Hey Greg,
Don't have any
photo's, but a little background. The original band was
formed by Gary
Vandevere &
included Buddy Jones on drums, Ron
Valicoff on
rhythm guitar, & Ken Hunter on bass with his girlfriend,
who's name I can't remember, singing. I also can't remember
what the name of that band was. I first heard
them in Gary's basement where they practiced a very limited
repertoire.
The first gig that I
was aware of them playing was a party at someone's house &
there was a falling out
between Ken & the others. That was when they approached me &
asked if I wanted to be the rhythm guitar
player & lead singer. I knew 3 chords so I said sure. That
was 1964 I think. Ron went to Bass, Buddy was
replaced by Steve Scarborough on drums & we added Herman
Schermer on
keyboards over the next year or so.
My father decided to
use his influence & hooked us up with a DJ called "Johnny
Rabbit" on the main AM rock station in St. Louis,
KXOK. The old man
got us better & better gigs & in late 1966 we added Warren
Kirkoff for rhythm guitar & vocals (the one in the
middle of the top picture wearing
shades) which gave us the four part harmony we needed to
play the music of the day, Hollies,
Byrds, Beatles,
Cream, Stones as well as every
other song that hit the air waves, from rock to R&B. I quit
playing & just fronted on lead vocals. In
1967 The Rabbit told the old man we needed to cut a record,
so we spent a day & a night writing 2 songs. We
rehearsed for a week & went into the studio & did Sunny Day
Rain in one take & Make it Without You in two.
Gary & Ron got
drafted but Ron got around it. That's when we picked up Greg
Penrod. While we were
working hard to get Greg up to speed, Warren disappeared &
Herman decided to go into the family business
so I went back to rhythm & lead vocals, Greg could harmonize
& Steve was still the falsetto and we
carried on through half of 1968
when I got the notice.
I wish there had
been camcorders back then, because live with six of us or
four, we were a kick ass party band.
Bear
