THE BLUE MAGOOS

Formed in the Bronx, New York, USA, in 1964 and initially known as The Trenchcoats, the founding line-up consisted of Emil "Peppy" Thielhelm, vocals,  guitar, Dennis LaPore, lead guitar, Ralph Scala, organ and vocals, Ronnie Gilbert, bass and John Finnegan, drums . The group quickly became an important part of the emergent Greenwich Village rock scene and in 1966 secured a residency at the fabled Night Owl club. Near the end of '66, the band was calling itself "Bloos Magoos" and Mike Esposito was brought in as their new lead guitarist. Esposito had at one time been in a college band with Lou Reed, and his inventive guitar playing, utilizing controlled feedback and tape-echo devices, added a new dimension to the group's sound. Having recorded flop singles for Ganim and Verve Records, the band was signed to Mercury Records, where they became the subject of intense grooming. Drummer Geoff Daking replaced LaPore in time to record their debut album, "Psychedelic Lollipop", which was released in November 1966. The band was now using a more traditional spelling of their name, "Blues Magoos".

In February of 1967, Mercury released a single called "We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet", written by band members, Gilbert, Scala and Esposito. The song was a Top Twenty hit for the 'Magoos' in America and finished at number 72 for the entire year, but failed to achieve the same success in the UK.

A follow up hit was even harder to come by for the Magoos and their next effort, "There's A Chance We Can Make It" was mostly ignored. Subsequent efforts, "One By One" , "I Wanna Be There" and "Life is Just a Cher O'Bowlies" also failed to gain any attention. One last single release on Mercury called "I Can Hear The Grass Grow", issued in 1968, also missed the charts. By now, tensions were growing among the members of the band and the original line up split.

On the strength of their name alone, the band's management team re-signed the group to ABC Records, and, as Thielhelm had accumulated a backlog of material, suggested he front a revamped line-up. John Leillo played vibes, Eric Kaz was now on keyboards, Roger Eaton played bass and Richie Dickon became the drummer. In 1969, the band completed the album "Never Goin' Back To Georgia", while the same group, except for Eaton, was augmented by session musicians for the disappointing 1970 LP, "Gulf Coast Bound". Neither of these sold well and after hanging on for another two years, The Blues Magoos packed it in.

Thielhelm took a role in the rock musical Hair using the name, "Peppy Castro". He has since pursued a varied career as a member of Barnaby Bye, Wiggy Bits and Balance, while Cher and Kiss are among the artists who have recorded his songs. Organist, Eric Kaz went on to form American Flyer.

On Nov. 9, 2000, The Blues Magoos, featuring Emil "Peppy" Thielhelm and Ralph Scala played at a garage band revival show called "Cavestomp".

Although they were only "one hit wonders", Blues Magoos, with their electric suits and giant, onstage lava lamps, are fondly remembered as a classic example of the "psychedelic" music era.

THE BOX TOPS

The Box Tops' early beginnings were as a five man band from Memphis Tennessee  called "Ronnie and the DeVilles". The group consisted of Alex Chilton (lead vocal, guitar) Bill Cunningham (bass, keyboards, background vocal) John Evans (guitar, keyboards, background vocals) Danny Smythe (drums) and Gary Talley (lead guitar, background vocal).

After playing at clubs in the Memphis area, they were signed to record for Bell Records at Chips Moman's "American" recording studio in Memphis, with producer Dan Penn. They soon discovered that another band had already recorded under the name, "The DeVilles" and before their first release, had changed their name to "The Box Tops".

Their first effort, a song called "The Letter" took off in 1967 and went all the way to Billboard's number one, were it stayed for an entire month, eventually selling over four million copies. The song was awarded Cashbox Magazine's "Record Of The Year" and received two Grammy nominations, "Best Contemporary Group Performance" and "Best Performance By A Vocal Group", although they lost both to The Fifth Dimension. The band's second release, "Neon Rainbow" did not sell well and quickly faded from view.

A great deal of tension was growing in the band itself because Bell Records insisted on using studio musicians to back Alex Chilton's vocals during recording sessions. By January 1968, John Evans and Danny Smythe returned to school and were replaced by Rick Allen (from the Gentrys) and Tom Boggs (from the Board of Directors).

January 1969 saw the release of "Cry Like A Baby", which rose to number two in the U.S. and sold over two million records. Once again though, The Box Tops could not follow up one hit with another. The served up a series of singles that just couldn't generate much chart action, including "Choo Choo Train", "I Met Her In Church", "Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March" and "I Shall Be Released". From here, the band recorded three more singles, the best remembered of which is "Soul Deep", which was the group's final Top 40 entry.

Bill Cunningham left to return to school in August 1969 and was replaced by Harold Cloud, but by February 1970, the Box Tops recording contract ran out and the group disbanded.

As for the song,"The Letter", its come back twice since the Box Tops version. It was a top twenty hit for a group called "The Arbours" in 1969, and a top ten song for Joe Cocker in 1970.

