1960s Garage Bands

Alan Cassaro

The recent CD Pre-Punk, as the 1965-1968 Cleveland Ohio Integrity Productions subtitle suggests, collects many classic and rare recordings from the '60s that were associated with Alan Cassaro and Bob Scherl of Integrity Records.  Integrity featured many disparate acts, from Cassaro himself to garage band The Missing Lynx.  As label owner, as songwriter, as producer and, of course, as performer, Cassaro has worn many hats and, along the way, worked with many of the top Ohio groups of the era.   Informative, entertaining, hilarious and controversial...here are the recollections of Alan Cassaro...

Alan Cassaro, 1965

Alan Cassaro, 1964

An Interview With Alan Cassaro

60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first hook up with Bob Scherl?
Alan Cassaro (AC):  I met Bob when I was in the sixth grade here in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and the original home of Paul Newman, the actor. My dad was a career soldier, and in 1956, we had come back to Cleveland, my actual birth home, because he was about to pull a two-year hardship tour in Korea. Prior to coming back to Cleveland, we had been living on army bases in Oklahoma, Texas, Germany, North Carolina, etc. Here, my parents enrolled me in the Catholic school in Shaker Heights, but I didn’t get along with the nuns or other kids, who kept picking fights with me, so they took me out and put me in to Lomond Elementary for the sixth grade The rumor had gotten around that I was a juvenile delinquent and so no one wanted to be my friend. But, my hobby was doing magic tricks and collecting comics. Well, Bob was in to the same hobbies, so we struck up a friendship. However, Bob had recently discovered rock and roll, and he turned me on to rock and roll in the sixth grade. Bob was always a few trends ahead of me in music, but he dutifully educated me to all points musically. He pointed out that Pat Boone’s 'Tutti Fruitti' sucked, when compared to the original by Little Richard. At the time, there was actually a debate going on in the locker room as to whether Pat Boone or Elvis Presley was the real King of rock and roll. The thought seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? But Bob Scherl was a near genius, possessed of a high intellect, while I was pretty much a dumb delinquent type. It was a good combination.

We used to hang out at the record stores, such as Record Rendezvous, which was run by Leo Mintz. (Leo and the store were actually mentioned and featured in Alan Freed’s movie, Mr. Rock And Roll.) Years later, I went to work for Leo for a year in one of his stores. He personally told me that he himself supplied the records to Alan Freed back in the early fifties for his radio show. He told me Alan had been a DJ at a little station in Akron before he came to Cleveland. He told me, "The station is going to fire me, they said my ratings are bad." I told Alan, "Alan, play these records on your show instead of that crap you’re playing now. Call it rock and roll." And I gave him a bunch of records to play. Yes, Leo Mintz coined the term "rock and roll" and told Alan to use it on his show, which he did.

Back then, in the fifties, the record stores had these little listening booths, small rooms within the store, where you could walk in, close the door, and then audition records right in the little room. Well, the record business was switching over from 78s to 45s, so Bob and I used to take twenty or thirty 45s into the listening booth. When no one was looking our way, we used to stuff the 45s down the front of our pants. Bob would get about four or five down his trousers. I was more clever. I would stuff around twelve 45s down there, and actually pop my pecker through the little hole in the center, which put them dead flat against my abdomen. I don’t know how we pulled it off, because these little rooms had all glass windows. Within a year of the 45s coming out, all of the stores eliminated these audition booths. I like to think that Bob and I were responsible for that. In hindsight, I guess it was a little gross. But, it’s not something anyone will ever have the chance to do again. And that’s why I mention it.

60s: What was the impetus to form Integrity Records?
AC: I moved away from Cleveland in 1957 when my dad got transferred, first to Massachusetts, and then to Hawaii, in 1959. I actually made my first record in Hawaii during my senior year in high school ('Hickory Dickory Dock' for the Mahalo label. My performing name was "Lane Cassaro." I’ve just issued that single and other things that I did in Hawaii on a CD called Hawaiian Rock & Roll available on CD Baby). My dad retired from the army in 1963, and we came back to Cleveland. Bob and I had stayed in touch all those years, exchanging music and talking tape letters. We had always talked about getting into the music business during all those years. By 1963, we were back together again, and finally able to make that dream a reality. We discussed what we should call our record label. We took days doing it. Finally, one of us said, "Our record label is going to be different, we’re going to put out good stuff, we’re going to have integrity." And a light bulb went off above both of our heads at the same time. "That's what we’ll call it, our label will be Integrity Records." The idea was that I would be the artist and primary writer, and Bob would be the objective producer, as well as handle all of the business. I was the good looking skinny Italian guy, and he was the overweight nerdy Jewish guy, so we figured that's how we should look at our partnership. We'd split things down the center, fifty-fifty, regardless of who did the actual work. I'd do the singing; he'd take care of the business. We both admired those teams like Goffin/King, Leiber/Stoller, Lennon/McCartney, Bacharach/David, Pomus/Shuman, Greenfield/Sedaka, etc. And last but not least, we both worshipped 'The Two Thousand Year Old Man,' which was Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, another great creative team, except in comedy.

