Kamuran Akkor has had a long career in music beginning in 1968. Kamuran is the sister of singer and actress Gönül Akkor.
This is her fourth single, I believe. “Sevgi Nedir Hiç Bilmedim” is a jaunty pop number with horns, featuring the band of drummer Vasfi Uçaroğlu. I think this 45 originally came with a picture sleeve – if anyone has the right sleeve for this single please contact me!
Ritchie Kunkle (guitar) and Andy Gore (bass) formed the Candelles in Wichita, Kansas in 1965. They changed their name to the Moanin’ Glories after Karl Berkebile (keyboards) and Marc Mourning (drums) joined in 1966.
The Moanin’ Glories recorded just one 45 for the Yorkshire label in 1967. The organ and harmony vocals give a dense sound to “She Took The Rain Out Of My Mind” and “You Better Watch Out For That Girl”. Both sides were written by Kunkle and Gore, and produced by Ken Ham.
Andy Gore had the band filmed performing both sides of the 45, using the set of KAKE-TV in Wichita for a promotional reel. The photos here are screen shots I took, but I unfortunately didn’t try to save the videos themselves. These were up on YouTube until a few days ago, hopefully they’ll be made available again soon.
The band relocated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1970, and toured Japan that year, but I’m not sure what they sounded like by that point. They broke up in 1971.
Don’t know a thing about this band other than the Argentine origin. “Me voy de fiesta con mis amigos” is a cool rocker with an “A Day in the Life” interlude and strange ending that seems to cut too soon. The song was written by ‘Timoteo’.
Bob Sutko vocals and harmonica, Greg Farley guitar, Allan Chitwood bass and Paul Bennett drums were the Bitter Sweets of Scottsdale, Arizona.
Their first single is the slow and melancholy “She Treats Me Bad”, written by Bob Sutko and Paul Bennett with P. Boynton. I’m not sure who P. Boynton was, but a Tony Boynton played with another Phoenix group, the Young Men. It was released in June or July of 1966 on the Hype label.
For the flip, “Cry Your Eyes Out”, Sutko and Farley wrote new lyrics to the music of the Byrds’ “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better”, and it worked well enough to reach the charts on KRUX AM in Phoenix in September of ’66.
A few months later they released “She Treats Me Bad” again on the Chari label a with a different b-side, “Road to Rann”, written by Bob Sutko and Allan Chitwood. By this time Paul “Skip” Ladd from the Laser Beats joined on lead guitar.
Skip Ladd wrote to me:
The manager Chari Zelman hired me to change the sound of the Bitter Sweets because they sounded too much like the Byrds. I wasn’t on the Hype label 45 and hated playing “She Treats Me Bad”, depressing, but it was a gig and loved playing lead guitar with Twentieth Century Zoo. I wrote the oboe parts, played 12 string parts, and the piano parts, wrote and sang the harmony parts when I was 18.
“Road To Rann” was recorded at Audio Recorders on 7th Street in Phoenix. Only rock song to start with an oboe solo.
The band moved out to Los Angeles in 1967 and released one final 45 on Original Sound: “In the Night” / “Another Chance”, both written by written by T. Evans and Bob Sutko. After this 45, the band became the Twentieth Century Zoo with two 45s on Chari A. Zellman’s CAZ label, plus two more singles and an LP Thunder on a Clear Day on Vault. At some point Randy Wells replaced Paul Bennett on drums.
The Chari and Original Sound 45s list the band as one word, the Bittersweets.
According to a comment below, Bob Sutko and Paul Bennett have passed away.
Thank you to Garry Baur for the scans of the Chari and Original Sound 45s and to Skip Ladd for the photo of the band.
Updated Jan. 2, 2012
From McLean, Virginia, the Apollos went through several personnel changes while leaving behind demos, live tapes and two 45s as their legacy. I’ve read conflicting accounts of who was in the band when, but with feedback from Jim Price and Tommy Vorhauer, this seems to be correct:
The original band consisted of brothers Dave and Don Harney on guitar, Jim Price on bass, and Dave Elliot on drums. Jan Sylvester soon replaced Elliot on drums was himself replaced by Wayne Groves, and Jon Parisi came in on keyboards. The band’s repertoire leant heavily on surf numbers until they added Tommy Vorhauer on vocals. This is the group in the photo at top.
A win at a local battle of the bands gave them studio time at Edgewood Recording Studio in D.C., and they cut several sides, including early versions of “That’s the Breaks” and “Country Boy”. They re-recorded these two for their own Delta label in 1965.
