Considering the names on the labels of this 45 and the quality of single, it’s amazing how obscure this group called the Buffaloes seems to be. I knew nothing about the group except for their last names and first initial until Mike Kuzmin contacted me with additional copyright information.
The A-side is the jangly blaster, “She Wants Me”, written by George Schwartzkopf, Jr of Old Bridge, New Jersey. It’s a catchy song and I could imagine it being a hit, but seems to have missed. The flip is a ballad written by Arthur V. Walker of Sea Cliff, NY, on Long Island, “You Told Me Lies”. The copyright name for correspondence or refund is listed as Joel E. Shenton of Glen Cove, NY. Both songs published by Impression Music, BMI.
The Buffaloes may have had the first release on the GMC label. Gene Moretti founded the label; he had been director of international sales for MGM-Verve in 1964 after starting in the mail room of ABC-Paramount (according to Billboard).
Joel Shenton contacted me in July 2021 and kindly provided info about the band, GMC and Mayfair Studio.
The band:
Arthur Walker – lead singer / rhythm guitar
George Schwartzkopf – bass
James (Jimmy) Wolf – drummer
Joel Shenton – lead guitar, vocals, keyboardI met Jimmy during high school years, late 50’s, through a mutual friend who got me interested in guitars. We fooled around as a 3-piece instrumental group until college interfered. I met George, a guitarist, at college. We formed a 4-piece group and played frat parties pretty much every weekend using various drummers including Jimmy, who was at school a few miles away. George decided to play bass, and we recruited a classmate to play rhythm and sing leads. That began our addition of vocals to our group.
After college and eventual return to Glen Cove, Jimmy introduced me to Arthur (“Artie”), and George, although living in New Jersey, joined up and we became the Buffaloes and played a few local clubs.
Gene Moretti lived near Jimmy, got interested, and that was the link to GMC. Gene had a few other musical groups as well, including the “Gumdrops 2”, a girl duet. We backed them up for a few gigs, and Jimmy eventually married one of the pair (Joan) who later became a vocalist for some Buffaloes numbers.
The link to Mayfair came from George. He got married while in college, and his wife was Clair Krepps’ daughter. Clair, at that time, had his own mixing studio (Knickerbocker Sound) on E47th Street in NYC, where he did subcontract mixing and overdubbing for several major NY studios. George and I had access to Knickerbocker and fooled around there on weekends during our summers off from college. Clair eventually formed the Mayfair organization in the theater building of the same name, adding multiple live recording and mixing rooms.
Mayfair was unique when it came to equipment. The control room was designed and built by Clair’s brother (I think) who had an electronics manufacturing company in Chicago. Nothing was conventional, and it became a testing ground for Ampex and Sennheiser. I recall Clair showing us one of the first 8 track and 16 track tape machines he used for recording, provided by Ampex for evaluation. The wall in the main control room was autographed by many well-known artists with comments like, “Fantastic sound,” “Wonderful experience”, etc. I think Sinatra, Streisand, the Stones, and even Hendrix were among the signers.
After the release of our first & only 45, and doing some club work, it became clear to us that our musical future was going to be more for fun than for a career path. We all had decent day jobs, and there was no economic security at our level of dedication and talent. We continued to play for fun, made several demo discs for posterity, but peddling them was rather futile even though we had contacts at UA and Decca.
We went our separate ways in the early 70’s. Jimmy and Artie wound up in Florida, George stayed in NJ working as a chemical engineer, and I moved to upstate western NY to run a plastics factory.
Although it has little to do with the Buffaloes, my interest in guitars and playing continues to this day, although my focus changed from R&R to country music…mostly due to the interests of the local population…and I currently enjoy playing lead guitar for several local bands.
[editor’s note: I’ve changed the spelling of Krepps’ name to Clair from Clare.]
Gene Moretti and GMC Records “a Division of Go-Go Music Corp”
The April 22, 1966 issue of Billboard noted how Gene Moretti would be managing and recording six acts for his new label: “Moretti’s approach is to rely exclusively on the copyrights owned by Impression and draw talent primarily from the three million population Long Island area. All six acts, in their teen and early 20’s, are local boys and girls.”
Billboard announced the Gumdrop 2 would have the first issue on GMC, “Getting Over You” / “So I Try”, numbered GM 10001, However, the Buffaloes single, dated to October ’66 in Teen Beat Mayham, is numbered GM 10000. GMC had about fifteen releases in total, featuring a dozen artists including Priscilla Price, Tony Kaye, Johnny D., Doreen Rose, the Miller Sisters, the Islanders, the Spoilers, Frankie ‘Slim’ Summerville, and Frankie Gracie & the Plastics.
Mayfair Studios
Another interesting connection is the studio, listed as Mayfair Studios (8 Track). Clair Krepps had been a recording engineer for Capitol, MGM and Atlantic Records and also did a lot of stereo percussion albums for Audio Fidelity. About the same time Moretti started GMC, Krepps began Mayfair Recording Studios at 701 Seventh Ave in Manhattan. Other clients would include the Velvet Underground, Al Caiola’s Caiola Combo All Strung Out LP on United Artists, Nico, the Chameleon Church, the Ultimate Spinach, the Beacon Street Union, Puff, Galt MacDermot, Ricardo Ray, Jimi Hendrix, the Mothers of Invention, etc.
Thank you to Joel Shenton and Mike Kuzmin for their help with this article.
If anyone has a photo of the Buffaloes, please contact me!
