The very best bubblegum music of the 1960’s combined pop/powerpop hooks and melodies with garage rock sensibility in order to create instantly memorable and easy-to-listen to rock and roll. The 1910 Fruitgum Company exemplified these traits better than any other band of the period. ‘Simon Says,’ ‘Indian Giver,’ ‘1, 2, 3 Red Light,’ ‘Goody Goody Gum Drops’ and other hits are definite high-water marks in an insanely populous universe, and are now considered the standards by which other songs of the era are judged.
Due to the group’s everlasting appeal, the 1910 Fruitgum Company’s story has been often told and recounted in the years since their last hit. It’s a bit well known that the Kasenetz & Katz empire took a local New York garage band named Jeckell & The Hydes and molded them into a bubblegum band whose very name is synonymous with the genre. What is not as documented, however, is how the band came together, and the steps involved in transforming a hard working local group into national hitmakers.
Drummer Floyd Marcus has been with the group since its inception, and is instrumental in keeping the band’s legacy alive. In addition to presently performing with the Fruitgum, Marcus is currently involved in compiling some of the band’s earliest recordings—ones that will offer a fascinating aural glimpse into the group’s evolution. Prior to that, however, Marcus is working with the Collectables label in releasing CDs of all new music, including The 1910 Fruitgum Company’s recently released first Christmas album. |
An Interview With Floyd Marcus
60sgaragebands.com (60s): The roots of the 1910 Fruitgum Co. lie within the band, Jeckell & The Hydes. Did the exact, original line-up of Jeckell & The Hydes become the 1910 Fruitgum Co., or were there personnel changes?
Floyd Marcus (FM): The Fruitgum Company did include the same line-up as Jeckell and The Hydes. Jeckell and The Hydes became The Odyessy, then The Fruitgum Company. We were right on the cusp of the old guard and new.
There had been the Bill Haley/Little Richard era and the Doo Wop era; the Bobby Rydell/Bobby Vee/Ricky Nelson, and Elvis stuff;and then the earlier Beach Boys and Beatles and Motown styles. Things were changing and developing fast. We hadn't made it on a national level yet so we weren't attached to any name. Eventually, even some label bands were able to update themselves, like Jefferson Airplane to Starship, and The Rolling Stones to simply The Stones. So as The Beatles, Stones, Motown and music went, we stayed in step.
60s: Where and when was Jeckell & The Hydes formed?
FM: Pat Karwin and I had just parted ways with a few other musicians we were playing with. Frank Jeckell had a similar situation. There strangely enough was a proliferation of very good musicians in and around Linden, New Jersey. It was like the Liverpool/ London scene at that time. It just wasn’t known worldwide.
As band guys do in these situations, we thought about who was around, available, and might fit in as far as musicianship (goes). Frank and Steve showed up at my parent's house one late afternoon when Pat and I were hanging out near his car. The four of us talked about getting together. Of course we did, and we felt it worked.
We got together as a band at the end of 1965. I remember because I was still 16 at the time. We were a four-piece. Back then, in the mid-Sixties, there weren't a lot of pop-rock keyboardists available, especially with the right equipment. In fact, a lot of the guys who hadn't been taking piano lessons at their suburban homes were actually playing accordion. We thought about what our choices were. That's when Mark's name came up. I did not know him at the time we first auditioned him. Frank and Steve had known him. We invited him to join us.
60s: What was the name of the band that you and Pat were in prior to hooking up with Frank? And do you recall the name of his earlier group?
FM: To tell the truth, a lot of articles I've read state that Pat and I were in a band called The Lower Road before Jeckell and The Hydes. Actually, from what I recall, The Lower Road was Pat's band before I hooked up with him. We actually began using Odyssey before we became Jeckell and The Hydes.
60s: Was the band ever actually billed as The Odyssey or did they ever perform as The Odyssey?
FM: The band was billed as The Odyssey with the five original members at some of our gigs, but there was no particular point where we changed from "Jeckell and The Hydes" to "The Odyssey". It just happened. We weren't booked by our name. Churches, temples, clubs and dances booked us by contacting one of us.
60s: Did Jeckell & The Hydes record at all?
