It seems every kid loves music and I was no different. I only got to listen to it as a child when we were driving in my Dad’s ’55 Desoto convertible to Grandma’s for Sunday chicken dinner. We loved hearing Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, and the cool doowop (groups), and my older brother, Rick, and I would get Dad to crank it up! Dad preferred Buck Owens and country music but he liked some of the “modern” stuff too. One year for Christmas, we got a small portable record player and began buying 45s. Our interest in music became serious before we were teens.
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| The Whatsits (Top): Sonny Brammer, Billy Ginn and Pat Fogel; (Bottom) Joe Hoffman, Ernie King and Bucky Davis |
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Patrick Fogel Recalls The Whatsits
September 2007
In high school, I had a part-time job at WFTM Radio in Maysville, Kentucky, where I grew up. I was the remote producer at all the sock hops and was the DJ that spun the platters. I recorded from the dances and then had a one-hour program on Wednesday evenings to play it back. In between, I would take requests and play as many (songs) as I could. It was my feedback as to who was listening and how many. I got to be well known. The station wanted me to get an FCC license and although station manager, Roy Redmond, was very good to me, I declined. I went to the sock hops to have fun and dance with the girls!
Before I left WFTM, brother Rick put me onto a group that sounded like nothing you ever heard. He (had gone) to Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond where they had a very progressive record shop. He went there every day and came home every other weekend with some new 45s. It was at the very beginning of the British Invasion. (One of the 45s) was on the Capitol label and the name of the band was The Beatles.
I played the 45 he provided on the air and the listening audience went nuts over it – both sides! Kids were calling up asking for play during the middle of a country session or the morning hog report. The station didn’t like it and decided not continue any kind of rock and roll. Without my show, I had no desire to be on the hog report with an FCC license.
Music and life as it was changed forever! We just couldn’t get enough! Suddenly, everyone wanted to look like a Beatle and be in a band. If you didn’t have a Beatle haircut, pegged pants, and a collarless jacket, you just weren’t cool. Otherwise cool performers like Elvis, The Everly Brothers and even The Beach Boys fell into the shadows as British bands like The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Peter and Gordon, Herman’s Hermits, The Kinks, etc., hit the record stores and the airways. The fever to be in a band and feel some of that “strange power” it held hit me hard as it did some of my best friends.
Before my graduation in 1964, classmate Sonny Brammer and underclassmates, Bucky Davis and Joe Huffman, joined me in a car ride. Sonny suggested with sincere excitement that we could form a band. I was considered a good singer because I could sing perfectly with any song that came on the radio and I could tenor the high notes and harmonize. I thought, “Wow! Imagine me...lead singer in a band!” I could even make my voice sound like the actual singer. Joe said he always wanted to play bass and now had real reason to pursue it. He was a rich kid but you’d never know it.
Joe’s mom saw how sincerely we were interested so she backed us. Bucky already had a Ludwig drum set and was damned good, even though he had never played with anyone. Joe wanted a Hoffner bass just like Paul McCatrney’s and his mom bought one (for him). He was so proud of that thing! Bands are often judged (or they certainly were then) by the names on the equipment. We decided to get the very best we could afford. I was the kid with the least amount of money and my buddies knew I could not go out and buy a good PA system so we formed a kind of informal corporation where everyone chipped in and we bought it and owned it collectively.
Sonny said he always wanted to play keyboards and his dad, who owned Brammer Auto Sales, supported him with a Baldwin keyboard and a Leslie rotating speaker. We needed a lead guitarist now. A friend named Bill Ginn could play rhythm and had a nice guitar. Billy was small in stature but had a perfect Beatles haircut. He was also gifted with good looks and the girls were all nuts about him. Billy was humble though and spent his time playing his guitar instead of chasing the girls or letting them catch him. We found a great guy named Jimmy (his last name now escapes me) 18-miles out of Maysville in Flemingsburg where my grandmother lived. After hearing him play in his living room with a small Kent amp, we added him to the band. Now all we had to do was learn to play together and to play the songs.
Something we all agreed on seriously was that if you were going to do a song right, you had to do it exactly like the record. We would buy the record and each in turn would listen to it and dissect their part from it. Each would practice so that it was perfect at every note. Bucky was a natural and his timing was always perfect. He was so easy to perform with. Drums are the anchor and the bass is the glue.
When everyone was sure of their part, we would get together in Joe Huffman’s basement and put it together in practice. Our very first attempt really stunk but by the third, it didn’t sound bad at all. Joe’s mom came down from the kitchen upstairs and told us, “I can’t believe that it was you and not the record!” Hot Dog! Joe’s mom was never one to waste words. She was tough and if it stunk still, she would have said that too.
