The Apollos came from Pleasant Hills, a suburb south of Pittsburgh. The top side of their only 45 is “I Know Your Mind” a doo-wop influenced ballad. The flip is an instrumental, “Room 4”, marred by the guitarist being out of tune.
Top side was written by Speck-Snyder, flip by Snyder-Naogle. Produced by Jim Hudson for Bobby Records and Dominator Music.
Phil Haines sent in the photos of the band seen here and added these comments:
The Apollos graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, Jefferson Hills, PA in 1964, except Eddie Zebert, 1963.
The Apollos had four singers: lead singer Paul Speck, Lanny Orner, Eddie Zebert and George McCormick. The singers didn’t play any instruments.
Instrumentalists in the original group: lead guitar Al Naugle, rhythm guitar Dave Ferguson, and drums Dave Bruggeman. This was the makeup of the group 1964 – 1966.
George asked me, at home in Pleasant Hills, to borrow my bass amp for the record. They piled into a car and went into town (Pittsburgh) for the recording. When George brought the amp back, he said something about it didn’t work with the studio equipment, so they plugged directly into the board. My guess is that the rhythm guitarist Dave Ferguson (?), who played low notes on a 6-string, sounded better in the board than through a bass amp, if indeed this was the personnel on the record.
There was a line “I Know Your Mind” in the Bobby Marchan song, “There Is Something On Your Mind.” Don’t know if they borrowed it consciously from the record or not. I always took the record as being ahead of its time, the first of introspective songs to come later in the sixties. They were a great band. The first to come out of “the drugstore,” local hangout “Sun Drug.”
They also put on a heck of a show. They acted out “Big Boy Pete,” by the Olympics. They also performed Eugene Fox’s “Sinner’s Dream.” They may have also, in this earlier period, acted “Along Came Jones,” by the Coasters. When I played bass for them in 1967, we sang the song, but no acting. They had a huge following in Pittsburgh.
