Chris Brubeck was born on March 19, 1952, in Los Angeles, where his family was staying at the time, due to his dad’s extended club engagement. One of Dave Brubeck's six children, he began playing piano at age five at the insistence of his dad, who wanted his offspring to have proper musicianship skills, in case they wanted to pursue music.
For high school, Brubeck attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, majoring in classical bass trombone, and was in the new jazz program’s big band, with Peter Erskine on drums. Through school and after graduating, he continued to play bass guitar, both in rock bands with classmates and as a guest on a few of his dad’s sides. One of the rock groups that he starthed along with David "Spaceman" Mason, were New Heavenly Blue.
They cut two albums one for RCA and one Atlantic, blending jazzrock, blues, country, folk and classical music. When the band dissolved in 1975, Chris and half the members went on to form the funk–rock–jazz unit Sky King.
Tracks
1. Love You Tonite (Chris Brubeck) - 3:04
2. The Battlefields Of History (Stephen C. Mason, David Mason) - 6:21
3. Raft Song (Chris Brubeck) - 2:20
4. Where Are You Tonight? (Chris Brubeck) - 3:26
5. Pegleg (Back In 35) (Chris Brubeck) - :05
6. Hard Lovin' Man (Chris Brubeck, David Mason, Jimmy Cathcart, Peter Bonisteel, Peter Ruth, Stephan Dudash) - 3:54
7. Tulsa Oklahoma Blues (Chris Brubeck) - 4:36
8. Nebulon Possessed (David Mason) - 3:25
9. The Idol (Chris Brubeck) - 5:30
10.I Look Upon What I Have Done (Jimmy Cathcart) - 1:55
Round 1966 two high school classmates, Paul Dean and Ray Sparrow, in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, put together a local amateur band along with Chris Skelcher. They began as a trio, after a while Chris left and guitarists Bob Cooke and Bill Hinde came to join the band. They recorded a demo which eventually reaches in Ian Gillan's hands, who got excited. TheĎ… signed a contract deal with Deram label. In 1972 they recorded and released their same titled sole album, produced by Ian Gillan.
Ian Gillan wrote:
“This is the first album by Jerusalem, a band which excites me very much; they are rough, raw and doomy with their own strong identity. As they are young and a bit green, they don't follow many rules, so their material is almost crude - but still immensely powerful in content. I believe that, whenever possible, the work of writers and players in their formative stages should be recorded; before inhibition and self-consciousness set in, before fire and aggression die down, and while they are still absorbing influences and doing things which others might consider 'uncool'. Most important though, before they might develop that self-imposed rigidity which afflicts so many. I hope none of these things happen to Jerusalem, we'll have to wait and see, this album is just in case. I hope you like it as much as I do”.
Tracks
1. Frustration - 5:18
2. Hooded Eagle - 4:48
3. I See The Light - 3:55
4. Murderer's Lament - 3:40
5. When The Wolf Sits - 4:57
6. Midnight Steamer - 4:42
7. Primitive Man - 5:55
8. Beyond The Grave - 6:09
9. She Came Like A Bat From Hell - 5:43
10.Kamikaze Moth (Non LP Single Track）- 2:46
11.Primitive Man (Demo Version) - 6:56
12.Beyond The Grave (Demo Version) - 7:15
13.Hooded Eagle (Single Version) - 4:04
14.I See The Light (Mono Version) - 3:58
All songs by Lynden Williams, Bob Cooke, Bill Hinde, Paul Dean, Ray Sparrow
One of Canada’s finest, the “McKenna Mendelson Mainline” (from band members Mike McKenna and Joe Mendelson), soon simply known as “Mainline,” are the authors of several very strong rock-blues oriented albums. Also well-known for their live performances, their incessant gigging granted them slots playing alongside names like the Jeff Beck Group (Grande Ballroom, Detroit), and on the British circuit, the Bonzo Dog Band, Family, Keef Hartley Band, Gun, Fleetwood Mac and the nascent Led Zeppelin.
In 1972, under the more representative moniker of “Mainline Bump ‘n’ Grind Revue,” the band recorded this memorable live album, featuring several inspired originals along with reputable versions of songs by Big Joe Williams, Johnny Young, Jimmy Smith, Leadbelly, and even a surprising “Misty” by Erroll Garner. When these guys get cooking, not even a cold day in the Canadian Rockies can stop them.
Michael McKenna, previously with Luke & the Apostles and the Ugly Ducklings, formed McKenna Mendelson Mainline with Joe Mendelson (vocals, guitar, bass, harmonica), Tony Nolasco (vocals, drums) and Frank Sheppard (vocals, bass, mandolin, harmonica). After Stink (1968) and Canada, Our Home and Native Land (1971), the band shortened their name to Mainline and broke up soon after.
