High schoolers from Yonkers, NY, they had this one 45 then disappeared. They may have been local competitors of the Chain Reaction who had a 45 on Date, “When I Needed You”.
The catchy “Lela” was produced by Ted Varnick, a veteran in the music biz who also produced the Forsaken, on MTA, a group I covered just a short while back.
Varnick co-wrote “Lela” with J. Lynch. Copyright registration from September 21, 1966 shows the title was supposed to be “Leila” with words and music by Jimmy Lynch & Ted Varnick.
Varnick also wrote the b-side, a flimsy piece of harmony pop called “Garden of Eden” with a certain paisley charm – prescient too, considering this was released in October of 1966. CBS picked it up for release in the UK, but I don’t know of this making the charts anywhere.
just picked up a copy of this 45 on the Australian Astor label (ASTOR AP-1351). I’d imagine it’s quite rare here.
Actually Garden of Eden, the other side, was suppose to be the hit. It got good play but died. We spent 5 days recording it the A&R studio in NYC.
Then we did LELA in 20 minutes. Love the fuzz on the bass guitar. I wrote the song, but actually stole the entire idea from the rolling stones song MONA.
You mean Bo Diddley’s ‘Mona.’