When the site of
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was announced in
1983 as being
Cleveland, the main response from most people was bewilderment. The city was trying to shake its image as the epitome of
Rust Belt crud (that will happen to a place when its river catches fire), and this helped give the city a much needed makeover. The main reason given for the choice was that
Cleveland disk jockey
Alan Freed heavily promoted the new genre of music in the
early 1950’s and is one of several who claimed to have come up with the term “
rock and roll”. Few if any have cited
Cleveland’s highly competitive local music scene during the
1960’s and
1970’s, with as much ferment as any city in the nation; and that would have given the choice more credibility than a half-forgotten DJ.
Back in
1958,
Tom King, at the tender age of 15, started things off with a
rhythm and blues band that he formed called
the Starfires. Their repertoire was mostly instrumentals, with occasional vocals by
Tom King; they were local favorites, playing up to six shows per week, and had a minor local hit based on the popular TV commercial, “
Stronger than Dirt” for
Ajax laundry detergent. (
Ajax had basically invented advertising jingles years earlier). When
Tom King began to lose his voice, he brought in
Sonny Geraci and his brother
Mike Geraci; and the band quickly began to transition to the more modern sounds being ushered in by
Motown and the nascent
British Invasion. Their legacy as a hard-working
R&B band helped them successfully compete against the
Brits.
Tom King and his brother-in-law
Chet Kelley came up with a gem called “
Time Won’t Let Me”, a near-perfect amalgam of
Motown and
Merseybeat that even 45 years later is one of those songs that I never get tired of hearing. Under pressure from
Capitol Records, the band changed its name to
the Outsiders and had a string of
Top 40 hits over the mid-1960’s like “Girl in Love” and “Respectable” that, sadly, are almost completely overshadowed by their biggest hit, “Time Won’t Let Me”. The Outsiders released a total of four albums in the 1960’s, all quite good; even the fake “live” album somehow works. Until Chicago came along with their Roman numeral series, the Outsiders had perhaps the most boring series of album names of the time: Besides the first that was named for their hit song, Time Won’t Let Me – and was originally going to be called simply The Outsiders – the others were Album #2, The Outsiders In and Happening Live!. Their recordings had judicious use of horns and paved the way for other bands like Blood, Sweat and Tears, the Buckinghams and Chicago that were more heavily dominated by their brass sections. James (Jimmy) Fox was brought in as the drummer for the last several sessions for
the Outsiders’ first album,
Time Won’t Let Me.
Jimmy Fox then dropped out of college and formed
the James Gang in
1966, a band that enjoyed considerable success over the coming decade and, with songs like “
Walk Away” and “
Funk #49”, were tailor-made for the “
album rock” era that was just starting to emerge in the
very early 1970’s on FM radio. One of their later bandmembers,
Joe Walsh became a bonafide superstar and joined
the Eagles for a time. His signature solo hit “
Life’s Been Good” is a dead-on picture of rockstar excess: In the opening verse,
Joe Walsh deadpans: “I have a mansion, forget the price / I’ve never been there, they tell me it’s nice.”
Meanwhile, back in the
mid-1960’s, the
Cleveland music scene was spurred on by the success of these local heroes. Bandleader
Dann Klawon of
the Choir knew a girl who had been to
England in
1963 and picked up some of the early
Beatles singles and one of their albums. Like most of the
American garage bands, they were influenced by the
British Invasion; but for them, it hadn’t even arrived here yet.
Dann Klawon wrote an unabashedly
Beatlesque power-pop classic for the band called “
It’s Cold Outside” that made the local charts and is among the most beloved
garage-rock songs from the era.
Stiv Bators, frontman for the seminal
1970’s Cleveland punk band the Dead Boys was among its admirers; but his band couldn’t figure out how to play the song! (Later, as a solo artist,
Stiv Bators came up with a nice version).
In most places, bands formed and kept a stable line-up for years, sometimes decades; but in
Cleveland, musicians were constantly being lured from one band to another in order to get the freshest sound and keep the locals’ respect. As an example, no fewer than eight members of the precedessor band
the Starfires were members of the quartet
the Outsiders at one time or another. But nowhere was this truer than with
the Choir:
Allmusic referred to the large number of fine musicians who went through “the
Choir turnstile”. A retrospective album of their music called
Choir Practice shows a host of styles that the band recorded over the years.
When
Eric Carmen, a fan of the band in its early years, auditioned to join
the Choir, he was rejected and instead became a member of
CYRUS ERIE (which was named for a brand of tractor). He turned his hurt feelings into revenge by stealing away their best musicians; and before long,
Cyrus Erie was widely regarded as the best band in the
Cleveland area. The tug of war between the two bands went on for awhile; but ultimately and ironically,
the Raspberries were formed by
Eric Carmen with three core members of
the Choir:
Wally Bryson,
Dave Smalley and
Jim Bonfanti.
The Raspberries released several albums in the
early 1970’s and had a number of hits, particularly “
Go All the Way”. The band is remembered for their intelligent pop craftsmanship; and they are cited as influences by artists as diverse as
Bruce Springsteen,
Paul Stanley of
KISS,
Tom Petty, and
Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. The Raspberries reformed in
2004 and were the first performers when the
House of Blues opened a venue in
Cleveland. They began to receive so many requests for
“It’s Cold Outside” that
the Choir also came together for a two-night stand in
2006.
Eric Carmen also had success as a singer-songwriter with “
All by Myself” and, more than 10 years later, with “
Hungry Eyes" from the soundtrack of the film
Dirty Dancing. He penned several songs that were hits for others as well, including two hits for teen heartthrob
Shaun Cassidy, and “
Almost Paradise” from the
Footloose soundtrack, which was a duet by
Mike Reno and
Ann Wilson, the lead singers of
Loverboy and
Heart, respectively.
Several years ago, I looked up the
Wikipedia article on the
Dutch band
the Outsiders – one of the truly great rock bands of all time and maybe the very best from a non–
English-speaking country – and happened to click over to their
American contemporaries, also called
the Outsiders, only to discover that there was just a “stub” (in other words, a few sentences with basic information like bandmembers’ names, major hit song, etc.). With over 1¼ million articles in
Wikipedia at that time (it is significantly above three million now – and that is just in the
English Wikipedia), it hadn’t occurred to me that I would have an opportunity to work up an article on a well-known group, so I started in. Though
the James Gang and
the Raspberries each had a generous write-up, there was nothing at all on
the Starfires or
the Choir, so I also contributed those articles. I had planned to get to
Cyrus Erie but haven’t as yet, so that
Cleveland band – which had only minimal recordings though – still is without notice in
Wikipedia.