Two posthumous albums appeared in 1972-73: The Mainline Bump and Grind Revue — Live at the Victory Theatre and Biscuit Meets Mainline. Joe Mendelson’s first solo album, Mr. Middle of the Road, appeared in 1972. Michael McKenna and Tony Nolasco later formed Diamondback. A reunion album with McKenna called No Substitute has also been released.
by John Bush
Tracks
1. Canada - 1:36
2. Ezmerelda (Joe Mendelson) - 3:26
3. Wild Wild Women (Johnny Young) - 4:57
4. Miss Collin’s Cha Cha (Michael McKenna) - 5:24
5. Feel Alright (Big Joe Williams) - 5:18
6. Game of Love (Joe Mendelson) - 3:17
7. Chicken Shack (Jimmy Smith) - 5:01
8. Misty (Errol Garner) - 3:52
9. C.C. Rider (Huddie William Ledbetter) - 3:16
10.No Boogie Finale - 1:27
Mailnine
Michael McKenna- Guitar, Vocals
Joe Mendelson- Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals
Adam Mitchell- Harmonica, Mixing
Tony Nolasco- Drums, Vocals
Zeke Sheppard- Harmonica, Vocals
Having played in famed Toronto acts Luke & The Apostles and then, briefly, The Ugly Duckings, guitarist Mike McKenna took out an advertisement asking other like-minded individuals to form a new blues band. Joe Mendelson answered the ad and this team-up provided the basis of Mendelson Mainline in the summer of 1968.
Former Paupers' bassist Denny Gerrard was the next to join and another advertisement brought in new-comer Tony Nolasco from Sudbury.
The band worked its way around Yorkville with Denny Gerrard soon being replaced by former Grant Smith & The Power bassist Mike Harrison in 1968. With bigger profile concert gigs, the band's vibrant live show was committed to tape in September 1968 -- a session that would later come back to haunt the band.
McKenna Mendelson Mainline relocated to England late that year to pursue a record deal. After being signed to Liberty (United Artists) in the Spring of 1969, they worked the same English club circuit as up and coming bands like Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin. In July of 1969 a single day recording session yielded the first Liberty Records album 'Stink'. They returned to Canada to await the release of the new album.
With their reputation as crowd pleasers on tours in England, Holland, and Australia with such acts as Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, and The Guess Who preceding them, Paragon Records in Canada anticipated the band would be the 'next big thing' and rush released the September 1968 sessions to the band's chagrin.
Joe Mendelson quit in September of 1969 and Rick James (of Myna Birds fame) replaced him briefly to finish a run of contracted gigs. Mike McKenna effectively took the wind out of the group's sails by reforming a new version of Luke & The Apostles.
After a brief recording stint with Luke And The Apostles, McKenna found himself back with Mendelson, Nolasco and bassist Zeke Sheppard (formerly of Dutch Mason's Escorts) for the 1970 Scarborough Fair Festival.
By 1971 the re-christened Mainline was signed to GRT Records and released 'Canada Our Home & Native Land'.
The band's live shows became more risque and raunchier, defying the staid Canadian R & B clubs up and down the Toronto bar circuit. The result of Mainline's new found infamy was released as the 'The Mainline Bump 'n' Grind Revue: Live At The Victory Theatre' in 1972. One more album, 'No Substitute', was produced before the band collapsed.
Mendelson re-named himself Mendelson Joe and has had a prolific independent recording, writing, and painting career as well as being an outspoken political activist. He currently lives in Muskoka, Ontario; Gerrard went through a series of semi-successful Canadian recording acts such as Jericho and the Lisa Hartt Band; Zeke Sheppard joined former members of Rhinoceros under the new banner Blackstone for one album on GRT Records in 1973. Ted Purdy is a lawyer in Toronto.
Mike McKenna continued on as a legendary slide guitar player -- including a stint replacing Domenic Troiano in the final days of the original Guess Who line-up. By the '90s he had formed Mike McKenna and Slidewinder with former Mainline bassist Denny Gerrard.
In the Spring of 1998 a Classic Rock Revival festival at The Warehouse club in Toronto found a semi-reformed Mainline hitting the stage for the first time in 25 years. The new Mainline has remained a mainstay of the Toronto Blues scene ever since and now boasts the title of being the final band to play at legendary El Mocambo upstairs on November 4, 2001. The band was recorded that night and an album from this performance was released on Bullseye Records in 2002.
by Tony Nolasco, Mike McKenna, Jim Zeppa, Bill Munson, Mike Harrison, Maxine Mitchell,GW Watson.
Tracks
1. Blind Girl - 3:14
2. Get Down To - 3:34
3. Pedalictus Rag - 2:25
4. One Time Loser - 3:59
5. You're My Heart's Desire (Zeke Sheppard) - 2:28
6. Motorcycle - 4:44
7. I Am Normal - 2:44
8. Brain Damage - 4:04
9. Honkis De Honkis - 3:26
10.Going To Toronto (Joe Mendelson, Michael McKenna) - 8:02
11.Nova Scotia Breakdown (Traditional) - 0:42
All songs by Joe Mendelson except where stated
Lost And Found was a genuinely thoughtful and self-critical song about romance and sex completely at odds with the still rather macho attitudes in rock music at the time. Because of their two-albums-a-year recording contract, the band had less time than they would have liked to work on 'Steppenwolf The Second'. For this reason, Mekler contributed one of his own compositions to the album in 28, (as well as co-writing two others with Kay, as he had on the first album).
