The Muphets started as an actual group in the fall of 1962, but the band was really an outgrowth of a bunch of Dale McIntosh's guitar students; counting bass, I think there were at least five guitars players, maybe more, on the first gig of the band that (once paired down) would become The Marauders & then The Muphets. This first job was in the Germantown High School Gym and we played all instrumentals I believe; I think all the guitar players were from the Germantown, Ohio, area except one, and that was Mike Pate from Post Town (5-6 miles away). He was the fellow who, three years later, came up with the guitar riff on ‘My Money’ aka ‘I See The Light.’
I don't think Lamar McClellan was there when the four of us first got together in the living room of Gerald Emerick's parents’ house; it was Ric Smith, Gerald Emerick, Mike Pate and me. The first songs we worked up were ‘409’ by The Beach Boys and ‘Do You Love Me’ by The Contours. I remember Gerald had patched his bass into his parents console stereo, and before rehearsal was over it blew up. At this point I was playing an ancient single tension snare/bass drum kit from Ric's house and used the bottom of an angel foodcake pan setting on a music stand as a ride cymbal—I couldn't afford the real thing. By the time we did the gym job, I had acquired a used green lacquer Slingerland snare/bass drum kit and a 22” Zildjian ride cymbal with a then fashionable retractable aluminum rivet sizzler, all purchased at Hauer Music in Dayton, thank you (still couldn’t afford a Hi-Hat).
We knew we couldn't work with seven guitars or whatever it was, so we three friends (and classmates) wanted Pate as he seemed to show the most interest in being serious. Lamar, also a friend and classmate, joined later, as we needed a lead singer; we felt fortunate to get him as he was already performing with a working band, The Impacts. Remember, this all happened pre-Beatles; we were doing ‘Oh Donna,’ ‘Shout,’ and Ventures guitar instrumentals, etc. When The Beatles hit, everything seemed to really take off for live bands and that's when we were able to move forward.
I remember how surprised I was when we first got to New York at how unhip the local bands were as they weren't covering English groups’ music like we did, and long-haired groups such as ours were a bit of a rarity—so much so that our appearance always attracted attention in Manhattan. We were followed around midtown by teen-age girls who thought we must be somebody—usually somebody English: Lamar was once mistaken for Mick Jagger; Ric for Brian Jones and yours truly for Eric Burden. We were even invited to Manny’s Music (by Henry) to do an interview with local TV news (WNBC, I think) about why we wore our hair long. I was amused by the irony of it all—in 1965 neither British music nor the British look seemed to have penetrated very deeply into Manhattan nightclubs; the hippest city in the world (supposedly) was actually behind the Midwest in terms of the presentation and type of live music being played at local venues. Unbelievable!
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| The Muphets |
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| Gerald and Mike |
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Jay Recalls The Muphets' Recording Sessions
Megacity
(‘All I Want’ and ‘Why Can’t You Go’ – Sound Spectrum S-S36001; writer: Billy Albert)
Our first session ever was in the summer of 1964 at Floyd Whitehead’s studio located in a warehouse district north of downtown Dayton. The area was roughly framed by Chrysler-Airtemp on one side and The Diamond Club on the other. The studio was called Megacity and I think engineer Andy Apperson (who became The Muphets manager and later manager of The Music Explosion) owned a piece of it, as a lot of the equipment was or had been his (Andy was always rather secretive about business dealings, so at the time I never knew specifics about his financial interest in the studio). Ivan & The Sabers had previously recorded the mini-regional hit ‘Just Let her Go’ at Megacity for Prism Records (Floyd’s label? As I recall this song had reached the top ten in Cleveland—in any case, Andy said there had been offers from majors but Prism refused to deal so the Ivan & The Sabers record died on the vine).
The studio was in a converted garage or outbuilding of some kind & there was no multi-track, of course. They had a couple of Neumanns (U-47, U-67 x 2?) two or three Ampex recorders (351s?) – we did the band tracks full take live and deck-to-deck overdubbed the vocals. I don’t recall an echo chamber—I believe tape echo was used. Monitors were high-end audiophile, I think ARs. At that time the drum booth or stage was on a riser in the back left of the studio. The board was a (modified?) broadcast board (Altec? Gates?)—one of those industrial green things with the giant black Bakelite knobs and toggle switches. There was also an outboard EQ. Andy was fond of using a lipstick (broadcast lavaliere mic) positioned just under a Neumann for vocals.