We did a lot of comedy sketches in our basement, and I'll be issuing an album of that this next year. We used to do a make believe radio show called "Whipped Radio, the station it pains you to listen to." It was pretty obscene stuff, kind of sick. We'd play a Big Maybelle record and then tell the public to come down to the show to beat her with a whip or "Do anything you want to her."  I closed out the Pre-Punk CD, as well as my own Gotta Get To Mobile, with some of that silly comedy material we did. Our odd perspective on things influenced the way we wrote and produced music with other people. Comedy was always lurking in the background of what we did. Having both been raised on roots' rock and roll, we both thought that most of the new music was just a little bit stupid, and not authentic at all. By that time, in 1963, everything in rock and roll was starting to have violins on it, even the Fats Domino and Duane Eddy records. Snuff Garrett of Liberty Records single handedly was destroying American rock and roll with all those awful Bobby Vee records. And Dick Clark promoted that crap, so every Top 40 producer started imitating that Snuffy Garrett sound, which was just hideous. The phrase itself, "Top 40" more or less came to mean the same thing as "insipid." That’s when Ray Charles had stopped doing that cool R&B, and instead was doing country songs with violins and white choruses. Music was in really horrible shape. Yeah, Del Shannon, Gene Pitney, and Roy Orbison were at least making honest records, most of the time, and the R&B artists were getting pretty interesting, but the rest of the playing field was pretty dull. We weren’t authentic either, but at least we weren’t aspiring to be complete whores. In hindsight, we should have tried to be better whores. Our record 'Blue Lights' was like a dumb, fluffy Bobby Vee lyric, but we gave it a real good instrumental guitar driven arrangement, like a Buddy Holly record might have. So, it's kind of good, and it's kind of bad, both at the same time. I don't suppose that's too bad a compromise. We knew we had to record something to try to get played on the radio. But I had originally wanted to record either 'I Fought The Law' or 'Love's Made A Fool Of You' as my first record for the Integrity label. But Bob talked me out of it. He said, "Al, we both love rockabilly, but it's not what's happening anymore. No one at the radio stations will play it."  Keep in mind, The Beatles hadn't really hit it with 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' yet. Or, at least that's how I remember it right now. I think they were just about to hit, or maybe they had put it out a few weeks earlier, and I hadn't paid attention. But, at that point in time, Bob and I were not being influenced by any British trend in music. Come to think of it, the chord progression does have one modern turn-around in it, which might be similar to The Beatles. I don't remember. But, I let Bob talk me out of doing those two songs. And wouldn't you know it, six months later, Bobby Fuller did 'I Fought The Law,' which he followed up with 'Love's Made A Fool Of You.'  So, I guess I was on the right track in my own thinking. And it wasn't because they were rockabilly songs, but because they were both good songs. Sonny Curtis was a great songwriter and arranger, and time has proven that Buddy Holly lyrics stand the test of time. But, I don't think I could have done 'I Fought The Law' as good as Bobby Fuller. It was a really great record. Of course, he had Bob Keene in his corner--Ritchie Valens' old producer. (And…lest I say it…murderer? Isn't it odd that three acts Bob Keene managed, Sam Cooke, Ritchie Valens, and Bobby Fuller, all died violent deaths? Maybe Ritchie Valens wanted out of his contract, so Bob Keene smuggled a bomb on to the small plane that crashed with him, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. It's just a theory.) Right now, in 2009, I am currently working on a Tex-Mex inspired album of Buddy Holly styled material for next year or the year after that, which will include a new version of me singing 'Love's Made A Fool Of You.' I think I can actually do it better now than I would have done it back in 1964. I can't sing as good, but I understand the material better. Understanding, comprehension, and experience count for a lot, I think. Of course, I'll take forever to overdub my vocal and get it just perfect, exactly the way I want it. Back then, I would have sung it live. It would have been more authentic live, but it will be better, overdubbed. I can make better records now that I know my way around a studio. I've learned a lot of tricks over the years, things that will make a better record. Just keep in mind that even 'Rock Around The Clock' by Bill Haley was a vocal overdub. And Chuck Berry's guitar on 'Johnny B. Goode' was an overdub. Overdubs are not the enemy, stupid songs are.

