Vanilla Fudge
is an American rock band known predominantly for their extended rock arrangements of contemporary hit songs, most notably “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”.
The band’s original lineup—vocalist and organist Mark Stein, bassist and vocalist Tim Bogert, lead guitarist/vocalist Vince Martell, and drummer and vocalist Carmine Appice—recorded five albums during the years 1967–69, before disbanding in 1970. The band is currently touring with three of the four original members, Mark Stein, Vince Martell, and Carmine Appice with Pete Bremy on bass as Bogert retired in 2009.
The band has been cited as “one of the few American links between psychedelia and what soon became heavy metal.”
Stein and Bogert had played in a local band called Rick Martin & The Showmen. The pair were so impressed by the swinging sound and floods of organ of The Rascals they decided to form their own band in 1965 with Martell and Rick Martin’s drummer, Mark Dolfen, who was quickly replaced by Joey Brennan. Originally calling themselves The Electric Pigeons, they soon shortened the name to The Pigeons. In December 1966 Brennan moved on to The Younger Brothers Band and Bogert became very impressed with a young drummer named Carmine Appice he’d heard playing at the Headliner Club on 43rd Street in a cover band called Thursday’s Children. Appice was asked to join The Pigeons and in his 2016 autobiography, Stick It!, Carmine explained the name change to “Vanilla Fudge”: “In April 1967 the Pigeons got signed to Atlantic Records. But there was one drawback, however: Atlantic didn’t want to sign “The Pigeons”. Ahmet Ertegun, the label’s founder and president, didn’t like that name and told us we had to change it. We didn’t mind, in fact, I had always thought the Pigeons was a weird thing to be called but had just gone with it. We tried to think up a new name but were getting nowhere until we played a gig at the Page 2 club on Long Island and ended up talking to a chick named Dee Dee who worked there. She told us how her grandfather used to call her Vanilla Fudge. Then she looked at us and added ‘Maybe you guys should call yourselves that—you’re like white soul music’. We liked it. We told our manager, Phil Basile. He liked it. We told Atlantic and they liked it, too. So Vanilla Fudge it was”. A recording of the Pigeons was released by Scepter/Wand in 1970 under the title of “While the World was Eating Vanilla Fudge.”
Vanilla Fudge was managed by the aforementioned reputed Lucchese crime family member Phillip Basile, who operated several popular clubs in New York. Their first three albums (Vanilla Fudge, The Beat Goes On, and Renaissance) were produced by Shadow Morton, whom the band met through The Rascals. When Led Zeppelin first toured the USA in early 1969, they opened for Vanilla Fudge on some shows.
The band’s biggest hit was its cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” a slowed-down, hard rocking version of a song originally recorded by The Supremes. This version featured Stein’s psychedelic-baroque organ intro and Appice’s energetic drumming. It was a Top 10 hit in Canada, the US, and Australia and a Top 20 hit in the UK in 1967.
The members of Vanilla Fudge were great admirers of the Beatles, and covered several of their songs including “Ticket to Ride” and “Eleanor Rigby.” The self-titled debut album quotes “Strawberry Fields Forever” at the end, with the line “there’s nothing to get hung abou
Spencer Davis Group
are a British rock band formed in Birmingham in 1963, by Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood and his brother, Muff Winwood. Their best known songs include the UK number ones “Somebody Help Me” and “Keep on Running” (both written by reggae musician Jackie Edwards), “I’m a Man” and “Gimme Some Lovin'”, which reached #2 in the UK and #7 in the US.
Steve Winwood left in 1967 to form Traffic before joining Blind Faith, then forging a career as a solo artist. After releasing a few more singles, the band ceased activity in 1968. They briefly reunited from 1973 to 1974 and Davis restarted a new group in 2006.