We recorded two original songs: ‘All I Want’ and ‘Why Can’t You Go.’ The basic arrangements were ours, but Andy acted as producer as well as engineer. The two songs were sung mostly in unison; however, there was a voice break in the solo section of the lead vocal on ‘Why Can’t You Go,’ but after some discussion it was left in. As I recall we paid $1,000 for the session, and several boxes of 45s that were delivered to us (by the way, the $1,000 was borrowed from a girl who lived a few houses down from my parents--we did pay it all back). Some instrument overdubs were made post our involvement, and ultimately the songs were released on the Sound Spectrum label; 40+ years later I saw photographs of this record when they turned up on eBay or are referenced on a blog.
Golden World
(Song unknown – no release)
Andy signed us to an exclusive management deal sometime after the session at Megacity, and thereafter devoted himself to managing The Muphets full time. I recall that he indicated he had given up active interests in the studio.
We had worked a couple of jobs in the Detroit area, and Shelly Haimes (sic), who we had met at Megacity when he was working Prism Records product, was then working with or for Golden World Records, so through Andy and/or Shelly (or both) we ended up there one late morning just at the time (1965) Edwin Star’s ‘Agent 00 Soul’ was breaking nationwide (on the Ric Tic label).
We stayed at The Algiers Motel on Woodward Ave; I believe the label put us up there. At any rate, I’ve since found out that Ed Wingate (one of the principles at Golden World) owned The Algiers. We hung around the studio (on Davison) for a few days (I think Friday, Saturday and Sunday)—I remember watching Edwin Starr banging out original material on a piano. He took a break at one point, and asked if we wanted to go with him to a record store, and I said sure. I don’t remember any of the other guys going. He had a bullet nose T-bird with a crunched fender and we went to this huge record store that I think was in the same general area as the studio. He bought some 45s and played them and pointed out the good sections to me; he was giving me Songwriting 101 lessons and I think very generous to me in that sense. He didn’t have to show me anything; he was a nice man and I’m sorry he’s gone.
The $64 question is, was there really a session? We were asked to come to the studio on a Sunday morning, and there were a couple of writers in the control room. As I recall, we ran through one of our songs in the studio and the writers started bouncing ideas around for songs that kinda had nothing to do with our tune, or what we did, and that day we left Detroit. What happened behind the scenes between Andy and the Golden World people I have no idea—and, as usual, Andy was less than forthcoming about what went on.
It was a nice studio: all acoustical treatment, high ceiling with baffled sidewalls. The control room was a narrow, double deck affair; you had to walk up a step or two to get behind the board, and in front and just below the console were observers seats at ground level close up to the control room window. Directly above these seats angled down I recall there being multiple fancy walnut “Voice of the Theater” speaker cabinets with the cross-latticework grilles—not sure what was in them (I've read since 604Es* were used), but the playback was absolutely earsplitting; loudest I ever heard in any control room anywhere.
While we were hanging out, the studio was in use, and I remember standing at the control room door next to Ed Wingate and another gentleman and listening to a thundering “. . . Oooooo boy, you bring me so much joy . . .” Wingate commented, “That’s bad, that’s bad” meaning of course he liked it a lot. Sorry I can’t give you more details on the console or the recorders, but I just didn’t spend enough time up on the console “deck” for any details to sink in. I believe this studio eventually became Motown Studio “B.”
*Note: 604s in the gray utility cabinets were used as monitors in nearly every studio The Muphets were in after Golden World. I think nearly every studio in New York used them. I’m not sure about Louisville, though. I personally loved 604Es and eventually bought a pair for the house. They are absolutely great speakers!
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| Early promotional photo |
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Allegro Studios, 1650 Broadway, NYC
Acetate only* – ‘My Money’ writer: Gerald Emerick; ‘Cold Winds’ writer: Billy Albert; ‘One Thing’ writers: Ric Smith, Gerald Emerick, Mike Pate, Billy Albert and Lamar McClellan; ‘You Don’t Worry Me’ writer: Gerald Emerick.