“Country Boy” is a fine surf instrumental written by Don Harney. Surprisingly it has never been comped before. “That’s the Breaks” has great drumming and nice fluid guitar work with a strong vocal by Vorhauer. I’m not sure who’s playing the organ on this 45.
Tom Vorhauer clarified some points about the band in a comment below that I’ll reproduce here:
Jon Parisi played keyboard and wrote the music for “That’s the Breaks”. I wrote the words and sang lead vocal. I also sang lead vocals on “Target Love” and “It’s a Monster”. We were playing on M street in Washington DC at Mack’s Pipe and Drum and were approached by two gentlemen who were scouts for Paramount Artists. They were interested in signing the Apollos to a record contract but on one condition, they wanted to replace our manager Bill Moser, we refused and never signed.
By late 1966 Vorhauer, Groves and Parisi had left to be replaced by Doug Collins on vocals, Dwight James on keyboards and Wayne Goubilee on drums. Their second 45, “Target Love” b/w “It’s a Monster” on the Montgomery label is a great double-sided 45. I hope to feature it in the future, but it seems to be rarer than the Delta one.
There’s also a live tape of the band, with good versions of “Dirty Water” and “I’m Crying”. At some point they were turned down by MGM, and that seems to be the end of their story.
In December, 2011 Jim Price contacted me and gave some background on the group:
We were from McLean, Virginia, not Falls Church. Dave, Don and I all lived in Woodside Estates, McLean. That’s where it all started in 1963. I was playing my guitar on our front porch and Dave and Don came wandering up and introduced them selves and said they played as well. I was playing lead guitar, Dave rhythm and Don played bass.We switched up as time went on and everyone found their niche.
We did our demo cut of 4 songs at Edgewood:
1. “That’s The Breaks” words by Tommy Vorhauer and music by the band.
2. “Country Boy” by Don Harney
3. “Dance Dance Dance” (Beach Boys) sung by Wayne Groves
4. “Mr. Lonely”, a remake of the original, sung by Tommy Vorhauer“Mr. Lonely” was to be our front side of the first 45 but we decided to go with two original songs instead. They were both hits but “Mr. Lonely” would have been a hit as well. It would today.
I created “Delta Music Company” with the help of our agent Bill Moser, thus Delta on the label. We outsourced the art work for the label. Since Edgewood had recorded the songs we contracted through them to have the records pressed and the labels put on them. The records would then be made and sent to us and Bill and I would take them out to the stores and put them on the shelves. In those days you could put your records in stores on consignment. It was all we could do to keep up.
MGM did offer to buy the rights to “That’s The Breaks” but we turned them down. Paramount contacted our agent Bill Mosser three times trying to get us to sign a contract with them but we would lose $ on each record that was sold so we turned them down. Within 3 weeks of the last turndown, our records were not being played on any radio station in the nation. Paramount told Bill that “the boys will be sorry they did;nt sign with them.” The stores even started refusing to slot them any more. “Target Love” and “It’s A Monster” only made it to #10 before it vanished from the airways.
Through this phase the band members were: Don Harney, Dave Harney, Wayne Groves, John Parisi (now John Ian), Jim Price and Tommy Vorhauer. Some time after that John Parisi left the band and we added Dwight James.
The summer of 1966 we recorded “It’s A Monster” and “Target Love” on the Montgomery Label. I can’t remember the name of the studio. Shortly after that Tommy and I left the band and went to Boston to college. Dave and Don Harney continued to run the band with a new drummer who was the singer as well. When I was home on break, I would go and sing with them down in Georgetown, lots of fun.
The band stayed together for a while longer then everyone seemed to go their own way. Tommy is now in Denver, Dave is in Dayton Ohio, Don is in Seattle, Wayne is in Great Falls VA, John Ian DC, Dwight Fairfax VA and I am in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
My oldest son Jason Price does production work in his spare time in the northern VA area – take a look at www.squadcar37.com.
Jim Price
“Doshaburi no Ame no Nakade” (In the Pouring Rain) / “Boy and Girl” is her second release, a big hit in early ’69. Akiko had a starring role in one of my favorite Japanese films, Stray Cat Rock: Girl Boss, which also features a version of her singing “Boy and Girl” backed by the Mops.
Akiko Wada is now a well-known TV personality in Japan.
UpdateIn 2008, Akiko did a big 40th anniversay in show business at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, a very good and exhaustive overlook of her career.