The Spencer Davis Group was formed in 1963 in Birmingham when Welsh guitarist Spencer Davis recruited vocalist and organist Steve Winwood, and his bass playing brother, Muff Winwood. The group was completed with Pete York on drums. Originally called the Rhythm and Blues Quartette, the band performed regularly in the city. In 1964 they signed their first recording contract after Chris Blackwell of Island Records saw them at an appearance in a local club; Blackwell also became their producer. (Island was at that time a small label, so Blackwell got them on UK Fontana for distribution.) Muff Winwood came up with the band’s name, reasoning “Spencer was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews, so I pointed out that if we called it the Spencer Davis Group, the rest of us could stay in bed and let him do them.”
Breakthrough success
The group’s first professional recording was a cover version of “Dimples”; at the end of 1965 they gained their first number one single with “Keep On Running”. In 1966, they followed this with “Somebody Help Me” and “When I Come Home”. They had one single issued in the US on Fontana, as well as “Keep On Running” and “Somebody Help Me” on Atco, but due to lack of promotion, none of these 3 singles got airplay or charted.
For the German market the group released a medley of “Det war in Schöneberg, im Monat Mai” and “Mädel ruck ruck ruck an meine grüne Seite” (the first is from a 1913 Berlin operetta, the second is a Swabian traditional) as a tribute single for that audience, Davis having studied in West Berlin in the early 1960s.
By the end of 1966 and the beginning of 1967, the group released two more hits, “Gimme Some Lovin'” and “I’m a Man”. Both of them sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold record status. These tracks proved to be their two best-known successes, especially in the U.S. (where they had signed to United Artists). Jimmy Miller was their producer.
In 1966 the group starred in The Ghost Goes Gear, a British musical comedy film, directed by Hugh Gladwish, and also starring Sheila White and Nicholas Parsons. The plot involved the group in a stay at the childhood home of their manager, a haunted manor house in the English countryside
The Hollies
are an English pop/rock group best known for their pioneering and distinctive three-part vocal harmony style. The Hollies became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s (231 weeks on the UK singles charts during the 1960s, the 9th highest of any artist of the decade) and into the mid 1970s. It was formed by Allan Clarke and Graham Nash in 1962 as a Merseybeat-type music group in Manchester, although some of the band members came from towns north of there. Graham Nash left the group in 1968 to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash.
They enjoyed considerable popularity in many countries (at least 60 singles or EPs and 26 albums charting somewhere in the world, spanning over five decades), although they did not achieve major US chart success until 1966 with “Bus Stop”. The Hollies had over 30 charting singles on the UK Singles Chart, and 22 on the Billboard Hot 100, with major hits on both sides of the Atlantic that included “Just One Look”, “Look Through Any Window”, “I Can’t Let Go”, “Bus Stop”, “Stop Stop Stop”, “On a Carousel”, “Carrie Anne”, “Jennifer Eccles”, and later “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”, and “The Air That I Breathe”.
They are one of the few British groups of the early 1960s, along with the Rolling Stones, that have never disbanded and continue to record and perform. In recognition of their achievements, the Hollies were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
The Band
was a Canadian-American roots rock group formed in Toronto, Ontario in 1968 by Rick Danko (bass guitar, vocals), Garth Hudson (keyboards, saxophone), Richard Manuel (keyboards, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), and Levon Helm (drums, vocals). The members of The Band first came together as rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins’s backing group, the Hawks, which they joined one by one between 1958 and 1963.
In 1964, they separated from Hawkins, after which they toured and released a few singles as Levon and the Hawks and the Canadian Squires. The next year, Bob Dylan hired them for his U.S. tour in 1965 and world tour in 1966. Following the 1966 tour, the group moved with Dylan to Saugerties, New York, where they made the informal 1967 recordings that became The Basement Tapes, the basis for their 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink. Because they were always “the band” to various frontmen, Helm said the name “The Band” worked well when the group came into its own. The group began performing as The Band in 1968 and went on to release ten studio albums. Dylan continued to collaborate with The Band over the course of their career, including a joint 1974 tour.