I always thought a great record was something that was supposed to create it's own world for two and half or three minutes. A great record is it's own reality. It should be bigger than life, and occupy it's own space. Most contemporary music today has the same sound. You can't tell what city anything is done in anymore. The different regional qualities of a city's musicians no longer exist. Everything has that frigid auto tune on it, so every singer and vocalist has that same soft, sweet Shania Twain sound that makes you want to go into a coma and sip your food through a glass straw. Even people who can actually sing well are using the auto tune, like Celine Dion. I mean, she put me into a coma before, but with auto tune, I just want to jump in a tub of butter and snort a quart of peanut butter up my nose. And rap music? Ah, don't get me started. Rap is more about hygiene than it is about music.

Bob Scherl, 1964

60s: What was typical songwriting collaboration with Bob like? Did you two typically write either the music or the lyrics, or did you switch off?
AC:  It's great that you would ask that. Keep in mind that Bob did not play a musical instrument. I had already written about 50 songs while I was living in Hawaii, so I at least had a process that I used for writing songs. But working with Bob became a different process for me. I recently found our first song writing session that we actually recorded onto tape. It was the session that produced our first record, 'Blue Lights.' On this particular occasion, Bob Scherl had a notebook filled with lyrics, poems, and hook phrases that he had been jotting down. He would read them into the microphone while I strummed the guitar, and we would try to start shaping it into a song. We would work for five or ten minutes on an idea, and then go on to the next idea. After Bob went home, I would take out the tape of our writing session and work with one of the ideas, maybe for hours. Basically, it was similar to hypnotizing myself. I would be completely focused on the words, and I would try every possible combination of phrases and rhymes and tempos. By the time I was finished, it bore little resemblance to Bob's original concept, although I always managed to keep the core of Bob's lyrics, even though I may have paraphrased a lot of it. So, in hindsight, it wasn't really a lyric until I put the words into some kind of order. And the melody was almost entirely of my own fabrication. When I played it back for Bob, he might make a few lyric or melody suggestions, and we would finalize it. So, Bob would inject more ideas during the final rewriting stage. It really was a good way to keep improving a song. Yes, I did most of the work, but I didn't look it that way back then. In hindsight, listening to the old tapes, Bob really had a lot of soul as a singer. He loved Jimmy Reed and Charlie Rich, and Jerry Butler. He could do great vocal imitations of all of them. Fats Domino, too. We had a great version of Bob singing like Fats Domino on Paul Simon's 'Sound Of Silence' but unfortunately, the tape no longer exists. Bob was of the opinion that any song sounded better if Fats Domino sang it. I'll admit that 'Sound Of Silence' was a lot more fun to listen to when Bob did it like Fats.

Bob kept teaching me about music, and the new trends. Basically, I loved rockabilly music the best, but Bob broadened my tastes quite a bit. When I first got home from Hawaii, he turned me on to Burt Bacharach and Hal David's productions on Dionne Warwick's first album that had all those great songs, 'Don't Make Me Over' and 'Anyone Who Had A Heart.' Bob was under the misguided impression that Burt Bacharach was this thirteen-year-old genius because there was a record out by Burt Bacharach called 'Saturday Sunshine.' The person singing it was a little kid, but it had Burt Bacharach's name on it. Obviously, it was some kid that Bacharach hired to sing the song, but for the first couple of years, Bob and I thought all those Bacharach/David songs were co-written with a thirteen-year-old kid. We figured that Burt had to have been about ten when he wrote 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence' for Gene Pitney. Amazing, but we were wrong. Burt Bacharach was a grown man, and had been writing hits since 1956, beginning with 'Magic Moments' for Perry Como, and 'Story Of My Life' for Marty Robbins.

Of course, both Bob and I enjoyed the different styles that came out of different towns. The New Orleans music, the Memphis sounds of Stax versus the Detroit sounds of Motown. The New York productions done at Bell Sound by Gene Pitney versus the Hollywood Phil Spector sessions done at Gold Star. It was a feast for the ears, because there was a lot of great music. Like the Don Mc Clean song 'American Pie' said, pure, authentic, rock and roll pretty much died out after Buddy Holly's plane crash in 1959. But the classy R&B productions were still helping the music evolve higher. All those great Drifters records with Ben E. King singing, and the Jerry Butler sessions done with Curtis Mayfield. And the experimental productions recorded with Gene Pitney and Burt Bacharach. It was a period where black church soul music was meeting classical music, as on 'There Goes My Baby' and all the other Drifters' records. I thought 'Every Breath I Take' by Gene Pitney, and produced by Phil Spector, was a great record, probably Spector's best record. Carole King with Mort Shuman, who was Neil Sedaka's writing partner, wrote it. And Neil Sedaka had written 'It Hurts To be In Love' for Gene Pitney, another great record, with Neil Sedaka singing high harmony, with his voice speeded up. I spotted that, although no one has ever written about it. Use your ears. It's Neil Sedaka speeded up. By the time The Beatles and British music hit, most American music had become pretty drip dried and horrible, with the possible exception of that classy R&B music coming out of New York City. Unfortunately, the British Invasion destroyed everything in its wake, including all of that New York influenced material. But, at least it got rid of all that Dick Clark crap too. But, it was a cultural tsunami; everything got killed. Fortunately, The Beatles and Stones were purists at heart, so they brought a lot of the good things about the "roots" back.