*(Note: All but ‘Cold Winds’ were released in early 2009 on Norton Records Unissued Sixties Garage Acetates series, Volumes One, Two and Three)
After the Golden World debacle, we were becoming frustrated with our attempts to get a record deal so it was decided we would just pack up and head for New York City (we actually left late at night from WKRC TV Studios in Cincinnati, where we were going to perform in the taping of a battle of the bands “competition”—Tony & The Bandits, later called The Lemon Pipers, won). We arrived in New York in mid August 1965 (on the 13th I believe) without a gig, but got rooms in a hotel directly across from Manney’s Music. Within a day or two we had gone around the corner to The Metropole Café, auditioned and got a job (if interested, The Metropole as it was then can be seen in the opening scenes of The Odd Couple—it’s the bar the Jack Lemmon character wanders into). As I recall, we had been working for a while when our manager booked time at Allegro (1650 Broadway).
It was a very early morning session paid for by Andy (“paid for” turned out to be the operative phrase). All the tunes recorded were written or multiply co-written by the then members of The Muphets band who, for better or for worse, played all the instruments and sang all the parts: Gerald Emerick (bass), Eric Smith (Rickenbacker 330/12 electric), Lamar McClelland (harmonica), Mike Pate (Epiphone Casino or Gibson ES-330?), and Billy Albert (drums-studio kit, one overhead and one on the kick). I think at least two of the songs were written at the hotel; ‘Cold Winds’ was a year or two old by that time. We rehearsed everything at the hotel, and played them at Allegro pretty much as rehearsed. Mike Pate more or less quickly came up with the riff on ‘My Money,’ and the 16ths rhythm guitar on ‘You Don’t Worry Me.’ The clunky guitar on the beginning of ‘Cold Winds’ was the old trick of weaving a sheet of paper between the strings at the bridge on Pate’s or Ric’s 6 string guitar. If I’m not mistaken, we hauled our amps (two Vox Super-Beatles and a Vox Foundation bass, all bought at Manney’s) to the studio up Broadway on a flat low garbage cart we had borrowed from the hotel.
The demos were done to help shop the band to various labels, while we supported ourselves by working six days a week at The Metropole Café or The Peppermint Lounge. We had worked the evening before at one of these places and had to be at Allegro sometime around 9:00-10:00 am, so we were not happy but, once we saw the studio, we started playing, and listened to the first playback (Gray Utility Cabinets w/604s) we were very pleased, and ended up doing the rhythm section tracks in one or two takes each. Bruce Staple was an excellent engineer—very quick and instinctively knew what you wanted. It was like, “Could you get the guitar to . . .?” and he would say, “I know, I know” and do what you were about to ask. The headphone mix sounded good and they had a nice sounding reverb; it was just a comfortable studio for us. Also it actually helped that it was early in the morning, and we were tired—it took the edge off. As I remember we recorded on a 4-track (Scully, I think), and bounced, then continued to record and bounce ‘till we were out of tracks.
Bruce liked the band, and helped us get the demo listened to at a couple labels. The tapes were stored in Allegro’s vault under Andy Apperson’s name (he paid the bill, he owned the tape). The song ‘My Money’ written by Gerald Emerick, our bass player, was on this tape and I am absolutely positive that the band track (rhythm section) we recorded that day for ‘My Money’ later ended up on the B-side of ‘Little Bit ‘O Soul.’
Bruce and/or the demo got us into a few labels were we got the classic tin pan alley song writer pitch—in other words we all went into a room at the label and a writer came in and played tunes for us, but nothing much else happened with the demo at that point.
Lead vocals on the songs were as follows: ‘You Don’t Worry Me’ – Lamar McClellan; ‘Cold Winds’ – Melody: Bill Albert; low harmony: Eric (Ric) Smith; ‘My Money’ – all together, with Lamar on the hook; ‘One Thing’ – all together w/Lamar on melody, I think bass voice was Gerald.
