We all came from an area
known as The West Bronx, New York City and started
playing together in 1966. There weren't what you
call "garage bands" back then, but more like
basement bands if you lived in the city.
Our drummer's name was
Scotty and his parents were the superintendents of
a large apartment building so we had a giant
basement with tremendous acoustics! The original
band members were: Dave (me - later known as John)
- lead guitar and vocals; George - rhythm guitar;
Joey D - Fender bass; Scotty - drums and vocals;
and Bruce - Lowry double keyboard organ with a kick
ass Leslie speaker. From time to time a great
vocalist and good friend named Steve who sang bass
for the original Five Sharks (a great acapella
group) would sing with us and once toured with us
as well (Doo Wop meets soul!). In the beginning we were
known as The Love Ones. We started out the usual
way for a new group: school dances, nasty smelling
gyms, sweet sixteen's and even a Bar Mitzvah or
two! Somewhere during that period we started
playing the "clubs" in the five boroughs in New
York City. While it may sound self
serving, I have to tell you that we were a pretty
good live band and started to gain popularity. We
played practically every venue in New York City,
including the Owl, the Cellar, Cafe Wha', the
Peppermint Lounge, the Wagon Wheel, Trudi Heller's,
the Purple Onion, the Rolling Stone and the
Fillmore East. Those were the "famous" discotheques
at that time. In those days you had to have had
plenty of "club" experience before any decent
manager or executive of a record label would take a
listen. Plus, the more club experience and exposure
you had, the more gigs you got. Because we were mainly
playing what we wanted (Motown and soul and
anything that came off the Stax and Volt record
labels) - even though the public wanted the
"British Invasion" stuff - we thought it might be
more authentic and sound better if we had a
bi-racial group. We therefore acquired a black lead
singer named Elliot James. It was a sort of a
"Wilson Pickett meets The Kinks" act. We were in
the audience at a club called the Wagon Wheel, and
thought that the band that backed up James was
pitiful. After one of the sets, we asked him if he
wouldn't mind singing a few numbers with our group
over the next few days. That was the beginning of
our partnership. We played many spots in
New York City with Elliot and were working pretty
steady. While playing in a Manhattan club, the very
same Wagon Wheel where we had met Elliot, we were
told that a record producer was in the audience.
Man, what a feeling. His name was Art
Trefferson and said he was "an entertainment
manager and independent record producer". He owned
a production company called "Artreff Productions".
You can see the name on our 45 "Crazy World". That
was coincidentally our last night there. But, he
came up to us and asked where our next gig was and
said that he "might" come with a friend and hear us
(play). It happened to be a club in the Bronx that
rivaled all others in the city for popularity. The
name of the club was Maxim's. Maxim's was pretty well
known and constantly packed. What we didn't know
was that the friend he was bringing was Florence
Greenberg (owner of Scepter Records). Boy, were we
on Cloud Nine. Or should I say Cloud 76 (flip side
of Crazy World). Well...we played. And after seeing
and hearing us, he offered to represent us as our
manager and agent with a pending contract and sent
us to do some studio work at Capital Records. Art
wanted to manage all of us, but I think he wanted
to showcase Elliot. Elliot didn't have
representation. We also didn't have any original
material for the Capital studio sessions but the
two songs I remember doing was a remake of Stand by
Me (Ben E. King) and one by Jerry Butler (He Don't
Love You). We traded vocals on the masters; you
know trading riffs. My voice at the time was kinda
soulful and matched his. An all-white group with a
black lead singer was an "in" to many more gigs.
That was in early 1965. Our sound was great, but
eventually that old bugaboo called pride and ego
got in the way. You had to be eclectic with your
sets back then and Elliot didn't do any of the
British stuff. So, while we played our collective
asses off each night at various clubs, he would
take off to the bar during parts of the sets and
drink Green Stingers. So why should he get a full
share (of the cut)? Plus, Art didn't enjoy the bar
tabs Elliot rang up at Maxim's. One thing led to
another and we parted company. Elliot James &
The Love Ones didn't last very long but I must
admit that he was great! After he left, we needed a
new name... ...Hence...Peck's Bad Boys. The name
our manager gave us. Believe me, we lived up to
that name. And we needed a signed recording
contract. Art offered us an exclusive contract with
him and "other various record companies" which
included Scepter. We recorded Crazy World in a very
famous New York City building called The Brill
Building. There were always lots of very important
VIPs coming and going there. It was located on
Broadway in Manhattan. I suppose you could say we
felt we were finally on our way to stardom. You
have to realize that at that time it was a crazy
world: Viet Nam, race riots, and anti-war protests.
That's where the title of the song comes from. I
was asked to write the song about 24 hours before
the session. (Looking back, I always thought) Cloud
76 was just my answer to The Rolling Stones hit
called Get Off Of My Cloud. I listened to Cloud 76
recently, however, and was reminded that there
wasn't any relationship to the Stones' single. My
guitarist George tells me that it was just a blues
riff we used to do up on stage and at the last
minute I added some "lyrics"). At the studio, our
manager said Crazy World was "gonna be our ticket"
so the B-side wasn't important, but I do remember
the A&R man telling us he wanted the sound of
Cloud 76 to be kind of driving - like a railroad
train. So Joey the bass player turned up his trusty
Fender Bass and Fender Bassmaster amp and I did my
"white boy does soul" thing" and we cooked. At
least I think we cooked. Personally, I really loved
doing the R&B, so I kinda liked that song. As a
sidebar, Route 66 was never in my head. I didn't
correlate the two similar lines ("get your kicks").