The original configuration of The Band ended its touring career in 1976 with an elaborate live ballroom performance featuring numerous musical celebrities. This performance was filmed for Martin Scorsese’s 1978 documentary The Last Waltz. The Band resumed touring in 1983 without guitarist Robertson, who had found success with a solo career and as a Hollywood music producer. Following a 1986 show, Manuel committed suicide. The remaining three members continued to tour and record albums with a succession of musicians filling Manuel’s and Robertson’s roles; the final configuration of the group included Richard Bell (piano), Randy Ciarlante (drums), and Jim Weider (guitar). Danko died of heart failure in 1999, after which the group broke up for good. Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998 and was unable to sing for several years, but he eventually regained the use of his voice. He continued to perform and released several successful albums until he died in 2012.
The group was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Traffic
were an English rock band, formed in Birmingham. The group was formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason. They began as a psychedelic rock group and diversified their sound through the use of instruments such as keyboards like the Mellotron and harpsichord, sitar, and various reed instruments, and by incorporating jazz and improvisational techniques in their music.2] Their first three singles were “Paper Sun”, “Hole in My Shoe”, and “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”.
After disbanding in 1969, during which time Winwood joined Blind Faith, Traffic reunited in 1970 to release the critically acclaimed album John Barleycorn Must Die. The band’s line-up varied from this point until they disbanded again in 1974. A partial reunion, with Winwood and Capaldi, took place in 1994.
Traffic were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.
Petula Clark
is an English singer, actress and composer whose career spans seven decades.
Clark’s professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II. During the 1950s she started recording in French and having international success in both French and English, with such songs as “The Little Shoemaker”, “Baby Lover”, “With All My Heart” and “Prends Mon Cœur”. During the 1960s, she became known globally for her popular upbeat hits, including “Downtown”, “I Know a Place”, “My Love”, “A Sign of the Times”, “I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love”, “Colour My World”, “This Is My Song” and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”, and she was dubbed “the First Lady of the British Invasion”. She has sold more than 68 million records.
The Animals
are an English rhythm and blues and rock band, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early 1960s. The band moved to London upon finding fame in 1964. The Animals were known for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon, as exemplified by their signature song and transatlantic No. 1 hit single, “House of the Rising Sun”, as well as by hits such as “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, “It’s My Life”, “I’m Crying” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. The band balanced tough, rock-edged pop singles against rhythm and blues-orientated album material. They were known in the US as part of the British Invasion.
The Animals underwent numerous personnel changes in the mid-1960s and suffered from poor business management. Under the name Eric Burdon and the Animals, the much-changed act moved to California and achieved commercial success as a psychedelic and hard rock band with hits like “San Franciscan Nights”, “When I Was Young” and “Sky Pilot”, before disbanding at the end of the decade. Altogether, the group had ten Top Twenty hits in both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100.
The original lineup of Burdon, Alan Price, Chas Chandler, Hilton Valentine and John Steel reunited for a one off benefit concert in their home city of Newcastle in 1968. They later had brief comebacks in 1975 and 1983. There have been several partial regroupings of the original era members since then under various names. The Animals were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
The Byrds
were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining the sole consistent member, until the group disbanded in 1973. Although they only managed to attain the huge commercial success of contemporaries like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones for a short period in the mid-60s, the Byrds are today considered by critics to be one of the most influential bands of the 1960s. Their signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn’s jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar was immediately absorbed into the vocabulary of popular music and has continued to be influential up to the present day.
Initially, the band pioneered the musical genre of folk rock on their album Mr. Tambourine Man (1965), by melding the influence of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music. As the 1960s progressed, the band was influential in originating psychedelic rock and raga rock, with their song “Eight Miles High” and the albums Fifth Dimension (1966), Younger Than Yesterday (1967) and The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968). They also played a pioneering role in the development of country rock, with the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968) representing their fullest immersion into the genre.