60s: How many of the Gotta Get To Mobile songs did you write? Were you a prolific writer during this period?
AC: Except for the cover songs like 'Rave On' (Holly), 'Everything I Do Is Wrong' (Charlie Rich), and a couple others, I wrote all the songs. Bob did actually co-write 'Blue Lights' and 'Kangaroo Of Schtick' but not the other ones although I did give him half credit on 'Song Of A Fool' and 'Why Didn't You Ever Think Of Me,' both of which I actually wrote in Hawaii prior to coming back to the States and starting Integrity. Had I actually released all the other songs on Integrity, I probably would have split the credits with Bob. But when we released 'Gotta Get To Mobile,' I kept the credit to myself. I was pretty proud of that one, because I had written it to the instrumental track that we had originally recorded for 'C'Mon Everybody,' which was an Eddie Cochran song. That was going to be the original flipside to 'Song Of A Fool,' but when we spoke to Jerry Capehart, the publisher and co-writer of the song, he was such a prick about it; He wanted to be paid in advance for the records we pressed, even before we sold a single copy. So, did Norman Petty when I wanted to release 'Rave On.' So, I wrote another song to that backing track too, which turned out to be 'Make Believe', which was ultimately released on Old Town Records a couple of years later. Had we contacted the Harry Fox Agency back then, the song licensing agency that we didn't know about, we could have paid them after we sold the records, and not in advance. We both thought it was unfair and unreasonable to make us pay for copies of a record not yet sold. Now, this is all pretty silly, because we would have only had to pay about three or four cents a copy for the thousand we were pressing up, and that would have been either 30 or 40 dollars. But, it was the principal of the thing, to be charged in advance, for copies not yet sold. They were both pretty nasty on the phone to Bob, and they both wanted to hear the records before we released them, to approve them, and we thought that was all pretty unreasonable. We weren't giving them any authority over our music to either Norman Petty or Jerry Capehart. So, I wrote entirely new songs to both of those tracks. I issued the original one take performance I did of 'C'Mon Everybody' track I did on the Pre-Punk CD, because I consider Eddie Cochran to be one of the fathers and mentors of punk and garage music. Listen to 'Somethin' Else' which is pure punk, in my opinion. Raw singing, its all-very garage sounding. Earl Palmer, rock and roll's greatest ever drummer ever, laid down the punk beat on that one. My biggest vocal influences were guys like Elvis, Del Shannon, Johnny Burnette, Eddie Cochran, Little Richard – a lot of screamers, basically. I always liked the screamers. I still love John Fogerty now. So, even though I went into some real pop and crooning areas of singing during that time and later on, I always came back to the primal scream. So did Elvis Presley, on the Comeback Show in '68. When in doubt, mangle it, scream it, and take no prisoners. But, yes, I liked Rick Nelson's style a lot too; I feel really comfortable singing like that too. I enjoy so many different genres and styles of music, and the challenge for me is to take a shot at everything I enjoy, just to see how well I can do it. In the end, I want it to be honest and believable to the listener. My own tendency as a writer is to write a lot of serious ballad stuff. But, afterwards, my primal self will kick in and I'll say, "No that's wimpy, that's bullshit, stick it in the drawer." A lot of people make a career out of issuing their truly wimpy crap on the public. I usually come to my senses and put it away, because it just doesn't have as much entertainment value as the harder stuff. Had anyone actually known in advance how Celine Dion would turn out, it would have been so much better had someone aborted her in the womb, rather than foisting her on the public. I mean a guy like Roy Orbison could make it work. He took tragedy into the stratosphere, and he made it bigger than life. When you're over the top, it becomes high art. If you're going to wimp out, it should be on something like 'Wind Beneath My Wings.' I mean, that's straight out of the Twilight Zone for schmaltzy pop. And it was written by Larry Henley, the same guy who sang lead for the group The Newbeats on 'Bread And Butter.' And he wrote that song after his wife told him she was divorcing him. So, that's how he reacted to the news of the divorce, he wrote that song. Had he been OJ Simpson, he might have just killed her instead. But, that's how Larry Henley reacted. So, yes it's good art, written as some obvious form of denial about his wife leaving him, and it works. So, remember the next time you hear that song at someone's wedding, or at his or her graduation, it was written after being told to "take a hike." And as a result, Larry Henley never had to work a day again. Of course, he did; he was a good writer.

