Robin and the Three Hoods released this spirited and crude cover of Bobby Comstock’s “I Want To Do It” four times. First in 1964, it was issued as Marrell’s Marauders on the yellow Fan Jr. label out of Madison, Wisconsin, titled “I Wanta Do It” backed with a fine surf instrumental with a good drum break, “The Marauder”. With the name of the band changed to Robin and the Three Hoods, they issued it again on Fan Jr., with the same label number, FJ-1003, using the same pressing plates.

Two years later, the band reissued “I Wanto Do It” on the green Fan Jr. label with the b-side changed to “That’s Tuff”, a neat tune by one Rob Bernhagen. New stampers were made for this release, T4KM-5680/1.

Released at the same time was another single, very rare today, “A Day You’ll Never Forget” (an original by Bernhagen and Jim Schwartz) b/w “We The Living” (Bernhagen), with RCA custom pressing number T4KM-5678/9.

Finally on December 31, 1966, Billboard reported that Hollywood Records had picked up “I Wannna Do It” / “That’s Tuff” for national distribution, changing the A-side title slightly, and pressing out of Columbia’s plant in Nashville.

Skip Nelson is credited with production on each release. The Hollywood pressing is of relatively poor quality.

Rob Bernhagen played bass, keyboards and sang lead vocals as ‘Robin’. He wrote to me about the band:

The Marauders, with Mike Warner on drums, all graduated from Madison East High in 1963. We had joined the Musicians Union that April and had played school gigs and a few actual paying gigs around Madison.

We borrowed “I Wanna Do It” from Bobby Comstock and recorded it in Dec. of 1963. Our manager, Frederick Arthur Nelson, aka Skip, did own a music store and produce all our records. We started playing around Wisconsin and Northern Illinois and found many “Marauder” bands so we changed our name and the label on the records … same recording. I found a paperback book about Merrill’s Marauders from WWII and plagiarized the name….and changed the spelling. As the leader of the band, I became “Bobby Marrell”.

I played bass and keyboards and was the lead vocalist. Dave Reed played lead guitar and Jim Schwartz played rhythm guitar. Bruce Benson was our drummer, he lives in Northern California. The only personnel change from the Marauders was at drums, Mike Warner was our first drummer and he played on the first version with “The Marauder” on the flip side.

We were all in college and playing part time within a couple of hundred miles of Madison. Mike Warner decided to drop out of college and try music full time so Bruce Benson joined us and we borrowed the costume idea from Paul Revere and the Raiders and came up with “The Hoods”. Once again, as leader and vocalist, I became Robin Hood. We all wore Robin Hood outfits….and tights…

We played the entire state of Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and border towns in Northern Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota. Went as far south as Springfield, Il. We broke-up the band 1/31/69 when Jim and I graduated from college.

We got limited airplay because of the suggestive title which is why everyone loved the song to begin with. We got a “pick to click” from Billboard and a review in Cashbox which is why Starday got involved. They were to handle national distribution… which never happened. We stayed on Wisconsin statewide charts for over a year.

Funny story behind “The Marauder”… we went in the studio to record “I Wanna Do It” and when that was finished, we started to pack up. The engineer asked about the flip side to our 45 RPM and we were dumbfounded. In our youthful ignorance, we hadn’t even considered a flip side. Faced with the problem we jammed “The Marauder” from an instrumental “break song” that we were using during shows. One take and it was done. We never played the entire song on any gig … just enough of it to announce a break.

I’m the only member who continued to play professionally….I’m in an oldies band today, the Tom Tayback Band. Jim quit altogether, Bruce plays a little on the side, and Dave is deceased. I’m not in contact with Mike so I’m not sure about him.

We did produce a couple of other records but had nothing to do with the “green bean” thing.

Thanks to Kim D. for sending in the photo card with signatures above. Kim wrote to me “I saved this card for years which Robin and the Three Hoods signed and gave to me in the 60’s at a place they performed at called “The Illusions” in Neenah, Wisconsin. We had alot of bands frequent that place. You had to be 16 years old to enter, but I always looked older, so they let me in. Good times!”