Mars Bonfire contributed the opening Faster Than The Speed Of Life, which is actually sung not by Kay but by Jerry Edmonton. Despite the album's short gestation period, the band had grandiose artistic ambitions for it: the whole of side two had originally been intended to portray the development of the blues from its cotton field origins to present day rock. The concept wasn't fully realised but glimmers of it can be discerned, especially on the steel guitar opening and 12-bar structure of Disappointment Number (Unknown).
The centrepiece of the album was Magic Carpet Ride, a Kay/Moreve composition which was released as a single. Moreve would never get another songwriting credit with Steppenwolf so must have been especially pleased that it became only second to Born To Be Wild in being the song the public most associated the band with. Contrary to those who read drug connotations into the songwords, they were inspired by the expensive hi-fi Kay had bought with some of his royalties from the first album.
The single certainly went on a magic carpet ride chart-wise, soaring to number 3 Stateside. Its parent album likewise went top five. It was the perfect end to a wonderful year for a band which hadn't even been in existence barely a few months before its start.
by Sean Egan
Tracks
1. Faster Than The Speed Of Life (Mars Bonfire) – 3:12
2. Tighten Up Your Wig – 3:06
3. None Of Your Doing (John Kay, Gabriel Mekler) – 2:50
4. Spiritual Fantasy – 3:39
5. Don't Step On The Grass, Sam – 5:43
6. 28 (Gabriel Mekler) – 3:12
7. Magic Carpet Ride (John Kay, Rushton Moreve) – 4:30
8. Disappointment Number (Unknown) – 4:38
9. Lost And Found By Trial And Error – 2:20
10.Hodge, Podge, Strained Through A Leslie - 2:42
11.Resurrection – 3:43
12.Reflections (John Kay, Gabriel Mekler) – 1:30
13. Magic Carpet Ride (Mono Single Version) (John Kay, Rushton Moreve) – 2:57
All tracks composed by John Kay except where indicated
Steppenwolf
*John Kay - Lead Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica
*Michael Monarch - Lead Guitar
*Goldy McJohn - Organ, Piano
*Rushton Moreve - Bass
*Jerry Edmonton - Drums, Vocals
Both natives of Toronto, Mike McKenna and Joe Mendelson grew up fans of the blues, and both emulated their idols early in life while learning to play guitar.
After McKenna left Luke & The Apostles in the mid '60s, he was a brief footnote in The Ugly Ducklings' story, then began working the local club circuit. He placed a newspaper ad looking for people to start a new band with, which Mendelson, a University of Toronto student, replied to. They decided that instead of toiling through the process of finding other musicians through the same means to round out the group, they'd do it on their own - and the foundations of McKenna Mendelson Mainline were laid with former Paupers bassist Dennis Gerrard and drummer Tony Nolasco, ex of The Spassiks.
After some rehearsals their first paid gig was a week-long run at The Night Owl in Yorkville in August of '68. They recorded some demos a month later, but Gerrard's run in the band was short, leaving that October immediately after a show at Massey Hall supporting The Fugs. But with new bassist Mike Harrison, who'd just left the popular R&B group Grant Smith & The Power, they carried on, opening for The Jeff Beck Group at The Grande Ballroom a month later, one of a handful of shows they gained favourable reviews for around the Detroit area.
Before the end of the year, they flew to England, where they filled in for a recently departed Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Utrecht Pop Festival. Hoping to land a recording deal while in the UK, they ended up working the same club circuit that saw the likes of Rory Gallagher, Fleetwood Mac, and the newly-formed Led Zeppelin appearing on a regular basis. They signed with Liberty Records under the United Artists umbrella in early '69 and recorded the basic tracks to their debut album in a single day. But homesick and with the rigors of the rock & roll lifestyle already getting to them, they returned to Toronto that June.
Their debut album, STINK, was in the stores a couple of months later, and the slide guitar-driven single "You Better Watch Out" got some good airplay around the Toronto area and made them one of the hottest tickets in town. The flipside "She's Alright," "Mainline," "Bad Women," the cover of Ramblin' Thomas' "One Way Ticket," and the funky second single "Don't Give Me No Goose For Christmas" helped catch the critics' and the audiences' attention, and things were looking up.
Meanwhile, Paragon Records, who owned the rights to the demos they recorded a year earlier in Toronto, released them as the McKENNA MENDELSON BLUES album in September. This notorized the group as arguably the first Canadian act signed to a major label to become victims of a bootlegged album, which featured the eleven-minute original version of "Bad Women" called "Bad Women Are Killing Me," "Pretty Woman," "Toilet Bowl Blues (the original version of "T B Blues"), and a cover of Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign."