60s: Whom would you consider your songwriting inspiration? What inspired you to write?
AC: I have a lot of respect for all the good writers, mostly in the traditional sense of the biz: Leiber and Stoller, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Bacharach and David. Anybody who was ever any good at turning out a song is inspiration. Some guys have their own style of writing, like John D. Loudermilk, or Chuck Berry, or Jimmy Webb. I imitated a lot of their styles. Sometimes it would just be a trigger for me to write my own real emotions into a song; sometimes it was just trying to make a good copycat record. I have always had the sense that what I am doing is being done as some form of "communication" between the listener and me. Having grown up in the Army, I had to leave my friends every couple of years as we moved around from base to base. Eventually, the singers in my record collections became more real than my real life "friends," because they didn't change every couple of years. So, the singers on those records became very real, and they talked to me in the darkness of my room. Yes, music may be a social experience in concert, but I always preferred a record to a concert. A record is one on one; it's between you and the person on the record. It's talking straight to you, the music that you like the best.

So, my standard always was that I have a responsibility to the listener. And that still gives me a lot of leeway. I can go nuts if I want to, knowing the listener might need to go nuts. Or I can go soft and sweet, knowing that the listener needs that too. During the late sixties through the early eighties, I got too intense, and maybe 70 percent of my material was depressing, sentimental crap. I was living in Nashville back then, and I really hated being there. I hated everything about it. The whole purpose as it turned out, was to get my ex-old lady a record deal. I didn't realize that until we split apart. But once I left Nashville, I was able to start making music again that I believed in. I try to keep the music 70 percent upbeat now, and "anything goes," any kind of emotion goes for the other 30 percent. I always try to add at least one really intellectual mind-fuck on an album, something at kind of at a tilt. But, I don't want to over do it. But, in general, I find most modern music to be some sort of a mind-fuck. That seems to be the actual intent of making the records at all. I don't like that.

A CD is like a meal. What do you want to cook for the person having that meal? All steak? All potatoes? No, you want to try to make it a total experience. And, of course, you, the artist, are allowed to control the experience that they share. You're the chef. Some people don't think about it too much, and they just do it naturally, without all the thought. And that's fine too. I have a dozen different techniques for writing, different ways of trying to relax enough to be able to explore some language and emotions. One of my favorite writers John D. Loudermilk ('Tobacco Road,' 'Torture,' 'Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye,' 'Ebony Eyes,' 'Red Headed Stranger,' etc.) said if you are having trouble getting inspired, just take a song that you already like and then write new words to it. And then, once you're happy with your new lyrics, change the melody. Now, it's a new song. When I can't get inspired to write a new song, I'll go back and finish something that I started in the past, sometimes even as far back as twenty or thirty years ago. The way we think changes with time. I have trouble writing a new rockabilly song now, because I don't think like that anymore. However, I can go back to an old rockabilly song I started back when I still thought like that, when I really believed it, and I can improve the lyrics a little and turn it into a really good song. And it will be honest and true to the genre. But, even Leiber and Stoller ('Jailhouse Rock,' 'Hound Dog,' 'Love Potion Number Nine,' 'Stand by Me,' etc.) said they couldn't write rock and roll anymore, because they don't think like they used to. But, they can and might still finish up songs that they started back then. Doing rewrites is strictly an academic exercise. You try to get rid of the words that don't work too well, and find better ones that make the point better. It's great to be inspired at the beginning, something that gives you the muscle and drive to write about a subject. Once you've got that, a verse, and a middle part, you can tuck it away for the future. The initial inspiration will still be there, in your original idea, and working in that framework, you can write dozens of new verses. So, I tend to occasionally write 12 verses to a song, and then strip it down to the best. Lately, I find that I write just a couple of verses and then I'm done. I get my thoughts expressed quicker now. Maybe I'm just too bored to come up with a new thought, I don't know. But, I do find that I'm finishing up more of the old songs I started years ago.