The Werps recorded one 45 for the WGW label of Somerville, New Jersey in 1967. People who think horns have no place in garage songs dislike “Love’s a Fire”, but I think the horns help the sense of mayhem, and I dig the soloing over the drum rolls. There’s really no other record from any era quite like this one.
Tim Warren made a huge effort to get a version without the horns for Back from the Grave vol. 6, but wound up with a slower take without the shouting and intensity of the 45 that dissatisfied most everyone.
“Shades of Blue” burns at a slow pace compared to the urgency of “Love’s a Fire”, but it’s excellent too. Both songs were written by James Serenko and John Matzko, and the record was produced by Geno Viscione.
I don’t know the full names of all the members or what instruments they played. According to comments below, there was a guitarist named Clark (surname?) and a drummer Paul (surname?).
Tage Weie sent me the scans and transfers of an acetate from Studio 76. The version of “Love’s a Fire” on this acetate is the same as the one on Back from the Grave, except it’s about 20 seconds shorter, with a fade out instead of coming to a stop. The flip of the acetate is another cool original, “Voodoo Doll”, subdued but also intense, and possibly inspired by Arthur Lee’s “Signed, D.C.”
Studio 76 was located at 1650 Broadway, around the block from the Brill Building. The studio was owned by Ed Chalpin, who is best known for having Jimi Hendrix under contract “for $1 and 1% royalty” before Jimi met Chas Chandler – a contract that has since earned Chalpin millions through lawsuits, as well as U.S. rights to the “Band of Gypsys” LP. I highly recommend Mike Rashkow’s article about working at Studio 76 with Chalpin and his father Sam.
Anyone have a photo of the group?
Thanks to Tage Weie for sharing his one-of-a-kind acetate with us.
Within a week of forming they had a contract and a new band name, the Carnabeats. They immediately went into the studio to record their first 45, a cover of “I Love You” by their main influence, the Zombies. It was a huge hit, the biggest of their career, and led to the release of the Zombies original version on 45 in Japan.
They put out a total of ten singles, a split LP with the Jaguars, and their own LP Carnabeats First Album, all of varying quality before breaking up in 1969, but here and there are b-sides and odd releases that together make for a good collection of music.
The B-side of their second 45 “Koio Shiyo Yo Jenny”, is a cover of the Canadian band the Great Scots’ “Give Me Lovin'” every bit as good as the original.
The b-side to an overwrought ballad, “Chu! Chu! Chu! (Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!)” shows how the Carnabeats could range from silly pop to rocking moments within a single song. Still, this is maybe their wildest performance, containing a stupendous fuzz break and slamming drum work by Takano.
Their next 45 was a collaboration with Gary Walker (Gary Leeds). “Cutie Morning Moon” must be one of the strangest of all Group Sounds records. Produced by Scott Walker, “Cutie Morning Moon” is wonderfully moody and uncommercial. Not many have heard the flip, “Hello Gary”, which is merely a dopey Gary Walker goofing over the backing track of “Cutie Morning Moon”. Later on, the Carnabeats opened for Gary Walker and Rain’s Japanese tour.
From japrocksampler.com:
Although The Carnabeats were friendly with other Group Sounds acts, the band’s management insisted that they maintain a distance in public in order to appear cool and aloof, and Carnabeats drummer Ai Takano later described Jaguars singer Sin Okamoto visiting his house after dark to keep up the deceit.
However, a professional friendship developed between the band and The Walker Brothers. Ai Takano later described drummer Gary Leeds, who appeared on the B-side of their super-groovy Strangeloves style hit ‘Cutie Morning Moon’, trying to sing and play the A-side song and failing miserably.
“Go Go Stop” is from what seems to be their rarest 45. It’s a fine b-side that hasn’t been comped before to my knowledge.
Last up are a couple tracks from various artists LPs from the time. “Love Only For You” is a track from Let’s Go Group Sounds #3 and “Twinkie Lee”, with a brief but rockin’ guitar solo, is from Group Sounds World Top Hits.
After breaking up, Tadao Okada joined the Japanese cast of Hair while Ai Takano joined the Eddie Ban Group and then the Golden Cups, performing with them at their last, disastrous gig in Okinawa. Ai has since passed away.
A couple months ago I wrote about the Go Nuts, a short-lived group from Brooklyn, NY. Their 45 “Flower” is an idealistic tribute to the Summer of Love youth that has been compared to the Seeds for its organ sound and vocals.