But partially due to differences in musical vision, the band fell apart in the fall of '69. Mendelson briefly left the band and was replaced by ex-Mynah Byrds member Rick James, who later went on to be a huge disco star. By the spring of 1970 the band was dissolved due to musical differences.
Mendelson and Nolasco carried on, dubbing themselves Mainline, with Zeke Sheppard on bass and harmonica, who'd spent time in one of Dutch Mason's makeshift groups on the east coast, while McKenna returned to a reformed version of Luke & The Apostles for a pair of singles. But one thing led to another and he was back with Mendelson's new group that fall.
They signed with GRT Records and looking for new inspirations, travelled to California, recording material that became CANADA - OUR HOME AND NATIVE LAND at Pacific Recording Studios in San Mateo in the spring of '71. It was the first album they used Adam Mitchell to produce, and all the bulk of the material was written by Mendelson. Although no singles were released and with sales that fell far short of the label's or their own expectations, they had to be satisfied knowing that tracks like "Brain Damage," the southern rhythms of the Sheppard-penned "You're My Heart's Desire," the harmonica boogie in "Goin' To Toronto," and the somewhat out of place horns section in "Honkis de Konkis" gave it the versatility that critics called a future classic.
They stayed around the Toronto area, becoming regulars at The Canberra Playhouse and Wexford Collegiate in Scarborough, among other hot venues. Their live shows were by that point known not only for the on-stage magnetism, but also for the risque and raunchier banter, much to the shagrin of some of the more snootier nightclub owners. They returned with the live album, MAINLINE'S BUMP N GRIND REVUE - LIVE AT THE VICTORY THEATRE in 1972, recorded that February in one of Toronto's more infamous and seedier former burlesque theatres on Spadina and Dundas.
With Adam Mitchell and Zeke Sheppard among those who showed up to lend a hand, all the material was new, and all were covers, and critics praised it - saying their live versions of "C C Rider," "Ezmeralda," "Chicken Shack," and "Feel Alright" captured the band in their live essence. Along with playing their home turf, they ventured out to Detroit and the area, and also did a series of shows with King Biscuit Boy that took them out to Winnipeg.
Their final album came in the form of NO SUBSTITUTES in the fall of '72, stripped down without frills and returning the band to its core essence. But the album came and went just as fast, and no singles were released. Worse yet, internal problems were plaguing the band and with burnout setting in, tracks like "Sometimes," "Give It To Me Straight," "I've Been Lucky," and the title track went largely un-noticed by an audience that was finding new sounds to relate to. This was despite the critics' calling McKenna's slide guitar work among his best.
The band split up and everyone went on to do their own things. McKenna later joined Diamondback, prior to joining a version of The Guess Who in the late '70s. After joining Downchild Blues Band for awhile in the late '80s, he formed Sidewinder with Gerrard and Ronnie Jacobs, a saxophonist he'd played with in Downchild that had also worked with Mainline, and released one album in 1997. McKenna also kissed and made up with Luke Gibson (of Luke and the Apostles) in The Luke Gibson Band - the house band for the Blues on Belair Club in Toronto as the decade came to a close.
Mendelson meanwhile renamed himself Mendelson Joe, and became a sessions player, working with the likes of Ben Mink, Gwen Swick and Colin Linden. He also began to make a name for himself as a contemporary artist, pursuing painting as well as music. In 1988, he appeared in an episode of Sharon, Lois & Bram's Elephant Show titled "Sunday in the Park". A music video for a novelty song he recorded, "Dance with Joe," also received extensive airplay on MuchMusic for awhile.
Prior to and following his stint in Sidewinder, Gerrard toured with various bands, including Jericho and Lisa Hartt. After Mainline, Sheppard joined a reformed version of Rhinoceros, now going by the name of Blackstone for one album in '73. Purdy went back to school and got a Law degree, later becoming a lawyer.
McKenna, Nolasko, Purdy, and Harrison re-united in 1998 for a date at The Warehouse Club in Toronto, playing together for the first time in a quarter of a century. With Bob Adams on harmonica, this led to a semi-reformation and the band playing off and on again, including being the final band to play upstairs at El Mocambo in November 2001. That show was taped and released by Bullseye Records the following spring as LAST SHOW AT THE ELMO.
Tracks
1. One Way Ticket - 2:40
2. She's Alright - 3:35
3. Beltmaker - 3:35
4. Mainline - 6:40
5. Think I'm Losing My Marbles - 2:30
6. Drive You - 2:20
7. T.B. Blues - 2:05
8. Better Watch Out - 4:30
9. Bad Women - 12:20
10.Don't Give Me No Goose For Christmas Grandma - 2:30
All songs written by Joe Mendelson
Folks, there’s nothing like a sleeper. There’s a kinda rush involved in discovering a great album when you aren’t expecting it.
