Thompson emigrated to Canada with his parents and had a brilliant career in writing and broadcasting. He now lives in New Zealand and owns the Tirohana vineyards. His autobiography is called Keeping The Dream Alive.
I joined The Carltones (made up of members of the RAF central band) on the dinner and dance circuit; this fitted in with my career at British Gas.
The Countdowns played all the local venues, including cinemas, Burton’s club in Uxbridge, Botwell and Wistowe House run by the Fripps in Hayes, the A Train, various community centres, the Attic club in Hounslow, the Martin Baker Club in Denham, Buckinghamshire, and St. Bernadettes in Long Lane, Hillingdon where one of the promo photographs was taken.
Our band was friendly rivals of The Javelins (Ian “Jez” Gillan’s group) and Paul & The Alpines on the local circuit. We supported Steve Marriott’s band, The Pretty Things, The Rolling Stones, Wayne Fontana, The Outlaws (Ritchie Blackmore) and many more.
Richard and Eddie’s dads used to transport us and our gear all over the place: Margate Dreamland was a regular gig, The Kursaal in Southend too as well as a venue in Clacton and Crayford Town Hall in Kent among others.
I don’t recall where the temporary change of band name to Malcolm James & The Callers came from, maybe when we were recording with Joe Meek?
We got picked up by Phil Jay (ex-pirate DJ and local management agent in Hounslow). He got us the opportunity to record several covers with the legendary Joe Meek at his studio in Holloway Road. One of which recently made it onto a CD of undiscovered recordings found in the “tea chests” that Joe had stored in a lock up garage.
Today a new contributor, R.D Francis, profiles the Lazy Eggs in the first in a series of articles on Michigan bands.
Fronted by Tom Carson, the Lazy Eggs began in 1959 as TC and the Good Guys, with Gary Praeg, Sam Moceri, Clem Riccobono, Tom Pointe, and Bob Krause. Impressed with their writing and live performances, Carson’s band signed a management contract with Bob Swartz. While they never shared a stage, Swartz also managed the earliest beginnings of Bob Seger’s career with his band, the Last Heard. The Lazy Eggs’ first big bar gig was working as the houseband at the Red Carpet Lounge on Warren and Outer Drive in Detroit; they replaced Bob Seger and the Last Heard who moved onto the Roostertail. After the folding of Seger’s old label, Cameo-Parkway, he signed with Capitol Records in 1968; the Last Heard became known as the Bob Seger System.
As the Beatlesque the Lazy Eggs, the band released their first single, “I’m Gonna Love You b/w As Long as I Have You” (E-5060; both composed by Riccobono) for Detroit’s Enterprise Records in 1967 (not in 1965 as mistakenly web-cataloged).
Their second single, “I’m a Clown b/w Poor Boys Always Weep,” (E-5085; Praeg composed the A-Side; Moceri the B-Side) appeared shortly after. After the release of their singles, and the departure of guitarist Tom Pointe, Ron Koss—noted for touring and recording with Wilson Pickett, Merv Johnson, and Hank Ballard, as well as his Motown session work—joined, remaining with the band until their early 1969 demise (other sources place the end, later, at 1972).
“I’m a Clown b/w Poor Boys Always Weep” debuted on Ontario’s CKLW-AM “The Big 8” on March 6, 1967. Achieving a minor placing on Detroit’s “Keener 13” WKNR-AM’s Top 40 chart, the single peaked at #28 on CKLW-AM, and at # 15 and #11 on Flint, Michigan’s smaller WTAC 600 AM and Ann Arbor’s WPAG 1050 AM, respectively. The chart success led to WKHM/WKNR’s Robin Seymour (later of CKLW-AM) hosting the band’s performances of both sides during a March 11, 1967, episode of Swingin’ Time airing on CKLW-TV’s Channel 9.
Tom Carson continued to work on stage with Bob “Catfish” Hodge in the Catfish Blues Band. Carson wrote the lyrics for “Catfish” on Get Down, the band’s 1970 debut on Epic.
Gary Praeg also gigged on Detroit’s local stages as a member of the R&B flavored the Pacesetters (not to be confused with the West Coast soul group that cut “I’m Gonna Make It b/w What About Me, Baby” in 1968 on New Orleans’ Minit). Also featuring Ron Koss on lead guitar, along with drummer Vin Scalabrino, and future the Rockets’ bassist John Fraga, the Pacesetters—inspired by Major Lance’s chart-topping dance-craze hit, “The Monkey Time”—cut the one-off 45-rpm/7” “The Monkey Whip b/w Around the World” (CT-3476), released on the Detroit-based Correc-Tone on September 14, 1963. (Both sides were written by Motown writer-arranger, William Witherspoon.)
By 1970, Gary Praeg formed Katzenjammer with ex-Lazy Eggs’ bassist Angelo Palazzolo and drummer Chris Birg; they soon took over the houseband gig at Detroit’s Roostertail. Katzenjammer recorded no singles.