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| Billy |
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| Ric |
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Mirasound/Bell Sound
(‘Please Give Me Just One More Chance’—Kama Sutra; to my knowledge not released; writer: Bo Gentry)
Our short lived deal with Kama Sutra Records came about because Bo Gentry was walking by The Metropole one afternoon and heard us when we were onstage—one of the front doors was usually left open so people outside could hear the bands. I assume Bo came in and inquired to someone about us, and was directed to Andy who was always at the club when we were there and we ended up at Kama Sutra. Bo showed little interest in our material but had a song of his in mind for us. After some vocal rehearsal at the label (just Bo, a piano and us in a side room) we ended up in (or at) a session in one of New York’s busiest studios—Mirasound (145 W. 47th St.) seemed weird to me because it was in rooms behind an active-in-business hotel’s lobby—you kind of walked behind the hotel front desk and opened a door andyou were in the studio!
It was a daytime (we still had to work at the club later) chart session that we didn’t play on; only New York City session guys allowed! We were, however, required by the label to be in the studio and sing behind a baffle to a scrub track—this was done to circumvent Musicians Union rules that would otherwise have demanded all the players be paid for a featured performance; with us singing as the tape rolled they were only backing us—a much cheaper (for the label) common practice.
As I remember Gary Sherman was the arranger; Gary Chester played drums, and there were six to eight other guys: two or three guitars; bass; piano; maybe organ and I think a guy that only played tambourine. We hit them with a last minute key change and they transposed the charts in their heads and did one take (they did a second for safety but ended up using the first)—great players! Besides Sherman and Chester, one fellow sticks out in my mind: I believe the other guys called him “Doc.” He was a Frenchman, I think, and played an instrument called an Onduline (sic I’m sure) pronounced on-jew-lean. It was a short scale electrical keyboard thing that made sort-of flute-bird-like sounds and kind of a forerunner of the modern synthesizer.
I believe the bass player stayed and did overdubs on the chimes, and I’m not sure now if “Doc” did overdubs too, although I do remember after the session he gave us a little demonstration of the Onduline (sic again)so he must have stayed. He was a rather odd guy in the sense that he looked totally out of place at a “rock” session; he was sort of round in a too tight sport coat and unkempt in a professorial kind of way, but very nice to us as I recall.
The overall sound of the finished track was very much along the lines of Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound;” lots of reverb, clangy tambourine, leathery sounding drums, chimes, etc. I can’t remember who the engineer was, but hanging in the control room next to the 604Es there was a nice leather jacket that someone commented on, and the engineer replied that Phil Spector had been by the previous day and given it to him as a gift.
Bo didn’t want to do vocals at Mirasound; he thought Bell Sound sounded better for vocals so we met him over there, it would have to have been in the evening on our one and only day off (a Monday, I believe). Artie Ripp was either with him or came by shortly after.
Bell Sound was a recording complex with more than one studio and I think we were in “B,” but I really can’t be sure. It was a gymnasium-like room with a high ceiling. I remember there were two full size grand pianos in the studio that we were asked not to touch as they had just been tuned and were to be used by Ferrente and Teischer (sic) the next day. I can’t clearly recall the engineer’s name (Lou maybe?) but I believe he said he was from Cincinnati (that sticks out ‘cause The Muphets were from the same general area). At first he was a kind of serious, rather formal guy and didn’t seem to like us much, but later as the session ground on he seemed a bit better.
“Ground on” was the operative phrase, as the session did not go well. The song was really too rangy for our limited vocal capabilities; that’s why we had wanted the last minute key change at Mirasound. During the Bell session it was obvious Bo was unhappy with our performance so we rotated lead singers, traded off lead voice by sections, sang everything in unison with 2,3, or more voices, etc., but nothing really worked (and we knew it wasn’t working). The label of course ended up not liking our vocals at all, so the tune was never released with us and we were dropped from Kama Sutra.
Oddly enough, four years later (almost to the month) I was in the control room of that same studio at Bell Sound with Richard Gotterer, doing a second mix of Jordan Parker Revues’ ‘Ginger Bread Man.’ I remember him commenting on how the studio used to be a good sounding room until they painted it. Even more oddly, I cannot now recall for sure what mix made it on to the JPR record, but I think we might have ended up using the Mt. Healthy (Cincinnati) mix.