60s: You pitched some songs to Gene Pitney. Do you recall which ones? Did he ever record any?
AC:  Yes, I really wanted to pitch him 'Yesterday's Child,' which is on the Gotta Get To Mobile album. I even went to Bell Studios in New York City and did a remix of my multitrack master (all three channels--yikes!) that I had recorded at Cleveland Recording. I took it up to Aaron Schroeder's offices in New York City, because Aaron was his manager. But, the damn secretary was like Nurse Rachet in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. She said I needed an appointment. I tried to make an appointment, but she wouldn't give me one, because "We're not looking for material right now." Years later, I met Aaron Schroeder in Los Angeles, and he said that he liked some of my songs. I told him about the New York incident and how I couldn't get my song to Gene Pitney because of the secretary. He laughed and said, "I got rid of her."

60s: How did you first become associated with Tom King & The Starfires? Were you familiar with them before hiring them to back you on your sessions?
AC: After our first record, 'Blue Lights' of some individuals that we just slapped together into a group for that one session, we decided that it might be better to hire a real band of people who had been playing together with each other for a while. So, one weekend, we went out on the town and visited about six or seven nightclubs and bars just to check out the bands. I don't know if it was the first or second night when we heard Tom King and The Starfires, but they just jumped out as the best playing band that we'd heard. They were closest to what we wanted to sound like, so I talked to Tom about doing the session. He agreed. It was a full-scale union session, everybody got paid. We had one rehearsal before we went into the studio. We cut four songs at the first session, and maybe about eight at another session about nine months later. They recorded that second session with us just a few months before they did 'Time Won't Let Me,' at which point they changed their name to The Outsiders. Tom King had purchased a cutting lathe and some record stampers from Boddie Recording, so I even paid him to press up the second record. I recall being at his house, and he had his grandmother clipping the excess plastic off the edges of the record. As far as I recall, Boddie Recording was a studio in town used mostly by black recording acts, as well as their record stamper. His pressings were much better than our first record, because he used pure vinyl.

60s: Did you remain in contact at all with the band after they hit nationally as The Outsiders?
AC: No. I spoke to Tom King on the phone back in around 1988, but he seemed pretty unfriendly. He acted like he didn't know who I was. I have talked to Jimmy Fox a few times over the years. When he was first forming The James Gang, I was auditioning at a club with my singing partner for a college coffee house folk circuit gig. Jimmy came in with Glenn Swartz and someone else and said, "Hey Al, I'm putting together a group, would you like to sing in it?" I said, "What are you going to do?" He said, "Rock and roll." I said, "No, I'm doing this folk thing now, but good luck." "Oh, okay, good luck to you too." I asked him what he was going to call it, and he said, The James Gang

60s: What are your recollections of The Baskerville Hounds?
AC: None, really. Bob did that session on his own. He wanted to try something without me, and I said, "Cool." After he did the session, he came to me and said, "Al, I think I screwed up." I asked him what was wrong. He said, "I wasn't really listening. The introduction of each song we did is out of tune. I played it for a disc jockey down at the radio station, and the guy said that the beginnings were way out of tune. I guess I was too excited, because I didn't notice that they were so out of tune. I can't understand why nobody in the group told me that it was out of tune." I listened and he was right. One side, 'No Time To Lose' started out with a harmonica and a guitar, and they were really out of tune together. But then the drums and chorus came in, and everything sounded fine. It was the same thing with the other side, 'Way Over There', which started out with just an organ that was extremely out of pitch on the third opening chord. But, then the drums came in and it all sounded fine. I told Bob, "Hey, let's just do an edit and cut all that crap off the beginning and pick it up on the opening drum beat on both sides." We went into the studio and Ken Hammond clipped off the beginnings, and we saved and salvaged both sides. Bob said, "I guess I should have had you there. Two heads are better than one." But he said he'd give me a co production credit, just because I saved him the cost of going back in the studio to redo the entire session. Ha.

60s: Did you use The Baskerville Hounds for any sessions other than the Mona Lowe & The Crescents one?
AC: No. Bob got drafted within a few weeks of doing that session. All other plans came to an end at that point.

The Missing Lynx

60s: How did you become associated with The Missing Lynx ('Behind Locked Doors' on DynoVoice)?
AC: Bob and I had started our own record label, but we both also worked at Discount Records in downtown Cleveland, as sales clerks. Bob got me the job when I first came back from Hawaii. I eventually managed one Discount Records store and Bob managed another one that was a few blocks away in the heart of downtown Cleveland. There was a fellow named Oscar Fields, who was a promotion man for one of the local record distributors, Clevedisc, I think. I think they handled Mercury Records. Well, Oscar and Bob and I were friends. Oscar was black and a big jazz fan, musically speaking. He didn't like rock and roll too much, or understand anything about it. Now, I'm not sure of the exact chain of events, but I believe Billy Bass was a friend of Oscar's. I didn't know Billy. I think it was Billy who "discovered" The Missing Lynx. Actually, I know that he did, because I was at a reunion of The Missing Lynx a couple of weeks ago. At the time, Billy Bass was working at Jupiter's Discount Store, in the record department, also located in downtown Cleveland. He told Oscar about The Missing Lynx, because Oscar was in the music business, and might be able to open some doors for Billy and the group. But The Lynx were just doing cover songs at the time, and Billy thought that they would need to have some original songs. Oscar knew that Bob and I were writing and producing our own rock records, so Oscar asked Bob if we'd be interested in writing some songs that we could produce and record with The Missing Lynx.