Tom Carson, along with former Lazy Eggs’ Clem Riccobono and Sam Moceri, founded Detroit’s Fiddlers Music in 1970. Dealing in instrument sales and rentals, as well as recording and releasing private press singles and albums, Fiddlers closed its doors in 1980. Gary Praeg founded Cloudborn Studios in the mid-’70s and recorded light-rock and jazz-influenced albums as Shivers and Dove Grey.
Clem Riccobono passed away in 2014; Sam Moceri and Tom Pointe in 2018.
TC and the Good Guys: Tom Carson — lead guitar, vocals Tom Pointe — rhythm guitar, vocals Clem Riccobono — bass, vocals Sam Moceri — drums
The Pacesetters: Ron Koss — lead guitar Gary Praeg — rhythm guitar John Fraga — bass guitar Vin Scalabrino — drums
The Lazy Eggs: Tom Carson — lead guitar, vocals Tom Pointe — rhythm guitar Sam Moceri — keyboards, vocals (rejoined in 1963) Clem Riccobono — bass, vocals Bob Krause — drums
Other Lazy Eggs members: Ron Koss — lead guitar (joined around 1963) Gary Praeg — rhythm guitar, vocals (joined around 1963) Angelo Palazzolo — bass Chris Birg — drums
Note: The single, “My Baby Don’t Care b/w The Hammer Song,” released in 1968 on the Sunspot label—that is oft-compilation and web-cataloged with the Detroit Eggs—is a different Lazy Eggs: one led by Sid Herring; he later formed Watchpocket, a Southern Rock concern with Steve Cropper. While not directly relevant to the Detroit Lazy Eggs-subject of this article: 45-rpm aficionados take note that the Sunspot-45 in question is actually a cover of the Gants’ “My Baby Don’t Care,” which was Sid Herring’s previous group. Another band covered at Garage Hangover, the Wanted & Co., also covered “My Baby Don’t Care” with a 1968 single. Terry Montgomery, the brother of the Gants’ bassist Vince Montgomery, was a member of the Sceptres.
You can enjoy all four sides — and two TV appearances — of the Lazy Eggs with this convenient, catch-all playlist on You Tube.
I found these promo sheets for Jerry Raye with Fenwyck on DeVille Records. Jerry Raye has a long and complex story. He started his career as Cal Raye, with about half a dozen singles on various labels. The fabulous “I Cry” on Runay RY-101/111 from 1966 would be reissued as Jerry Raye on DeVille.
The band Fenwyck came from Arcadia, California, just east of Pasadena. Members at one point included:
Pat Robinson – vocals and guitar Pat Maroshek – bass Keith Knighter – drums
The Monrovia CA Daily News-Post mentioned “Fenwyck”, “the Fenwyck Combo” and “Fenwyck’s Band” three times between August and December, 1965, including at the Citrus College Homecoming in November 1965.
The Los Angeles Times mentions Fenwyck playing a month-long battle of the bands at Pacific Ocean Park (POP), against the Grope, the Ives of Redwing, the Debris, the Tyfoo Five, Me and the Rest, the Quool “and hundreds of others”.
Fenwyck backed Jerry Raye on six songs released over four singles on DeVille, Challenge, and Progressive Sounds of America. Fenwyck are pictured on the album The Many Sides of Jerry Raye.
The back cover credits other musicians, including Jerry Cole, Ernie Freeman, and “the all-time personal friend from his hometown, Bristol, Rhode Island, Kenny Marshall”.
Considering “Mindrocker” is one of the iconic songs from this time period, I surprised I can’t find any detailed information on these sessions or Fenwyck.
In the 1970s, Pat Robinson formed Back Pocket with Patrick Maroshek, who also played with Hardchoir.
Patrick Robinson cut some solo 45s and worked with Gene Clark on Under The Silvery Moon and So Rebellious a Lover.
Besides Fenwyck, Raye also cut a couple DeVille singles with another band called the New Trend. Pete Apodeca wrote “Pray for Me” and also helped write “Children” / “Comin’ Back” for Pete Martin and the Features, also on DeVille. Tom Quilty wrote “I’ll Wait”.
A TV clip from circa 2011 has Cal crooning a couple numbers, mentioning he lived in Hollywood seven years, and that he appeared in a couple movies including Monte Walsh with Lee Marvin and Jack Palance.
After leaving Los Angeles, Jerry Raye cut a few additional singles based in Nashville. He returned to the Cal Raye name with other records, “Sensuous Woman” on Laurie maybe his biggest seller.
Cal had one LP You Tell Such Lovely Lies that has the DeVille Records name on the front cover, but may not have been connected to the Hollywood company.
He seems to have ended up in Florida in the 2000s. The Cal Raye Connection Trio played at the Top O’ Mast in Fort Myers, and Cal Raye ran karaoke nights in Orlando.
The Hit Talents letter of August, 1969 to Sam Dimaggio in Houston seems to be looking for investment in return for pressing, distribution and/or promotion. This Joe Dimaggio’s Restaurant was not connected to the baseball player, by the way.
Charles W. Cabot is Chuck Cabot, whose true last name may have been Charles Cascoles. Chuck was a band leader and vocalist, owner of Hit Talents and either owner or A&R man of DeVille Records.
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