In 1971, Alex Chilton hooked up with high school friend Chris Bell, a talented songwriter who shared Chilton’s passion for mid-60s rock. When Chilton joined Bell's group, the band changed its name from Ice Water to that of a local grocery store chain that happened to be located across the street from their recording studio. Big Star signed a deal with Ardent Records, a new label affiliated with Ardent Studios in Memphis, and their debut album was released in September 1972 to unanimous critical acclaim . Unfortunately, the second album, "Big Star", while confirming the great talent of Alex and his friends, sold disappointingly and the group's label refused to release the bands third album. After many trials and tribulations, it did eventually reach record stores by the end of the 70s, but it was too late for Big Star. Completely disillusioned, Alex started to have severe difficulties and disappeared from the music scene for a while.

In the late 1990s, TV's "That 70s Show" used an Alex Chilton composition called "Down the Street" as its theme song. As the new millennium rolled around, Chilton and the four other original founding members of The Box Tops reunited and recorded another album, as well as continuing to tour.

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD

The best American folk-rock band of the 60s besides The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield mixed folk, country, and 'British Invasion' influences to produce some of the most enduring California rock of the era. Boasting sparkling harmonies and several excellent singer-songwriters, they were enormously influential for an act with a catalogue of just three albums. Besides establishing the careers of guitarists Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, all of whom would go on to success in other bands or as solo artists, their hybrid of styles inspired numerous folk and country-rock acts throughout the 70s.

Although the line-up constantly changed, the main members throughout their three turbulent years were Stephen Stills (guitar, vocals), Neil Young (guitar, vocals), Richie Furay ( guitar, vocals), Dewey Martin (drums), Bruce Palmer (bass) and Jim Messina (bass). Furay and Stills worked together in the Au Go-Go Singers in the mid-60s, where they met Young, who at that time was a solo singer, having previously worked with Palmer in the "Mynah Birds". Furay and Stills had moved to Los Angeles to start a band, and decided to seek out the enigmatic Young. In a traffic jam on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in early April of 1966, the two chanced to pull up behind a battered black 1953 Pontiac hearse bearing Ontario, Canada license plates. Stalled in rush hour traffic ahead of them sat Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, tired, broke and on their way out of town following a cross country journey in search of their musical dreams. That chance meeting would ultimately change the face of rock music forever. They took their name from a brand of heavy asphalt roller and within weeks they were setting the Sunset Strip music scene on its ears and challenging all rivals.

Following a series of successful gigs at the prestigious Whisky A Go-Go,  and boosted by verbal endorsements from the Byrds' Chris Hillman and David Crosby, the band were signed by Ahmet Ertegun to the Atco label of Atlantic Records. Any group containing three main songwriters who could all play lead guitar was heading for trouble, and soon their egos and fists clashed. The main antagonists were Stills and Young, but their problems were compounded by the continual immigration and drug problems of Palmer, who, like Young, was Canadian, and with their road manager Dick Davis, even having to masquerade as the bassist for a television appearance. Eventually, Young's former associate, Ken Koblun, was recruited as a replacement. He, in turn, was replaced by Jim Fielder from the Mothers Of Invention, but Fielder only lasted a couple of months.

 The band's only major hit was 1967's 'For What It's Worth (Hey What's That Sound)'. The song remains one of the finest protest anthems of the 60s, and exemplified the phenomenon of the 'right song at the right time'. Stills' plaintive yet wry and lethargic plea for tolerance was written after the police used heavy-handed methods to stop a demonstration outside a club, Pandora's Box, on Sunset Strip in 1966. They were protesting about the curfew times imposed. The chorus of 'Stop children, what's that sound everybody look what's going down' became an anthem for West coast students in their protests against the government.

The band always seemed doomed throughout their brief time together. Neil Young's unpredictability also meant that he sometimes did not arrive for gigs, or quite simply left the group for long periods. His main replacement was ex- Daily Flash guitarist Doug Hastings, and as a sign of things to come, David Crosby, (then still with The Byrds) who briefly appeared with the group as Young's substitute at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Seemingly poised for a big breakthrough, the group was derailed in 1967 by major internal and external pressures, which found Young leaving then re-joining the band, and Palmer still under constant threat of deportation back to Canada.

 Two official albums were released (a third, "Stampede", was planned but only appeared later as a compilation bootleg). "Last Time Around" was patched together by producer and latter-day bassist Jim Messina, after the band had broken up for the final time. "Buffalo Springfield Again" remains their finest work. The album demonstrated the developing talents of Stills and Young as major songwriters. The three lead guitars duelled together and the three lead vocals meshed brilliantly to produce for a brief moment of what could have been America's greatest rivals to the Beatles.

Following the band's split in 1968, Furay formed the highly respected Poco, which also contained future Eagle, Randy Meisener, and continued down the road to country rock. Messina joined with Furay and later with Kenny Loggins as Loggins and Messina. Fielder became highly respected as part of Blood Sweat And Tears, while Hastings joined Rhinoceros. Dewey Martin formed the ill-fated New Buffalo Springfield only to be forced to change the name to New Buffalo. Together with Bruce Palmer, they continued on the nostalgia circuit under the banner of Buffalo Springfield Again. Young and Stills went on to mega-stardom when they joined up with David Crosby (from The Byrds) and Graham Nash (of The Hollies) as members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who, after turning out many hits and then dis-banding, reformed in early 2000.

Buffalo Springfield's prominent place in the rock music fraternity was formally recognized in 1997 with their long overdue induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.