So, the first time I remember meeting the band was when we went over to Mark Ostrovsky's house and listened to them play. I thought they were a really super band, primarily because their drummer was so good, and I liked the lead guitarist too. Sorry to say, I don't remember anybody's name from the group, other than Mark's. I thought Mark had a really edgy voice, in the Mick Jagger style. I didn't think he pronounced or enunciated his words as clearly as he could have, which was about my only real criticism of his singing that I could find. When I sang him some of my songs, he thought my singing was too "smooth," which it was. I was more of a singer than Mark, but Mark was more of a rocker, with a much harder edge. I've got more of that horrible "Pat Boone" gene, which has plagued many otherwise rockers. Even Bill Haley had it. Elvis didn't. I felt this strange generation gap between us, because I was out of the old school of fifties rock, and these guys were more in line with the British stuff. I don't think there was more than a five or six-year difference in our ages, but at that time, that seemed like quite a bit.

I don't actually remember if we wrote the songs after we met them, or before we met them. Bob had been told that they were similar to The Rolling Stones or Animals, and that would have been enough for Bob and I to sit down to write some songs. I know that one of the songs, "I Gotta Get You Out Of My Mind" was written way before I met them, but it was kind of an Animals sounding thing anyhow, so we only had to come up with three more songs. Bob and I probably knocked them out in an evening or two. Bob used to bring a bottle of Jack Daniels over to the house, and we'd bounce ideas off each other, enough to get me started. We would work in the recreation room in the basement, which I had set up as a little studio with a simple stereo recorder.

As I said earlier, Bob didn't play an instrument, but he came up with lyric ideas and title concepts. After we got the gist of what we wanted to do for The Missing Lynx, Bob would usually take a nap on my couch, while I would perfect an arrangement and edit the lyrics we'd scratched out. I'd wake Bob up every now and then, and he'd say, "Yeah, that's it, keep it up," then he'd pass out again. So, while Bob slept I'd record a demo onto tape. Bob had most of the lyric ideas for 'The Mover,' which, in hindsight, is really a good rocker; it could probably be re-done today. I was getting into folk rock then, so I imagine ' Don't Waste My Time' was probably more of my own concept. I liked the Gordon Lightfoot song that was out, ' For Lovin' Me,' and it followed the same kind of "love ‘em and leave ‘em" philosophical viewpoint. For the life of me, I can't recall co-writing any of that with Mark Ostrovsky, but Mark obviously wasn't completely happy with my lyric, and he made some contribution of his own. 'When A Woman Goes Bad' was another one Bob and I knocked out in a hurry. It strikes me that we probably made demos of our songs, but I don't have them anymore if we did. We probably just gave them to the band to learn the songs, and never got them back. However, I still have the original tape concept of 'I Gotta Get You Out Of Mind,' which was written before we took on the project. I included that demo on the Pre-Punk album. The group was very faithful to my original concept. They worked very fast, and were highly professional for a band just beginning.

60s: Did you record these songs with other groups you recorded?
AC: No. We didn't take anything too seriously back then. Ambition is an interesting thing. "Ambition never stands still." It always moves forward. In other words, back then, it was easier to go forward into a new project rather than fix something that needed a little bit of work. I had tracks that were 80 percent finished, songs that needed just a little bit more work to make them really good. But, it was easier to move forward and say, "The hell with that.  It's done." In hindsight, I think I may have overlooked a couple of possible hits of my own because I wasn't willing to stop long enough to fix them or finish them up properly. One song needed a new chorus, and it would have been perfect, but I wasn't willing to go back in the studio to work on it some more. So, likewise, "Ambition lacks patience." So, it is good to have two heads working on a project, because sometimes when one overlooks something, perhaps the other one will catch it in time to fix it. But Bob and I were both ambitious. We probably could have used a third head, someone much older and experienced.