The original five-piece lineup of the Byrds consisted of Jim McGuinn (lead guitar, vocals), Gene Clark (tambourine, vocals), David Crosby (rhythm guitar, vocals), Chris Hillman (bass guitar, vocals), and Michael Clarke (drums). However, this version of the band was relatively short-lived and by early 1966, Clark had left due to problems associated with anxiety and his increasing isolation within the group. The Byrds continued as a quartet until late 1967, when Crosby and Clarke also departed the band. McGuinn and Hillman decided to recruit new members, including country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, but by late 1968, Hillman and Parsons had also exited the band. McGuinn elected to rebuild the band’s membership and, between 1968 and 1973, he helmed a new incarnation of the Byrds, featuring guitarist Clarence White among others. McGuinn disbanded the then current lineup in early 1973, to make way for a reunion of the original quintet. The Byrds’ final album was released in March 1973, with the reunited group disbanding soon afterwards.
Several former members of the band went on to successful careers of their own, either as solo artists or as members of such groups as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Desert Rose Band. In the late 1980s, Gene and Michael both began touring as the Byrds, prompting a legal challenge from McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman over the rights to the band’s name. As a result of this, McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman performed a series of reunion concerts as the Byrds in 1989 and 1990, and also recorded four new Byrds’ songs. In 1991, the Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw the five original members performing together for the last time. Gene Clark died of a heart attack later that year, while Michael Clarke died of liver failure in 1993. McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman remain active.
Dusty Springfield
as an English pop singer and record producer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s. With her distinctive sensual mezzo-soprano sound, she was an important blue-eyed soul singer and at her peak was one of the most successful British female performers, with six top 20 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 and sixteen on the UK Singles Chart from 1963 to 1989. She is a member of the US Rock and Roll and UK Music Halls of Fame. International polls have named Springfield among the best female rock artists of all time. Her image, supported by a peroxide blonde bouffant hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy make-up, as well as her flamboyant performances made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.
Born in West Hampstead to a family that enjoyed music, Springfield learned to sing at home. In 1958 she joined her first professional group, The Lana Sisters, and two years later formed a pop-folk vocal trio, The Springfields, with her brother Tom Springfield and Tim Field. They became the UK’s top selling act. Her solo career began in 1963 with the upbeat pop hit, “I Only Want to Be with You”. Among the hits that followed were “Wishin’ and Hopin’ ” (1964), “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” (1964), “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” (1966), and “Son of a Preacher Man” (1968).
As a fan of US soul music, she brought many little-known soul singers to the attention of a wider UK record-buying audience by hosting the first national TV performance of many top-selling Motown artists beginning in 1965. Partly owing to these efforts, a year later she eventually became the best-selling female singer in the world and topped a number of popularity polls, including Melody Maker‘s Best International Vocalist. Although she was never considered a Northern Soul artist in her own right, her efforts contributed a great deal to the formation of the genre as a result. She was the first UK singer to top the New Musical Express readers’ poll for Female Singer.
To boost her credibility as a soul artist, Springfield went to Memphis, Tennessee, to record Dusty in Memphis, an album of pop and soul music with the Atlantic Records main production team. Released in 1969, it has been ranked among the greatest albums of all time by the US magazine Rolling Stone and in polls by VH1 artists, New Musical Express readers, and Channel 4 viewers. The album was also awarded a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Despite its current recognition, the album did not sell well and after its release, Springfield experienced a career slump for several years. However, in collaboration with Pet Shop Boys, she returned to the Top 10 of the UK and US charts in 1987 with “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” Two years later, she had two other UK hits on her own with “Nothing Has Been Proved” and “In Private.” Subsequently, in the mid-1990s, owing to the inclusion of “Son of a Preacher Man” on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, interest in her early output was revived.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys
were an American 1960s era pop and rock group, fronted by musician Gary Lewis, the son of comedian Jerry Lewis. They are best known for their 1965 Billboard Hot 100 number-one single “This Diamond Ring”, which was the first of a string of hit singles they had in 1965 and 1966. The band had an earnest, boy-next-door image similar to British invasion contemporaries such as Herman’s Hermits and Gerry and the Pacemakers. The group folded in 1970, but a version of the band later resumed touring and continues to tour, often playing for veterans’ benefits.
he group began life as Gary & the Playboys. Gary Lewis started the band with four friends of his when he was 18. Joking at the lateness of his bandmates to practice, Lewis referred to them as “playboys”, and the name stuck.