Soon afterwards, Jared K. sent me a scan and mp3 of a quite different record by Patrolman Vic Virzera with the Premiers. It seems that when they weren’t waxing eloquently about the flower children, the Virzera brothers were trying to convince the kids to trust the cops!
Jared wrote: “Sounds like he may have been the coolest cop of all time. ‘He’s On Your Side’ is the a-side and is another organ driven rocker (with none of the psych flourishes of ‘Flower’) about getting along with the police, because they’re here to help. Flip is a doo-woppy group vocal.
“Both sides have songwriting credits to brothers Vic and Michael Virzera with the b-side additionally crediting P. Drift. Michael produced the b-side (‘Two Hearts’) and Elliot Chiprut produced ‘He’s On Your Side’.”
Recently I heard from Vic Virzera himself, who have me the history of his groups, and sent me two early song they cut, the 50’s rocker Nina that I’m featuring here, and a ballad called Mystic Mirror. In Vic’s own words:
In 1962, Nina and Mystic Mirror were local grass roots Flatbush hits….our demos were being played in quite a few juke boxes. At that time we were The Premiers with the sub theme “Music with a New Sound”.
Elvis’s early producers, Wally Gold and Araon Schroeder (they wrote Elvis’ 1960 #1 hit “It’s Now or Never”, and Wally Gold co-wrote “It’s My Party”) offered us a contract that had “power of attorney clauses” and we declined….in retrospect …I guess we should have signed it, but at the time we thought we were doing the smart thing. We knew of so many groups that were working their butts off, traveling around the country while the powers that be would make all the money (since they had the power to sign your name to spend the earnings), claiming the money went for promotions, expenses, etc. Another consideration was the fact that, my brother, Mike, would have to had given up his job in open heart research, where he was instrumental in designing a heart-lung machine apparatus.
The Go Nuts were formed as a rock show group in 1965 and lasted about two years. We did recordings and appearances, including a performance aired Christmas Day, 1966 on the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour. It was at the CBS Ed Sullivan Theater. Our rock rendition of “Shortenin’ Bread” really went over well… …girls were screaming, people standing and rocking with the beat, lots of applause etc. Unfortunately, similar to what happened to the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, probably the same tech engineers had my lead voice as low as the background voices and what was aired sounded like all background. Still, we came in second and had a great time.
Regarding Patrolman Vic Virzera and the Premiers, in 1971 we were scheduled to perform the song on the cross country David Frost Show, a special on police. Being a live show they ran out of time but paid us for being there and the rehearsal.
I retired several years ago from the NYCPD but I’m still playing gigs with my brother, Mike, and my band, the Vic Vincent Group, in the New York Metro area.
Patrolman Vic Virzera with the Premiers – He’s On Your Side
Thank you Jared for contributing “He’s On Your Side”, and Steve Hogan for contributing the photo of the Go Nuts. Special thanks to Vic Virzera for sharing his acetate of “Nina”.
The Renegades of Grand Rapids, MI, had roots in a music scene that predates the British Invasion. As the Renegades IV and Renegades V, they released two 45s, instrumentals “Greensleeves” / “Autumn Night” on Fenton 945 and “Wine, Wine, Wine” / “Love and Fury” on Dubonay 982 (a Fenton offshoot) that are steeped in 50’s rock ‘n’ roll, as their frantic version of “Wine, Wine, Wine” attests.
Dropping the roman numerals, they cut their finest and most original record, “She’s Your Find” / “Raving Blue” in 1966 for the Cambridge label. Here the band is at their peak, playing with intense restraint behind Scott Vanderleest’s impassioned vocals on two well-crafted songs by the band.
“She’s Your Find” is a collaboration by Scott Vanderleest and guitarist Fitz Green, and features a fine guitar solo, booming and precise drum work and prominent tambourine. The other members of the band were Craig Menees on five string bass, Brian Bracken on the Conn organ (prior to the Cambridge 45, as Craig points out below), Dave Heth on organ, and Rick Idema on drums.
Fitz Green wrote the other side, the beautiful lament “Raving Blue”. My copy of the 45 is scratched as can be, but I had to include this song despite the less than perfect sound quality.
All three of their 45s charted locally on either WERX or WLAV. Unfortunately the band broke up soon after releasing “She’s Your Find”, ending their promising career.