FM: I will be releasing recordings soon that are the metamorphosis on tape of the band moving from Jeckell & The Hydes, to The Odyssey, and finally the rehearsal-practice and recordings of The 1910 Fruitgum Co., as we became that band and as we developed songs in my parent's living room.
These recordings will be coming out next year. I can't put a month on it yet. It is a time-consuming project. I must go through hour upon hour of tape. After I decide what's complete and/or usable, I'm going to transfer them to Pro Tools and 'tweak' the recordings as far as sound quality and noise. That shouldn't be too difficult but I can't say what is what yet.
60s: What types of gigs did Jeckell & The Hydes typically perform at?
FM: There were a lot of different types of gigs in those days for underaged bands. We played CYO dances, temple dances, jr. high and high schools and YMCAs. There were even teen clubs like Club 65 in Elizabeth, New Jersey where all the kids went. The Moose and Elks held teen dances as well. I guess the insurance companies didn't have a stranglehold on every institution back then so these venues all opened their doors for gatherings. It was also a more innocent time.
60s: What kind of time period did the change to The 1910 Fruitgum Co. take place over?
FM: The transition to The Fruitgum Co didn’t happen over any particular date, month or year. It all happened on a fluid time-line.
60s: How did Jeckell & The Hydes initially hook up with the Kasenetz & Katz group?
FM: My father was a drummer, vibraphone player and played quite a few other instruments as well. His twin brother, Sol, not only played very nice ‘30’s-‘50's jazz-bebop piano, but had also had written hit songs in the ‘40s through the ‘60's. A few were ‘’Til Then’ (by The Mills Brothers and The Classics) and ‘Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood’ (by Nina Simon, The Animals, and that has been done over and over). I haven't heard it yet, but I believe the rapper Common has used it on one of his raps.
Well, my uncle liked my writing. My father said he'd pay for studio time, so we went to Dick Charles’ studio, the premier demo studio in New York City. We recorded four of my early songs.
The demo made its way around. There was a Texas Weiner place in Linden. Jeff Katz' father used to go there. A buddy of Pat's overheard him telling people about his son producing a million selling record. Butchie, who worked there, and knew us through Pat and told Katz's father that he knew a great band. Butchie got one of our demos to Jeff's father and it in turn got to K&K. They came to see us live and got interested.
60s: Much has been made about how K&K molded the group into the "bubblegum" sound. But how much input did the band actually have in the K&K relationship, and how receptive were you in general to the changes that K&K enacted for the group?
FM: When we met Kazenetz and Katz we knew about their hit with The Music Explosion’s ‘A Little Bit of Soul.’ That to me cannot be characterized as bubblegum music. It was raw and more edgy. In my opinion, ‘A Little Bit of Soul’ fits in better with music from bands like The Shadows of Knight, The Seeds, The Kinks, and the early Yardbirds.
When we first heard ‘Simon Says’ we thought it was a joke. It was presented to us in a kind of calypso-island form. We were talking among ourselves in the studio and I said facetiously, "Hey, let's do it like ‘Wooly Bully.’ We started with “1-2-1-2-3-4 dah, dah, dah…” just like the beginning of that song. Well, we never expected it but Jeff Katz got on the talk-back mic and yelled, "That's it! That's it!" I think we were all stunned. Most of us were thinking, “Huh, they actually like it?!” That was the beginning of our bubblegum journey. We had some very good original songs that I’m sure would have been hits. The thing is that once we set that direction, every one of our songs was under produced. The studio ambiance on the records is very 'dead'. I don't think that Kazenetz and Katz were very good producers, or really knew how to make something sound good in the studio. What they knew was what songs worked for their marketing plan and the audience they were targeting.
Jeckell and The Hydes / 1910 Fruitgum Company:
Mark Gutkowski (organ, keyboards and vocals)
Frank Jeckell (guitar and vocals)
Pat Karwin (guitar and vocals)
Floyd Marcus (drums and vocals)
Steven Mortkowitz (bass and vocals)
Later Additions:
Rusty Oppenheimer (drums)
Larry Ripley (bass)
Bruce Shay (percussion)
Chuck Travis (guitar)
And many more…
|
|
|
|
|
 |