This time it’s electric folk band by the name of McKendree Spring. Michael Dreyfuss’ flaming violin work combined with Fran McKendree’s subtle understating vocals, Marty Slutsky’s lead guitar and Fred Holman’s bass work have created a sound similar to…well…no one I can think of.
It’s Dreyfuss who steals the show on this LP, though, with an excellent “God Bless the Conspiracy,” a tribute to the Chicago Seven. Throughout the track’s nine instrumental minutes the listener is dragged through a bomb sequence, a Star Spangled Banner sequence and a vision of social turmoil…all performed on the violin. A low-keyed masterpiece.
by Cameron Crowe, San Diego Door June 8, 1972 – June 22, 1972
Tracks
1. Down By The River (Neil Young) - 5:53
2. Fading Lady (Jerry Jeff Walker) - 5:27
3. Flying Dutchman (Michael Dreyfuss, Fran McKendree, Martin Slutsky) - 6:17
4. Heart Is Like A Wheel (Anna McGarrigle) - 3:36
5. Feeling Bad Ain't Good Enough (Michael Dreyfuss, Fran McKendree) - 5:41
6. Hobo Lady (Keith Sykes) - 4:10
7. Oh, In The Morning (Arlo Guthrie) - 4:14
8. God Bless The Conspiracy (Michael Dreyfuss) - 8:37
The McKendree Spring
*Fran Mckendree - Vocals, Guitar
*Fred Holman - Bass
*Dr. Michael Dreyfuss - Electric Violin, Viola, Moog, Arp, Mellotron
*Martin Slutsky - Electric Guitar
Named after Connecticut-raised frontman Fran McKendree, the Columbus-based 4-piece Mckendree Spring (with Martin Slutsky, Larry Tucker and Michael `Doc’ Dreyfuss) began performing a residency at NY’s Bitter End venue in 1969. A hybrid of country, blues and folk, the group had several years developing their blend on the North American circuit, although their recording successes were somewhat overshadowed by their top-billing cohorts such as The Everly Brothers and James Taylor; subsequent tours alongside Frank Zappa/Mothers Of Invention, Billy Preston and Average White Band followed.
The eponymous Mckendree Spring (1969) laid the foundations for their Top 200-breaking sophomore effort, Second Thoughts (1970), cover highlights on the sets included Tom Rush’s `No Regrets’, Bob Dylan’s `John Wesley Harding’ and James Taylor’s `Fire And Rain’.
Tracks
1. Fire And Rain (James Taylor) - 3:44
2. Susie, Susie (Fran McKendree) - 1:58
3. Friends Die Easy (McKendree Spring) - 3:57
4. Got No Place To Fall (Fran McKendree) - 3:30
5. Oh Now My Friend (Fran McKendree) - 3:47
6. Cairo Hotel (Adam Mitchell) - 4:48
7. Because It's Time (Fran McKendree) - 2:09
8. 'Lani (Fran McKendree) - 2:52
9. For What Was Gained (Eric Anderson) - 7:46
The McKendree Spring
*Fran McKendree - Bass, Guitar, Vocals, Keyboards
*Martin Slutsky - Guitar
*Larry Tucker - Bass
*Michael Dreyfuss - Violin, Keyboards, Violin, Viola
*Adam Mitchell - Synthesizer, Harmonica, Keyboards
*Fran Michel Adam - Harmonica, Piano, Moog Synthesizer
One of the lost treasures of EMI-Parlophone’s heavy rock catalog, the third and final LP from South Africa’s Otis Waygood has been given a lovingly careful remaster thanks to the fine folks at Shadoks Music. Originally released in 1971, Ten Light Claps and a Scream smacks of the influence of England’s heavy psych movement, particularly the rumble of such bands as Bloodwyn Pig and the Groundhogs. Otis delivered the rock with a little more bite, thanks to the band’s unbridled devotion to the blues and the killer production of South African rock mavens Julian Laxton of the South African prog group Freedom’s Children and Johannesburg-born, UK-based record executive Clive Calder. Any fan of old, loud, trippy acid rock from the ‘Nam era would be wise to check out this onetime collector’s item from one of the era’s great, unsung acts.
by Ron Hart
Ten Light Claps and a Scream is the third and final LP by South African rock band Otis Waygood. It was released in 1971 by EMI-Parlophone, at the height of the Big Heavies' popularity -- a sudden wave of white anti-Apartheid South African hard rock groups (the tag would be made official with the release of a 1972 compilation LP). Incidentally, Ten Light Claps and a Scream was produced by Julian Laxton, leader of Freedom's Children, another Big Heavy. By this third opus, Otis Waygood had developed an impressive group sound that built on the energy of bands like Free and Bloodwin Pig, adding to the wailing guitars and growling organ a bit of raspy, gnarly saxophone.