We knew that we had to build a play list so we prepped, practiced and added songs every week. We didn’t want to look like fools on the stage when our first gig finally came around so we practiced and practiced and practiced. We became tighter friends than even before and we all trusted and depended on each other. Joe learned to play that Hoffner teaching himself. He was never a “show” player like his hero, Earl Grigsby of the Torques (pronounced Tor-kays) but he was deadly accurate and never missed a note or fouled a progression. Sonny worked hard to overcome a timing deficit on the keyboards but by the time we had a 25-song play list, he had done it. Other friends started asking if they could come to our practices so we let a few in. They gave us good feedback and made productive suggestions, such as to move like you are having a blast and not just stand there like a bunch of statues! We wanted to be more of a “show band”.
Our friends (even from different schools) went out and spread the word about how good we were. We would get to school and all the kids would ask, “When are you going to play somewhere?” We would answer, “No one has asked us to play anywhere yet.” This brought us to another realization: We needed a manager.
Bucky knew a lot of people. His brother-in-law owned the top music store in Lexington. And he also had a talent agency called Triple Talent Productions. He put top Lexington bands like The Magnificent Seven and The Torques all in the right spots with really good pay. He was to be instrumental in showing Bucky the ropes and financing our later equipment.
Our first gig came up when the Student Council at St. Patrick’s planned a sock hop fundraiser. They asked us how much we would charge to play. We looked at each other, scratched our heads and our asses realizing we had never even thought about what to charge. After a good group discussion during a practice, we agreed that we would play for free. We were a little scared about coming out of our basement comfort zone to play on a stage in front of a bunch of people. If we were lousy, it would not have been fair to take money. We told the Student Council we would take the chance if they would. The deal was on! We had two weeks to prepare.
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We chose the name The Burgundys because that was a very popular color in the days of double-knit pants and we all got a pair of them with wide belts. We bought paisley shirts too and now, suddenly, we actually looked like a group!
When the time came on stage, we followed our rehearsal plan. I introduced each member while they played a snappy instrumental that said, “We’re ready to rock this place!” And rock it we did! We went right into ‘Louie Louie’ and kept it going through five songs without a gap. Kids were ten deep, mesmerized, crowded in front of the stage, girls screaming; it was awesome. The dance floor was filled as well. We went through our 25 songs pretty quickly but it didn’t break our stride. We just took requests and played things over again! One thing I learned when I was the sock hop DJ was that it was an interaction not just with a group but also with individuals.
That night, when we would switch from a “sweat maker” to a slow song, I would get one of the fans crowding down front of the stage up on the stage and ask them if they were having fun. We learned to create a serious fan base because we involved them and praised them as they did us. (The best concert I ever saw in my life was Bruce Springsteen and he did this to the utmost). After that first gig, we were heroes. Girls that wouldn’t even speak to me before were now friendly. Kids from Maysville High and Mason County High who attended the dance were asking us to play dances at their schools. The days of the platter-spinning DJ were numbered. Everyone wanted a live band...and we were the only band in town...at the time.
We tired of the name The Burgundys and wanted something a little more creative in keeping with the odd names of the famous bands. I don’t remember how, but we came up with The Whatsits, as in “what is it” or “what are they”. Anyway, it transitioned well and we printed up new business cards. Bucky became our Booking Agent and collectively we decided what our cost would be for a gig. We charged $150.00 for a normal two-hour gig (we usually ended up playing three because the crowd wouldn’t let us stop!) That was okay.
We played school dances in all the surrounding counties and played at school dances in southern Ohio. We played a lot of proms. Joe Huffman had a custom trailer made to haul all our equipment and I towed it with my ’50 Merc with a 283 dual quad Corvette engine and four-speed. It was jade green metallic so we painted the trailer to match and had it lettered. We were hot tuna!
My girlfriend seemed to get an attitude every time she went with us on a gig. She would get jealous when other girls would try to talk to me or would ask me to dance (sometimes during the instrumental bridge of a song, I would jump off the stage and dance with a girl until I had to sing again) but I never flirted. We gradually broke up over it.
When we weren’t playing somewhere, we were practicing and trying to keep up with all the new songs that were coming out. We soon had a play list of 100 songs! It didn’t leave much time for girlfriends and it seemed we always had a gig on the prime date nights. As we progressed and made money, we decided to invest money we saved in a pool for new equipment. We went to Bucky’s brother-in-law and put what we had down on a new Vox PA system and Vox Super Beatle amps. We also added rotating floodlights and a strobe.