They auditioned for a job at Disneyland, without telling Disneyland employees about Lewis’ celebrity father. They were hired on the spot, audiences at Disneyland quickly accepted them, and the Playboys were soon playing to a full house every night.
The orchestra bandleader Les Brown, who had known Jerry Lewis for years, had told record producer Snuff Garrett that the younger Lewis was playing at Disneyland. After listening to the band, Garrett thought using Gary’s famous name might sell more records, and convinced them to add “Lewis” into their name.
Garrett brought them to a recording studio with the song “This Diamond Ring” in a session financed by Jerry Lewis’ wife Patti. It has been reported that The Playboys were not allowed to play their own instruments in the studio, but Lewis has since denied this. Garrett wanted to maximize the chances for a hit, so he insisted on using experienced session musicians for the overdubs, which included guitar and keyboard solos, additional bass and drum overdubs, and timpani.
These musicians included Mike Deasy and Tommy Allsup on guitars, Leon Russell on keyboards, Joe Osborn on bass, and Hal Blaine on drums, members of the larger group known as The Wrecking Crew. Session singer Ron Hicklin did the basic vocal track. Garrett then added Lewis’s voice twice, added some of the Playboys and more of Hicklin. “When I got through, he sounded like Mario Lanza”, Garrett commented.
Garrett got airplay in New York City for “This Diamond Ring” by making a deal with WINS disc jockey “Murray the K” Kaufman, who ran a series of all-star concerts at theaters around the New York area, promising that if he played Lewis’ record, the Playboys would do his shows. Garrett then had Jerry Lewis use his contacts to get his son onto The Ed Sullivan Show.
However, Sullivan had a general policy that all acts appearing on his show were to perform live. Since so many studio tricks had been used on the record, the Playboys could not recreate its sound. In compromise, Lewis sang along with pre-recorded tracks as the Playboys pretended to play their instruments.
The January 1965 broadcast made Gary Lewis and the Playboys instant stars. “This Diamond Ring” went to No. 1, sold over one million copies by April 1965, and became a gold disc. However, by the end of 1965 only West and Lewis remained in the band. Other later band members included Tommy Tripplehorn (father of actress Jeanne Tripplehorn), Carl Radle (died 1980), Jimmy Karstein, Randy Ruff, Pete Vrains, Bob Simpson, Adolph Zeugner, Les John, Wayne Bruno, and Dave Gonzalez.
The group was one of only two acts during the 1960s whose first seven releases on the Billboard Hot 100 reached that chart’s top 10 (The Lovin’ Spoonful was the other). The singles were “This Diamond Ring” (No. 1), “Count Me In” (the only non-British Commonwealth record in the Hot 100’s Top 10 on May 8, 1965, at No. 2), “Save Your Heart for Me” (No. 2), “Everybody Loves a Clown” (No. 4), “She’s Just My Style” (No. 3), “Sure Gonna Miss Her” (No. 9), and “Green Grass” (No. 8). Lewis was drafted into the U.S. Army in January 1967, with previously made recordings continuing to reach the Hot 100 but with decreasing success.
On his 1968 discharge Lewis immediately returned to recording, reaching the top 40 one last time with a top 20 remake of Brian Hyland’s “Sealed With A Kiss”, but unable to regain his group’s earlier momentum. Lewis continued touring, eventually marketing the band as a nostalgia act. He also appeared and performed on many of his father’s Labor Day telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
In all, Lewis had eight gold singles, twelve Top 40 hit singles (but only fifteen Hot 100 entries (U.S.)), and four gold albums. In addition to The Ed Sullivan Show, he appeared on American Bandstand, Shindig!, Hullabaloo, The Sally Jessy Raphaël show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Show, Nashville Now and Wolfman Jack. Despite the group’s US success, they made virtually no impact at all in the UK; their only UK Singles Chart appearance occurred in 1975, when a reissue of 1966’s “My Heart’s Symphony” peaked at No. 36. Nevertheless, at a time when British groups were dominating the American music scene, Gary Lewis & the Playboys was one of the few successful 1960s homegrown groups.