The Missing Lynx, 1965

After I worked with The Missing Lynx, I continued to know Mark Ostrovsky. He'd hang out at the same folk club where I played a lot, Faragher's Back Room. He was hanging out with Rick Ocasic back then. Mark and I were both singing folk music for a few years. If we did rock, it was usually acoustic. Of course, Rick later went on to form The Cars, but I never saw him play at Faragher's. I didn't know any of the other band members from The Missing Lynx, although I was just at a reunion with them a few weeks ago. Some of them came in from California where they live now. Of course, their manager, Billy Bass, went on to work with David Bowie for a few years, and then George Benson. I don't know in what capacity, but Bass also became a big Cleveland radio personality on underground radio during the sixties and seventies. Oscar Fields went on to work at Electra Records in Los Angeles. Carl Madari, who did our song 'Blue Lights' with Sherry Starlyn, had a great career as a result of producing 'A Morning After' by Maureen McGovern, and then 'Play That Funky Music White Boy' by Wild Cherry.

60s: How did you become associated with The Human Beinz?
AC:  Bob had started working for a local record distributor, Mainline I think. He heard that Lex Azevedo was recording and producing The Human Beinz at Cleveland Recording, and that he was looking for songs to record with them. Bob came over to the house, and we wrote three songs that same night. I pretty much wrote them by myself, but I wouldn't have written them at all if Bob hadn't made me do it. I didn't know anything about Lex Azevedo other than the fact that he had something to do with The Sonny and Cher Show at one time. I know that he only paid us one royalty check, and that has to be a screw-job, because they did a live album in Japan with that song, as well as a compilation of their two albums for Japan release. So, Lex was the publisher, and we should have been paid several times over the years. But we weren't. Well, that's the record business. They only pay you if you can actually afford to sue them, which we didn't even want to bother with.

60s: The Human Beinz passed on two of your songs ('I Listen To The Band' and 'Talking' 'Bout My Lady'). Did they ever attempt to record them first? Did anybody ever record them after you did as demos?
AC: I guess it was their producer, Lex, who passed on the first two songs. I recently talked to Ting Markulin of The Human Beinz, and he said that he doesn't remember hearing the other songs, although he may have heard them at the time. As far as one of the rejected songs was concerned, 'I Listen To The Band' I started singing with Mona Lowe. We eventually became a duo, and renamed ourselves Leatherwood & Lisa. We passed that audition at that club where I spoke to Jimmy Fox of The James Gang, and for the next three years, we became part of the Fredana Magaement Coffee House Circuit, and we played at various colleges all over the United States, strictly as an acoustic act. We both sang, I played guitar, and she played tambourine. Eventfully, we would actually record that song as a demo for Monument Records with Bob Beckham producing and Chip Young arranging the song. Tommy Allsup, Buddy Holly's lead guitarist, also played on the session. I didn't like the way Chip Young arranged it, with a distorted lead guitar on top of it, and I complained to Bob Beckham that I wasn't pleased with it. That was a mistake. Little did I know that Chip was engaged to Bob Beckham's daughter, and about to get married and become Beckham's son-in-law. But, we had been performing the song for a few years at colleges, and I had some definite ideas about how it should be produced. But, in Nashville, you are supposed to keep your opinions to yourself. Musicians are treated like meat there, it's best to just follow orders. At any rate, it didn't work out for Bob Beckham and us. But, Tommy Allsup actually tried to get us a deal at Metro Media, whoever they were. Beckham played it for Dan Penn (producer of The Boxtops), and he got interested in working with my singing partner for a while. No, nothing happened with "I Listen To The Band.' But then, The Monkees did a song with the same title.

60s: Did you work with any other local bands of the era?
AC:  No, I was getting into acoustic music, and I just jammed with friends. I played with some local guys like Jim Glover (of Jim and Jean on Verve Folkways), and Alex Bevan, and Dave Budin. But, as far as recording was concerned, I was at a point where I wanted a recording deal, so I fell off the radar for many years, because it just wasn't happening. That was a big mistake on my part. An artist should never rely on other people making their dreams come true. Every indie artist should act as though they're the only person calling the shots. If and when a great deal comes along, that's just icing on the cake. If it doesn't, then at least you'll be getting things done on your own.

60s: Is there any more material from the '63-'68 era in the Integrity vaults that could possibly be released to CD soon?
AC: There are a lot of songs, but a lot the demos were poor, they were never meant to be performances. Some of the songs are so good that I still have plans to record them in the future as "new" songs, so I won't issue those earlier versions, as I'll be doing some rewrites and improving the weak spots. I've actually already recorded three of those songs. It will be fifty years in 2012 since I made my first record, and I did save a few tracks from that period to maybe issue on some CD that might mark the fifty-year mark. Then again, I may be dead by then, so someone can stick in on a memorial album if they want to. Just kidding, but I have had a number of increasing health problems these past few years. It's got me so spooked that I'm actually working harder on my music than I did during the entire nineties. There's no telling when my own ticket will be up.