Just prior to this, we dismissed Jimmy as lead guitarist. Although he was a wonderful person and a good guitarist, we all had the consensus that all his riffs sounded the same. He also didn’t have a car so we would have to drive 18 miles to pick him up. What’s worse was that after getting back from a gig at one or two in the morning, tired, sweat soaked and hoarse, I had to drive him back home. It got to be too much. Jimmy cried when we told him he was out and I never felt more like a rat. We all hated that we hurt him...but the good of the band was foremost.
We had listened to another guitar player in Maysville named Ernie King. Damn was he good – and a secret admirer of the band. He had a Gretch and a Guild guitar and a Fender Stratocaster! He could play with the pick in his teeth and could play hard riffs with the guitar behind his head...and he could play all the songs on our list! What a find! His dad was in the stock market and fully supported Ernie, hoping his investment in guitars would lead to a good future for his boy. While at the music store, he bought a new Rickenbacker just like John Lennon’s. He also got a Fuzztone and Wah Wah pedal.
We wanted to expand our abilities to play soul songs, which required horns. Norm Esham was selected for his trumpet prowess and now we could even play things like ‘The Lonely Bull’ by Herb Alpert. We added a sax player named Tommy Hinson too. Another bold move was to add a girl singer, Sharon Houghabeau (pronounced hoy-boo), who had a powerhouse voice and sounded exactly like Grace Slick. We could now cover all the hits that females sang without having to change word gender. She remained with us until her husband was sadly killed in a horrible car wreck.
Now we could play just about anything for any crowd. We were ready to play even country at the D.A.V., American Legion, VFW, or even the Italian American Club plus the stuff people liked at the Knights of Columbus Hall. We could have played in Harlem!
We bought a van from Sonny’s dad and pulled the trailer with it. It was required due to all the large and heavy equipment we accumulated. I remained the driver. I would also like to mention a guy that volunteered to be our roadie and engineer: a really nice guy named Steve Wheatley.
The ’50 Merc remained a cruiser. I added a ’60 Chevy Impala Sport Coupe with tri-power 348, 4-speed and 4.11 posi. It helped my image!
One of the most important additions to the band was Jerry Burden, another Maysville boy and also self-taught on the guitar. He grew up poor just like me and we had a lot in common. Jerry was an excellent singer but he could also write songs with composition! With Jerry, we were on the way to doing some of our own stuff and not just covering the work of others. Billy Ginn lost motivation when Jerry came in so he dropped out. Jerry easily filled his shoes and then some. Jerry and I really complimented each other on vocals. It allowed my voice to take a break because he could sing excellent lead on a multitude of songs.
Joe Huffman got engaged to be married to his long-time sweetheart and he dropped from the band. Jerry’s younger brother, Jimmy Burden, took up that position and he was excellent as well...another guy self-taught with a drive.
We had competed in several battle of the bands. Some we won and some we lost. We found there was a lot of “politics” played in those judgments. We didn’t really need them and found they were actually a potential for a public relations setback. We set our sites on moving forward with what we now had.
I remember what “tried us by the fire” and polished us to where we were one of the top show bands in northern Kentucky and southern Ohio: our long running gig as the house band at a place called the Sycamore Park-A-Go-Go in New Hope, Ohio. They paid us top money and we packed the place every Friday and Saturday night. We traveled about 60 miles each way to get there – sometimes in snow so bad you couldn’t see the road. People came as regulars to see us from as far away as Dayton and Cincinnati. Our best fans from our immediate area even made the drive. We played four hours a night until we were just exhausted and soaked with sweat. Sometimes the cigarette smoke was so bad you could hardly see past the dance floor to the bar. Patrons would buy us beers and mixed drinks and they would stack up behind the amplifiers. Bras and panties and pieces of paper with phone numbers were thrown at us. Ladies wanted to do us out on the parking lot! Some of those nights I just don’t know how we made it home. We only did one 15 minute intermission. What we really got out of that was a toughness; we could not be worn out under the highest demands. Vocal chords got stronger and fingers got tougher and as bad as I just made it sound, we never had more fun in our lives.
Our next bold move was to get back to playing at dances again to expand our reputation. We made consistently good money, all our stuff was paid for and we were putting it in our pockets. We played in Virginia and New York and even played for the troops at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Aside from the travel, we gained some flexibility with time to work on producing a record.