Probably 'cause I hated the TV show. The next thing we knew we
were "in demand." Club dates started to come in
fast with a few out of town ones as well. I have to
be honest with you; I don't remember much of those
days. It seemed like we were living the real life
version of Jimi's Purple Haze. We then were told
that we would be backing an up-and-coming star
named Monti Rock the Third. So for a while we were
known as Peck's Bad Boys Featuring Monti Rock the
Third. He was a flamboyant front man and we played
some pretty famous venues around the country. In
fact Monti is still doing Vegas! There was a chain of
discos in Miami, Chicago, and San Francisco called
The Cheetah. We played the one in Manhattan sharing
the stage with a group who had a "pretty good"
guitarist by the name of Jimi Hendrix. What a gas.
We just stared in amazement at him! We also played
a pretty large venue in Chicago named Club GiGi
with a group known as Baby Huey & The
Babysitters. They were, believe it or not, the
first group to use horns with a rhythm section -
way before Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears
did. Man, they were awesome! We were then asked to do
the title track to a really bad B-movie called GIRL
ON A CHAIN GANG in 1967. The song was titled Girl
in Chains. The flip side was called Silver Dawn and
was slightly influenced by the new Ravi Shankar
sound made popular by George Harrison. So, we came
off the road and back into the studio. By this time
we were notified that there might be a trademark
lawsuit pending because there once was a county and
western group in the 1920's called Peck's Bad Boys.
We were forced to change the spelling of our group
to Pex Bad Boys. The movie was released, and we
actually did sing the title track in the movie. We
were never told that Girl In Chains was released,
but apparently both it and Crazy World were issued
in both promo and sales copies. We then were booked in
Cocoa Beach, Florida with a pretty famous gal named
Laverne Baker who had done the hit single Jim
Dandy. We played one more gig together in New York
and sadly, after that, we all drifted apart. It
wasn't until recently when I got the urge to try
and find the guys that I was fortunate enough to
locate a website devoted to Bronx memories when I
stumbled across my old and dear friend Kenny, also
a drummer and retired Air Force veteran. He and his
wonderful wife Carolyn (my childhood friend, too)
are responsible for me being able relive these
memories by putting me in touch with "The Guys".
One phone call led to another and here we are, back
in touch except for our bassist, Joey. Bruce the
organ player went on to become a successful
advertising and marketing executive in Los Angeles.
Scotty the drummer owns a farm in Vermont and
builds homes for numerous Christian charities.
George the guitarist is still playing music. He had
a Christian band and is a successful business man
in Florida. Steve (the vocalist from The Five
Sharks) is fortunate enough to still be in the
music business. He travels around the world with
his group singing to crowds all the time. You can
see him sometimes on PBS doing those oldies
tributes with all the famous Doo Wop groups. I went
on to become a chef and was the executive chef for
a musical dinner theater in Ft. Lauderdale. I even
was personal chef to Marvin Gaye for a while.
Until a few months ago, we
all hadn't spoken in 35 years. Recently my friend
Steve was touring in Germany and purchased the
entire Teenage Shutdown series. He then burned a
copy of Crazy World for me. I hadn't heard it since
1966. Our bassist disappeared many years ago with
all the reels and studio takes plus original 45s.
We didn't bother to think back then. Steve also
informed me that Crazy World and Peck's Bad Boys
has a sort of cult following, especially in Europe.
I understand that the original single of Crazy
World is worth up to $100.00 or more if you can
find it. Go figure. That was the first time I had
heard it 35 years or so. I finally found a copy of
the original 45 record Girl in Chains from someone
in Oslo, Norway. I purchased it and using the
studio equipment George has, he's going to make
CDs. We all knew that the records we made could
have been produced much better, but when a record
label has The Shirelles, Chuck Jackson, B.J.
Thomas, The Kingsman and Dionne Warwick...hey, what
do you expect? You get in line and hope for your
shot. I suppose they could have put us on the Wand
label (Scepter owned) but...oh well. The strange
thing is that we find ourselves on a compilation of
"garage bands" - sort of like punk. The fact is we
only wanted to play music by Sam & Dave, Eddie
Floyd, Otis Redding, The Temptations; you know,
soul and Motown. We couldn't stand the loud amps
and bad licks that eventually would become the
norm. We really did sound much,
much better in person. As our attire shows, we
dressed mod and while we played The Beatles plenty,
we really loved playing that "Sweet Soul Music".
Imagine the surprise on people's faces when five
guys dressed like us started singing Knock on Wood.
I hope that Crazy World and Cloud 76 shows a little
of that. By the way, we have been asked to do a
remake of Crazy World. What do you think? Is the
world still crazy? Personnel: Influences: Setlist
Sample: Equipment:
Rehearsal
Space: Band
Vehicles: Fashion
Statement: Best
Gig: Gig
from
Hell!: Last
Gig:
Download an MP3 0f
Crazy World by Peck's Bad Boys
Information contributed by John Castellano jcastellano1@cfl.rr.com
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