The resulting sound is startlingly similar to H to He Who Am the Only One-era Van der Graaf Generator (although nothing could suggest that they were an influence on Otis Waygood). The songs are dark, yearning, and heavy blues rock numbers, with "A Madman's Cry" (featuring two lead singers barely under cntrol), "Easy Way," and "Devil Bones" being the highlights. Everything (down to the mix itself) is heavy, the sax adding a surprising freak-out element. Singer Rob Zipper has a somewhat limited range, but he puts a lot of soul in his delivery. Not everything here is gold, and the album is a bit short at 32 minutes, but it's a great period piece and a fine psychedelic/freak rock record in its own right -- and better recorded than Freedom's Children's Astra.
by François Couture
Tracks
1. A Madman's Cry - 4:23
2. Straight Ahead (Harry Poulos) - 2:55
3. I Left My Skull In San Francisco - 3:49
4. Easy Way - 5:19
5. The Higher I Go (Rob Zipper) - 1:40
6. S.H.A.K. - 3:05
7. Devil Bones (Otis Waygood, Harry Poulos) - 2:40
8. You Can Do (Part 1) - 4:19
9. You Can Do (Part 2) - 4:37
All songs by Rob Zipper, Ivor Rubenstein, Leigh Sagar, Benny Miller, Alan Zipper except where stated
It was the worst of times in Joburg's white suburbs. The Beatles were banned on state radio. Haircut regulations were merciless. The closest thing to a pop star was Ge Korsten. Life was an unutterable hell of boredom and conformity, but lo: salvation awaited. They came from the north in the summer of '69, armed with axes and Scarabs, long hair streaming behind them, and proceeded to slay the youth of the nation with an arsenal of murderous blues-rock tunes, synchronized foot-stomping and, on a good night, eye-popping displays of maniacal writhing in advanced states of rock'n'roll transfiguration. The masses roared. The establishment was shaken. They were the biggest thing our small world had ever seen, our Led Zeppellin, our Black Sabbath, maybe even our Rolling Stones. They were the Otis Waygood Blues Band, and this is their story.
It begins in l964 or so, at a Jewish youth camp in what was then Rhodesia. Rob and Alan Zipper were from Bulawayo, where their dad had a clothes shop. Ivor Rubenstein was Alan's best mate, and Leigh Sagar was the local butcher's son. All these boys were budding musicians. Alan and Ivor had a little "Fenders and footsteps" band that played Shadows covers at talent competitions, and Rob was into folk. They considered themselves pretty cool until they met Benny Miller, who was all of 16 and sported such unheard-of trappings as a denim jacket and Beatles-length hair. Benny had an older sister who'd introduced him to some way-out music, and when he picked up his guitar, the Bulawayo boys were staggered: he was playing the blues, making that axe sing and cry like a negro.
How did the music of black American pain and sufferation find its way to the rebel colony of Rhodesia, where Ian Smith was about to declare UDI in the hope of preserving white supremacy for another five hundred years? It's a long story, and it begins in Chicago in the forties and fifties, where blues cats like Howlin' Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson cut '78s that eventually found their way into the hands of young British enthusiasts like John Mayall and Eric Clapton, who covered the songs in their early sessions and always cited the bluesmen as their gurus. Word of this eventually penetrated Rhodesia, and sent Benny scrambling after the real stuff, which he found on Pye Records' Blues Series, volumes one through six. Which is how Benny Miller came to be playing the blues around a campfire in Africa, bending and stretching those sad notes like a veteran. The Bulawayo contingent reached for their own guitars, and thus began a band that evolved over several years into Otis Waygood.
In its earliest incarnation, the band was built around Benny Miller, who remains, says Rob Zipper, "one of the best guitarists I've ever heard." Rob himself sang, played the blues harp and sax. His younger brother Alan was on bass. Bulawayo homeboys Ivor and Leigh were on drums and rhythm respectively, and flautist Martin Jackson completed the lineup. Their manager, Andy Vaughan, was the dude who observed that if you scrambled the name of a famous lift manufacturer you came up with a monniker that sounded authentically American negro: Otis Waygood. Rob thought it was pretty witty. Ivor said, "Ja, and lifts can be pretty heavy too." And so the Otis Waygood Blues Band came into being.
By now, it was l969, and the older cats were students at the University College of Rhodesia, earnest young men, seriously involved in the struggle against bigotry, prejudice and short hair. By day they were student activists, by night they played sessions. Their repetoire consisted of blues standards and James Brown grooves, and they were getting better and better. They landed a Saturday afternoon gig at Les Discotheque. Crowds started coming. When Rob stood up to talk at student meetings, he was drowned out by cries of, "You're Late Miss Kate." "Miss Kate" was the band's signature tune, an old Deefore/Hitzfield number that they played at a bone-crunching volume and frantic pace. Towards the end of '69, Otis were asked to perform "Miss Kate" on state TV. The boys obliged with a display of sneering insolence and hip-thrusting sexuality that provoked indignation from your average Rhodesian. These chaps are outrageous, they cried. They have "golliwog hair" and bad manners! They go into the locations and play for natives! They aren't proper Rhodies!