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| Ric and Billy |
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Louisville (and the end)
(‘Cold Winds’ and ‘My Money’ released on Counterpart Records)
After being dropped by Kama Sutra we somehow briefly hooked up with Katz-Kasenetz (they later became the proprietors of the Super-K bubblegum machine but don’t get me wrong; I’m not putting the music down). Exactly how this came about I can’t clearly recall; I remember Jerry coming to see us at our hotel a number of times and I recall taking the train out to Jeff’s house at least once (Far Rockaway?). Also there is a very vague memory of seeing Jeff through a control room window from the studio side. I can’t be sure, but we might have gone back in at Allegro with Jeff and Jerry to work with the vocals on the demos we had done there earlier. In any case, the verdict from Jeff and Jerry was that the band was very good but our vocals were seriously deficient, and they were not interested until we could fix the problem.
On top of this final bit of career bad news, some things happened of a personal nature that drove a permanent wedge between us and Andy. After that, it all went downhill fast. We left New York City and went to Brockton, Massachusetts to work a club. TWA failed to deliver our amps on time and we got booted; then we went back to Ohio (arriving just before Christmas 1965) and shortly we were a four piece band with no manager.
A year or so earlier while promoting the ‘All I Want’/ ‘Why Can't You Go’ record (Sound Spectrum S-S36001) we had become friends with Bob Patton, then a disc jockey at WMOH in Hamilton, Ohio. After we returned from New York and established ourselves as a viable four-piece group, Bob wanted to take us into the studio (SAMBO) in Louisville to produce a couple of our originals. We took a piano player named Darryl Friend with us and recorded ‘Cold Winds’ and ‘My Money,’ but nothing happened with the tape at that time and eventually we kind of lost track of Bob (next time Ric and I saw him was August ’66, on the field at Crosley Field, Cincinnati, for the Beatles daytime show—he was traveling with the Beatles’ tour broadcasting a "man on the scene" blow-by-blow on the events surrounding the concerts). I didn't see him again until five or six years later when he came into the Forum Club in Dayton, where I was working with Trudi & Hopple Street Exit (a group formed from The Tad Spencer Group and Jordan Parker Revue). Patton said he was working as advance man for James Brown, and I mentioned I had been at the Beatles’ concert standing at the tunnel when I saw him come out and he said I should have yelled at him—we could have come up and met the “guys” after the show; that certainly was a major once-in-lifetime missed opportunity!
After the Louisville session we continued to work as a four-iece band until the draft caught up with Ric and Gerald and Mike (I was married and therefore exempt) so they decided to volunteer for the Marines, as they felt the superior training would give them a better chance of survival (ex-lead singer Lamar had already joined); also, they didn't have to start boot camp until several months after they enlisted. We played out those final months at a club called Go Go Kips near LeSourdsville, just south of Middletown, Ohio.
Shad O’ Shea’s Counterpart Records ended up with the Muphets’ Louisville tape, and Shad put it out in ’67 with ‘My Money’ as the A-side and it got some airplay in Columbus (see www.buckeyebeat.com)—problem was there was no a longer a band to go with the song. In the record business such things are only a minor inconvenience, so with the usual deft show business slight-of-hand, a working band was recruited to take our place, and they became us as far as ‘My Money’ / ‘Cold Winds’ was concerned. Of course none of us, the original Muphets, knew about it at the time and I didn’t find out ‘till about three to four years later when I was working with another group at Shad’s studio and he told me about it. I don’t think Ric ever knew about it as he was killed in a car wreck in 1969. From the break-up until that time, I don’t ever recall a discussion with former band members about putting The Muphets back together. I guess everybody figured the band had its shot, had come up short, and it was over.
Summary
I think there are only a total of six tunes: two on the Sound Spectrum release and four on the Allegro acetate; two off the Allegro acetate were recorded again at Louisville and released on Counterpart. ‘All I Want’ from the Sound Spectrum single was recorded later by another Ohio group, The Olivers, I am told, and the ‘My Money’ band track from the Allegro acetate ended up on the B-side of a #2 chart record. There were other songs written or co-written by two ex-Muphets members that ended up as singles, but only six tunes by the band itself, as I recall.
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| Muphets promotional photo |
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Note: These recollections originally printed on the G45 Central Forum. Special thanks to Mark Taylor for allowing us to reprint them here...
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