Recently bassist Craig Menees filled out the history of the group:
The group began instrumental-only and I was not the original bass player. My predecessor was named Bruce Baldwin, the bassist on “Greensleeves” / “Autumn Night”. When he left East High for private school I came on board which would have been Rick, Fitz and my junior year in high school – 1964. We were classmates and knew each other well. Brian was a year older and his mother sort of managed the group. East High was the connection.
We knew early on (Kingtones?) that a vocalist was important in order to appeal to a larger audience. A few groups (Dave and the Shadows) had a female singer, but traveling at our age and the parental concern nixed that idea. One guy (Dwayne King?) from up North was very talented, but wanted to play lead guitar and sing which would have diminished Fitz’ role and Fitz was much too talented to just play rhythm guitar.
Somehow I think Scott heard we were looking for someone (I’ll have to confirm this with him) and he came over to try out and we knew very quickly that he was a good choice and why not? – tall, Elvis look alike who sounded like him too. Maybe a bit more like Ral Donner out of Chicago.
Our drummer, nicknamed HI3 (Henry Idema III), was often courted to join other bands, including, if I recall, the Kingsmen when they were playing the Michigan State Fair one summer.
“Greensleeves” / “Autumn Night” and “Wine Wine Wine” / “Love and Fury” were recorded at the Our Theater [in the basement, the first location of Dave Kalmbach’s Great Lakes Recording Studio]. I believe that to be the case because I do not recall traveling to Sparta.
Like many groups eventually personality issues flared up and Brian was replaced by Dave who had attended Albion, but was living in GR and going to Calvin at the time. Dave had a younger brother, Jeff, who was a classmate of ours so we knew the family and I knew Dave through athletics. We underestimated his musical abilities until he auditioned. Once we began practicing in earnest and playing regularly things worked out very well.
The keyboardist on “Raving Blue”/”She’s Your Find” was actually Dave Heth. Dave and guitarist Fitz Green sang the harmony on “She’s Your Find” behind Scott’s great voice. “Raving Blue / “She’s Your Find” were recorded in Phil Robert’s family home basement studio in East Grand Rapids before he opened Midwestern Sound [on] Leonard St. I was never in the facility, but Fitz probably was at various times. Like so many others we were big Kingtones fans, knew Phil and his brother Dave, and in some ways tried to emulate them.
“Raving Blue / “She’s Your Find” were recorded in Phil Robert’s family home basement studio in East Grand Rapids before he opened Midwestern Sound. I suspect the neighbors complaining about a business in their residential midst (lots of cars) and Phil’s increasing client list lead to his move to Leonard St. I was never in the facility, but Fitz probably was at various times.
Rick’s pearl gray Ludwig drums and Fitz’ white Fender Jaguar (he also had a beautiful Gibson 12 string heard on Raving Blue) came from Manny’s Music House in New York City. Scott’s sound system consisted of a Bogen amp, Shure microphone and JBL speakers with no enhancement which was a tribute to his voice. Fitz used a Fender amp with reverb and I played a rare white Fender 6 string bass through a Dynaco amp with a 15″ JBL speaker.
Our senior year in high school the band played every week including three consecutive weekends at the old Ponytail Club in Petoskey/Harbor Springs. Frank Russo, who was a close friend of Scott’s from South High, was the informal manager and we used to meet at his family’s pizzeria on S. Division and critique our performance when we returned to Grand Rapids, typically well after midnight.
Probably the best the group ever sounded was the summer of 1966 when we played two separate two week gigs at the Shamrock Lounge. Problem was we were underage except for Dave so our contemporaries could not get in to see us.
Four songs I recall would at times cause the audience to stop dancing and watch – Fitz’ playing “Misirlou” and “Johnny B. Goode”(his right hand was a blur), Rick playing “Let There Be Drums” (long, powerful solo) and Scott’s soulful rendition of “Old Man River” (not often heard in rock circles). Scott was both charismatic and humble which doesn’t always happen with a lead singer. Turns out he and I were in Vietnam within a year of each other although we didn’t know it until recently.
The band broke up primarily because of geography (Fitz – Kalamazoo; Rick Idema – Ann Arbor; Scott – GR; myself – E. Lansing) and Dave Heth’s untimely death in an automobile accident. I recently spoke with Scott and we hope to rendezvous in the near future…
Craig Menees
June 2009
Thank you to Bill Vander Ploeg for the photo of the group at top!
I’m sorry to report Scott Vanderleest passed away on January 13, 2021.
Update: Fitz Green has continued in music, playing with the Moonrays, among other groups.
