The Cryan' Shames

Artist: The Cryan' Shames

LP: Sugar & Spice

Song: "Sugar & Spice" 
[ listen ]

Song: "Ben Franklin's Almanac" 
[ listen ]

It's a Cryan' Shame that these hip '60s psychedelic pop-rockers were never very well known outside their native Chicago. Their biggest hit, "Sugar and Spice," peaked at #49 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, though I prefer the single's b-side, "Ben Franklin's Almanac." It's neat that their tambourine player, Jim "J.C. Hooke" Pilster, is placed front and center in the photos instead of having his nifty old-style hook-hand 'conveniently' hidden behind someone's paisley bell-bottoms. Pilster and singer Tom "Toad" Doody are the only original members who are still with The Cryan' Shames today. More on Wikipedia here.

[ The Cryan' Shames ]

The American Breed

Artist: The American Breed

LP: Pumpkin, Powder, Scarlet & Green

Song: "Welcome, You're In Love" 
[ listen ]

Vancouver is now a two-record-store town! Once again, a local small-town paper annoyingly reports a vinyl store's opening as if nobody has ever seen or heard of records before. I mean it's not like records are one of these. Do Scott Hewitt's readers know nothing of the world in which they live? I guess it's quite possible that they don't. Anyway, I've heard of records, thankfully, so I stopped in at the fabulous new 1709 Records (at 1709 Broadway Street) in Vancouver and found all sorts of interesting artifacts. 

One of them was this terrific 1968 LP by '60s Chicago pop group The American Breed. Formed in 1962, the band was called Gary & the Knight Lites until 1967, when they picked a new name by pulling it out of a hat. You can read more about The American Breed here. Sadly, singer Gary Loizzo (on the cover in blue) died a few weeks ago of pancreatic cancer; he was 70 years old.

[ The American Breed ]

 [ 1709 Records — Vancouver, Washington ]

James Herndon and the Herndon Singers

Artist: James Herndon and the Herndon Singers

LP: James Herndon and the Herndon Singers

Song: "No Coward Soldier"

[ listen ]

God don't want no coward singer either, but James Herndon and his crew don't have to worry about that. Herndon joined the famous gospel group The Caravans in 1959 and composed a number of hits for them, including "No Coward Soldier," before leaving in 1967 to pursue a solo career. I'm pretty sure this, his second solo LP, was released by Savoy Records in 1968 or 1969. Herndon was based in Chicago when this record came out, but now he lives, preaches, and performs in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle area of North Carolina. Gospel musician Libra Boyd had a warm conversation (aka. interview) with Rev. James Herndon in September of 2011 that she's posted on her Gospel Music Fever blog here.

The Impressions

Artist: The Impressions

LP: Keep on Pushing

Song: "Keep on Pushing"

[ listen ]

Originally formed as The Roosters by natives of Chattanooga, Tennessee, this talented group relocated to Chicago, added Jerry Butler to their ranks, and renamed themselves The Impressions. When Butler left in 1960 to pursue a solo career, Curtis Mayfield stepped into his shoes as the group's lead vocalist. With Mayfield aboard, The Impressions became one of the windy city's most popular singing groups in the 1960s, releasing a string of hits that climbed the national pop and R&B charts—including "Keep on Pushing," a top ten hit in 1964. You can read all about The Impressions on Wikipedia here, and go here to visit their official website, where you can listen to some of their latest songs and purchase their new Christmas CD.

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Artist: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

LP: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Song: "I Got My Mojo Working"

[ listen ]

The blues has never been one of my favorite genres, but this 1965 debut album by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is actually more blue-green, if you ask me. Though it sounds like Paul was likely playing harmonica as he sprang from his mother's womb, his singing voice is a little thin, if you ask me that too. My favorite track on the album is "I Got My Mojo Working," sung by drummer Sam Lay. A native of Birmingham, Alabama who was born in 1935, Lay came down with bad cases of pneumonia and pleurisy shortly after the release of this record and left the group. He went on drumming after he recovered, and has since been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis, the Jazz Hall of Fame in Los Angeles and the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. You can read more about Sam Lay on All About Jazz here. Also appearing on this Paul Butterfield record are 23-year-old Elvin Bishop (rhythm guitar) and 22-year-old Mike Bloomfield (slide guitar). Sadly, Bloomfield died of a drug overdose in 1981, and then Paul Butterfield died of the same thing just six years later. You can read more about blues harmonica virtuoso Paul Butterfield on Wikipedia here, and the LP liner notes in which Pete Welding begs listeners to take Paul seriously as a blues performer even though he's young and white are included below.

 [ Paul Butterfield: December 17, 1942 — May 4, 1987 ]

Terry Callier

Artist: Terry Callier

LP: What Color Is Love

Song: "Dancing Girl"

[ listen ]

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1945, Terry Callier learned to play the piano when he was young. He started performing in Chicago's folk clubs and coffee houses in the 1960s, then hooked up with the Chess and Cadet labels to release three commercially unsuccessful LPs in the early 1970s. "What Color Is Love" from 1972 is the second of the three, featuring a musical style critics labeled "jazz-folk." Frustrated with the lack of interest in his musical career, Callier took classes in computer programming and got a job at the University of Chicago in the early 1980s, where he studied at night to earn a sociology degree. As is often the case with so many of the brilliant-but-neglected musical recordings of the USA, it required some Europeans to finally discover and fully appreciate the 1970s and early '80s work of Terry Callier. His music started getting played at clubs in the UK, where Callier began traveling to perform during vacation time from work. More popular than ever, Callier revived his music career in the late 1990s, releasing five albums in the past decade and working with the likes of Beth Orton and Massive Attack. Unfortunately, the good folks at the University of Chicago realized that it would be entirely too distracting for the students to have their computers programmed by a musical superstar, so Callier was let go when his moonlighting was finally made known. You can read more about Terry Callier on Wikipedia here and visit his official website here.

General Crook

Artist: General Crook

LP: General Crook

Song: "Fever In the Funkhouse"

[ listen ]

Not to be confused with the spectacularly-bearded General George Crook of American Civil War fame, the musical General Crook (his birth name, believe it or not) was born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi in February of 1945. After graduating from high school, he moved to Chicago where he began working on a career in music. He found only moderate success, though this soulful and funky LP released on the Wand label in 1974 is just about as wonderful as anything I've heard from the era. You can read more about the life and career of General Crook on the AllMusic.com website here. Unfortunately, Crook often suffered from recurring bouts of ill health (fevers in particular), exacerbated by the fact that, despite Chicago's notoriously harsh winters, he transported himself solely by bicycle year-round...

...and he never wore any pants.