Indeed they weren't, which is why they were planning to leave the country as soon as they could. Rob graduated at the end of l969, and he was supposed to be the first to go, but it was summer and the boys were young and wild and someone came up with the idea of driving to Cape Town. Benny Miller thought it was a blind move, and refused to come. But rest were bok, so they loaded their amps into a battered old Kombi and set off across Africa to seek their fortune.
South of the Limpopo River, they entered a country in which a minor social revolution was brewing. In the West, the hippie movement had already peaked, but South Africa was always a few years behind the times, and this was our summer of love. Communes were springing up in the white suburbs. Acid had made its debut. Cape Town's Green Point Stadium was a great milling of stoned longhairs, come to attend an event billed as "the largest pop festival south of and since the Isle of Wight." It was also a competition, with the winner in line for a three-month residency at a local hotel. Otis Waygood arrived too late to compete, but impresario Selwyn Miller gave them a 15-minute slot as consolation -- 2pm on a burning December afternoon.
The audience was half asleep when they took the stage. Twelve bars into the set, they were on their feet. By the end of the first song, they were "freaking out," according to reports in the next morning's papers. By the time the band got around to "Fever," fans were attacking the security fence, and Rob got so carried away that he leapt off the ten-foot-high stage and almost killed himself. "That's when it all started," he says. Otis made the next day's papers in a very big way, and went on to become the "underground" sensation of 1969's Christmas holiday season, drawing sell-out crowds wherever they played.
In South Africa, this was the big time, and it lasted barely three weeks. The holidays ended, the tourists departed, and that was that: the rock heroes had to pack their gear and go back home. As fate would have it, however, their Kombi broke down in Johannesburg, and they wound up gigging at a club called Electric Circus to raise money for a valve job. One night, after a particularly sweaty set, a slender blonde guy came backstage and said, "I'm going to turn you into the biggest thing South Africa has ever seen."
This was Clive Calder, who went on to become a rock billionaire, owner of the world's largest independent music company. Back then he was a lightie of 24, just starting out in the record business. His rap was inspirational. Said he'd just returned from Europe, where he'd seen how the moguls broke Grand Funk Railroad. Maintained he was capable of doing the same thing with Otis Waygood, and that together, they would conquer the planet. The white bluesboys signed on the dotted line, and Clive Calder's career began.
The album you're holding in your hand was recorded over two days in Joburg's EMI studios in March, l970, with Calder producing and playing piano on several tracks. Laid down in haste on an old four-track machine, it is less a work of art than a talisman to transport you back to sweaty little clubs in the early days of Otis Waygood's reign as South Africa's premier live group. Rob would brace himself in a splay-legged rock hero stance, tilt his head sideways, close his eyes and bellow as if his life depended on it. As the spirit took them, the sidemen would break into this frenzied bowing motion, bending double over their guitars on every beat, like a row of longhaired rabbis dovening madly at some blues-rock shrine. By the time they got to "Fever," with its electrifying climactic footstomp, the audience was pulverized. "It was like having your senses worked over with a baseball bat," said one critic.
Critics were somewhat less taken with the untitled LP's blank black cover. "We were copying the Beatles," explains Alan Zipper. "They'd just done The White Album, so we thought we'd do a black album." It was released in May 1970, and Calder immediately put Otis Waygood on the road to back it. His plan was to broaden the band's fan base to the point where kids in the smallest town were clamouring for the record, and that meant playing everywhere - Kroonstad, Klerksdorp, Witbank, you name it; towns where longhairs had never been seen before. "In those smaller towns we were like aliens from outer space," says drummer Ivor. "I remember driving into places with a motorcycle cop in front and another behind, just sort of forewarning the town, 'Here they come.'" Intrigued by Calder's masterful hype campaign, platteland people turned out in droves to see the longhaired weirdos. "It was amazing," says Ivor. "Calder had the journalists eating out of his hand. Everything you opened was just Otis."
The boys in the band were pretty straight when they arrived in South Africa, but youths everywhere were storming heaven on hallucinogenics, and pretty soon, Otis Waygood was doing it too. By now they were living in an old house in the suburbs of Jo'burg, a sort of head quarters with mattresses strewn across the bare floors and a family of 20 hippies sitting down for communal meals. The acid metaphyisicians of Abstract Truth crashed out there for weeks on end. Freedom's Children were regular guests, along with African stars like Kippie Moeketsi and Julian Bahula. Everyone would get high and jam in the soundproofed garage. Otis' music began to evolve in a direction presaged by the three bonus tracks that conclude this album. The riffs grew darker and heavier. Elements of free jazz and white noise crept in. Songs like "You Can Do (Part I)" were eerie, unnerving excursions into regions of the psyche where only the brave dared tread. Flautist Martin Jackson made the trip once too often, suffered a "spiritual crisis" and quit the band.
