The Valkryies recorded one single at Continental Recordings in Framingham, released on Cori Records CR 31003. “Love You Like I Do” is excellent garage rock, with sharp drumming and good guitar and sax solos. “Blues for Cookie” is a slow saxophone instrumental.

Members included:

Frank Curtis – lead guitar and vocals
Steve Thorp – rhythm guitar and backing vocals; bass guitar on the single
Domenic Palumbo – tenor sax and bass guitar
Stan Baker – drums and backing vocals

Until Steve Thorp commented, I had no info on the group other than two song writer names: Francis Curtis (Francis Wesley Curtis, Jr.) and Domenic Palumbo. F. Curtis, Jr. registered “(That’s Why) I Love You Like I Do” on September 29, 1965. Domenic C. Palumbo registered “Blues for Cookie” on August 9, 1965. Donna Music BMI published both songs.

Steve sent in the photos and answered my questions about the Valkyries:

The Valkyries (also known as the New Valkyries) were active in the suburban Boston, Massachusetts area between 1965 and 1967.

Location and Personnel: The members of the band came from several small towns about 25 miles southwest of Boston. Frank “Snuffy” Curtis, the leader of the band, lived in Medway, Massachusetts. Curtis was a veteran of the local rock and roll/garage band scene and had fronted an earlier version of the Valkyries. He was 23 years old in 1965.

Stan Baker and Steve Thorp were from Medfield, Massachusetts, about 6 miles from Medway. Baker and Thorp had met in high school. Baker played drums in the school band and Thorp had been playing guitar for four years on his own and in a few small folk groups and rock bands.

Thorp and Baker shared a mutual love of rock and roll and R&B. The two started jamming together in 1964 at Baker’s house.  Baker and Thorp met Curtis through the local music scene, probably at a house party, and the three started playing together. Curtis then invited Baker and Thorp to form a new version of the Valks in early 1965.

Curtis knew a lot of people from the local music scene and brought in various musicians to play in the band from time to time. Domenic “Gitch” Palumbo was a tenor sax player and a friend of Curtis. Palumbo may have been from Franklin, MA, a small nearby city. Palumbo was the same age as Curtis, and, like Curtis, had a lot of experience in the local music scene.

By mid-summer the line-up was set: Curtis on lead guitar and vocals, Palumbo on sax, Thorp on rhythm guitar and back-up vocals, Baker on drums and back-up vocals. A succession of bass players came and went through the band.

Instrumentation and styles: The band played late 1950’s/early 1960’s American pop style: up tempo, guitar driven rock, with lots of reverb and a heavy emphasis on beat. Palumbo’s sax playing added touches of rockabilly and surf rock. Curtis’s singing reflected earlier singers like Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochrane. Although the band played mostly covers, Curtis was a talented songwriter who contributed several originals to the repertoire.

Where the band played: mostly high school dances and house parties. The band’s choice of venues was limited because Baker and Thorp were both underage and couldn’t work in bars and night clubs. Nevertheless, the group worked regularly and by 1966 was working bigger venues. The group’s biggest gig was opening for Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs in either late 1965 or mid 1966 at the Lake Pearl ballroom in Wrentham, MA (Palumbo had left the group, which now had a regular bass player). The group began to play small bars and clubs in the Boston area. Thorp left the group by the fall of 1966. The band continued to play as the “New Valkyries” until 1967.

Two photos show the group in action at a high school dance in Medfield, MA, in November 1965. Curtis, in the plaid sport jacket, is at center mic. The bass player partially shown in one of the photos may be Palumbo. Thorp is shown taking the lead vocal in one photograph.How the recording came about: Curtis and Palumbo came up with the idea of recording in late 1965. Palumbo located Continental Recording Studios in Framingham MA, about 10 miles north of Medway, and he agreed to front the costs of recording and pressing the discs.

The band arrived at Continental’s studios, probably in mid-September, well-rehearsed and ready to play. The group didn’t have a bass player at the time, so Thorp played a borrowed electric bass on both tracks. The band recorded both tracks over a few hours, needing only a couple of takes on each track. “Love You Like I Do” was a Curtis original. “Blues for Cookie” was a slow, doo-wop instrumental featuring Palumbo, an acknowledgment of his fronting the recording and pressing costs.

The recording system was simple but effective. Both Curtis’s guitar solo and the harmony vocals were double-tracked, using an eight-track recorder.

The follow-up: although the record got a little air play on local radio stations, it never really went anywhere. The Valkyries continued on with different personnel throughout 1966 and 1967.

Steve Thorp, June 2022