The Geatormen featured in the movie “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows”, a fun and innocent comedy about a group of Catholic schoolgirls accompanied by nuns crossing the country to a youth rally. The screen shots (below) are from a scene where the band is lip-synching to the title song by Boyce and Hart.
The Geatormen included:
Collis Alford (trumpet
Ray Jacobson (trumpet)
Art Travis (trombone)
Jeff Cooper (saxophone and rhythm)
Rees Gwynn (guitar)
Dan Toomey (bass guitar)
Martel Day (drums)
They were students at Brandywine High School in the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware, where they played with the Brandywine Blazers. Somehow they met up with Jerry Blavat, “the Geator” and became the Geatormen, performing on Blavat’s TV show Discophonic Scene and appearing with him in live shows.
An article in the Delaware County Daily Times from April, 1968 also mentions them appearing on WFIL-TV’s The World Around Us, a daily morning show in Philadelphia hosted by Anita Klever.
They weren’t credited for their appearance in “Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows”, so it doesn’t seemed to have helped their career much. I believe only five of them are featured in the movie. After the filming, Martel Day was replaced by Bob Howe and Max Rarigh. A later lineup of the band included Nino Puglisi from the Stairways. I don’t know of any records released by the band.
Jeff Cooper posted a few additional photos of the band at the bottom of this page.
Jerry Blavat is still doing his “Geator” thing here in Philadelphia, on radio and apparently you can hire him for block parties and the like. He associates himself more with the ’50s doo wop and early ’60s pop of the sort that doesn’t excite me quite so much. He’s one of those ’50s-style DJs who talks through the first 30 seconds and last 10 seconds of a two-minute song, which honestly I could do without. But the 65 yr old ladies love him.
Sometime in the late ’60s he recorded a bubblegum track called “Tasty (to Me)” which is suprisingly good, an obvious attempt to cash in on “Yummy Yummy Yummy” etc. and remain current as tastes changed. I have yet to stumble across it on vinyl (as I live here that means it must be pretty rare) and I only know it exists because I downloaded an mp3 of it included from someone’s garage mix once several years ago on the net. I thought “Wait, THAT Jerry Blavat?!” He probably finds it embarrassing these days but it’s in my mind the best thing he ever did. Any record store in the Philadelphia area is filled with his “For Yon Teenagers” doo wop comps c. 1960 in varied condition.
Great blog, thanks for all your hard work.
I remember that movie very well! Dig that official Monkees shirt on one guy (J.C.Penny carried that line I think). It was great to see the countryside circa the late’60s as the bus of kids traveled around…
I’ve seen this movie a few times and did not know this band was from my high school, although I recognize their names. Haley Mills was the star of the movie.
Believe me, Jerry Blavat was not embarrassed by “Tasty To Me” or any other song he did or performance he gave.