His replacement was Harry Poulus, the pale Greek god of keyboards, recruited from the ruins of Freedom's Children. Harry was a useful guy to have around in several respects, an enormously talented musician and a Zen mechanic to boot, capable of diagnosing the ailments of the band's worn-out Kombi just by remaining silent and centred and meditating on the problem until a solution revealed itself. With his help, the band recorded two more albums in quick succession (Simply Otis Waygood and Ten Light Claps and a Scream) and continued its epic trek through platteland towns, coastal resorts and open-air festivals. They finished l970 where they started - special guests at the grand final of Cape Town's annual Battle of the Bands. The audience wouldn't let them off the stage. Rob worked himself into such a state of James Brownian exhaustion that he had to be carried off in the end. "Whether you accept it or not," wrote critic Peter Feldman, "1970 was their year."
After that, it was all downhill in a way. There were only so many heads in South Africa, and by the end of 1970, they'd all bought an Otis LP and seen the band live several times. Beyond a certain point, Otis could only go round in circles. Worse yet, conservatives were growing intolerant of long-haired social deviance. National Party MPs complained that rock music was rotting the nation's moral fibre. Right-wing students invaded a pop festival where Otis was playing and gave several particants an involuntary haircut. "We had police coming to the house every second night," says Ivor, "or guys with crewcuts and denim jackets saying, 'Hey, man, the car's broken down, can we sleep here?' They always planted weed in the toilets, but we always found it before they bust us."
By March, 1971, the day of was drawing nigh. Describing drug abuse as a "national emergency," the Minister of Police announced a crackdown. At the same time, various armies started breathing down Otis Waygood's neck. When the SADF informed Ivor that he was liable for military service, the boys sneaked back into Rhodesia, but more call-up papers were waiting for them at their parents' homes. "Ian Smith despised us," says Ivor. "They wanted to make an example of us, so we basically escaped." At the time, international airlines weren't supposed to land in Rhodesia because of sanctions. But there was a Jo'burg-Paris flight that made a secret stop in Salisbury. The boys boarded it and vanished.
Back in Jo'burg, we were bereft. Friends and I started a tribute band that played garage parties in the white suburbs, our every lick, pose and song copied off Otis, but that petered out in a year or two, and we were left with nothing but their records and vague rumours from a distant hemisphere. Otis were alive and well in Amsterdam. Later, they were spotted in England, transmogrified into a white reggae band that played the deeply underground blacks-only heavy dub circuit. Later still, they became Immigrant, a multi-racial outfit that did a few gigs at the Rock Garden and the Palladium. But it never quite came together again, and the band disintegrated at the end of the seventies.
Today, Leigh Sagar is a barrister in London. Rob Zipper practices architecture. Alan Zipper runs a recording studio. Ivor Rubenstein returned to Bulawayo, where he manufactures hats. Clive Calder is chairman of Jive Records and ruling genius of the teen pop genre, responsible inter alia for the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Martin Jackson was last seen drifting around Salisbury with a huge cross painted on his back, and is rumoured to have died in the mid-seventies. Harry Poulos stepped off a building, another casualty of an era whose mad intensity made a reversion to the ordinary unbearable.
As for Benny Miller, the guy who started it all, he's still in Harare, wryly amused by the extraordinary adventure he missed by ducking out of that fateful trip to Cape Town. He still plays guitar in sixties nostalgia bands, and produces African music for a living.
by Rian Malan
Tracks
1. You're Late Miss Kate (James Dee Fore, Larry Otto Hitzfeld) - 2:09
2. Watch 'n Chain (Traditional) - 4:37
3. So Many Ways (Rob Zipper) - 3:55
4. I Can't Keep From Crying (John Renbourne) - 6:14
5. Fever (John Davenport, Eddie Cooley) - 4:23
6. Wee Wee Baby (Traditional) - 2:58
7. Better Off On My Own (Rob Zipper, Alan Zipper) - 3:04
8. Help Me (Willie Dixon, Ralph Bass) - 5:16
9. I'm Happy (Rob Zipper) - 2:43
10.Devil Bones (Rob Zipper, Alan Zipper, Ivor Rubenstein, Leigh Sagar, Martin Jackson, Harry Poulus) - 2:40
11.You Can Do Part One (Rob Zipper, Alan Zipper, Ivor Rubenstein, Leigh Sagar, Martin Jackson) - 4:22
12.You Can Do Part Two (Rob Zipper, Alan Zipper, Ivor Rubenstein, Leigh Sagar, Martin Jackson) - 4:30
Bonus Tracks 11-12
The Otis Waygood Blues Band
*Rob Zipper - Vocals, Guitars, Saxophones
*Ivor Rubenstein - Vocals, Percussion
*Leigh Sagar - Guitars, Organ
*Martin Jackson - Vocals, Flute
*Alan Zipper - Bass Free Text the Free Text