We went to a recording studio in downtown Cincinnati. It was our first visit to one of these things and we didn’t know what to expect. It was a one-room studio with a Sure microphone (professional of course!) and the walls were insulated with egg cartons. The engineer was a very nice black man (used to recording only black performers) and he had a top-of-the-line Ampeg reel-to-reel tape recorder with the highest quality tape available. Our equipment jammed the place so bad that we hardly had standing room. It took about an hour for the fellow to get the amp volumes adjusted, etc. One thing that couldn’t be adjusted was Bucky’s drums! He only knew one way to play and that was to pound the hell out of them (he broke at least four sticks a night and flipped them into the crowd where they competed for souvenirs!). It was really hard for Bucky because to play quieter was to play slower. But he did it. After about five takes per song ('Stubborn Kind Of Fellow' b/w 'I've Been Hurt',Finch 70311A/B) we paid the man and left with the master tape.
Bucky’s brother-in-law had our records pressed. They sold well in our immediate area and at the dances where we played but it was not a known label and it never got far. At least we sold all we had made! We had planned to record a Jerry Burden song but he was unhappy with the studio setup and elected to do it when we could find a better one. The picture on the cover/sleeve was one we had taken a few years back and just showed me, Bucky, Joe, Billy and Ernie. It was erroneously used on our record jacket. We were all unpleased by that.
Our second recording session ('I Don't Need You Anymore' b/w 'If You Need Me', Adco 17348) was also in Cincy and this time the place was much more compatible with much more sophisticated equipment. Each instrument had its own mic and level control. Drums were more isolated so Bucky could do his thing uninhibited. We were happy with these recordings and again, they sold well in our area and everywhere we played but it was still an unknown label and we had no promoter to get play on the airways like the “big guys” did. Again, the record jacket got messed up by the record presser who blamed the printer who blamed the record presser, ad nauseum. Again, we did sell out all the 45s we had pressed.
There where some moments of public fame when we were booked on Nick Clooney’s Bandstand TV show on WLWT Channel 5 in Cincinnati. We got to do our Jerry Burden songs live. That gig also included a one song performance by The 5th Dimension doing ‘Up, Up and Away’. They lip-synced but the listening audience never seemed to notice! That song was full of music but there was no band! We played well and were well received. The members of The 5th Dimension were some of the nicest, most professional artists you would ever want to know. Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. spent time talking to us and complimented us and we had lunch together. What a memory! We were asked to come back to the Bandstand show by popular demand and this time John Fred & His Playboy Band (‘Judy in Disguise’) were on with us. They also lip-synced but these guys were stuck-up, arrogant jerks. They wouldn’t even shake hands with us. The singer mocked us as he went out and he’s lucky he didn’t leave with a mouthful of bloody chicklets. In those days I’d fight at the drop of a hat. Oh well, one-hit wonders can be assholes too.
It was the time of the Viet Nam War and Sonny and I were of age and went to serve. The band tried to survive but the glue that really held it together started to deteriorate. We couldn’t be in two places at once. When Sonny and I were able to get home, we found other priorities such as family time and time with girl friends who had become much more than that.
As for the rest of us? I went on to college and then had my own ad agency and a couple of other collateral businesses. I later went into pursuing a hobby of drag racing and building hot rods and custom cars, which then turned into a business. My brother, John, and I had a stint with a full-service Corvette shop. In a strange happenstance, I ended up being a middle and high school ESE teacher, teaching across the curriculum. I am now semi-retired from that and back to building cars and racing engines and doing custom paint.
My wife, Ellen, is a teacher’s assistant and we have six wonderful grown children. Jerry Burden married his old sweetheart and moved to Wheeling West Virginia where he operated the city’s water treatment plant. He continues to play to this day and he is known as “Juke Box Jerry”. He was always a class act.
Sonny Brammer married his old sweetheart, Ann, and they are still together in Maysville. He became the Chief of Police and retired from it. Hinson, the sax player, got into trouble with the law I’m told. Since I don’t know first hand, I’m leaving it at that. Norman Esham left the band when Sonny and I went into the Army. He married his old sweetheart and I don’t think he ever played again. He got a good job at one of the desirable manufacturing plants in Maysville and focused on family. Bucky Davis remained in Maysville, married, and became director of the Chamber of Commerce and heavily involved in the community.
I would like to thank Mike Dugo and his contributing team for producing 60sgaragebands.com. It gave me a chance to reflect on a very precious era of my life and to document it. I’ve done my best to be accurate and hope I have offended no one. I would also like to thank Kent Kotal for putting me in touch with Mike. Thank you so much for your interest in The Whatsits.
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