I think we all know how impatient kids are. And when the Squires hadn’t been as “big as the Beatles” in two years together it was only natural for some members to want to try other bands. So in the fall of ’66 the City Squires disbanded for a few months. Roland and Tom left the band, and I came aboard from another Testa managed band, the Canterburys, where I was lead singer and played the sax and a smidgeon of rhythm guitar. Testa had plugged me as a bass player. Not only did I not know how to play bass, but I didn’t even own one! Testa knew very well I couldn’t play bass but thought Jim would accept me more readily if he thought I could actually do something. That was a gift that Testa had; He could sell fudgesicles to Eskimos. So I went out and bought a bass and faked it as best I could to help keep the band going until we could find a legitimate bass player. We then pilfered a keyboard player (Jerry Colvin), a bass player (Gus DeAngelo), and a drummer (Bill McCracken) from a band called the Set, LTD. I settled in as the lead singer, sax player, and front man and Jim and I began to write our own music.
The first time a band gets together it is like going on a date with four people at the same time. You don’t know what to expect. Can they play? What about personality? You know you are going to spend a lot of time together rehearsing and playing jobs. Can the other guy take criticism? Fortunately, we clicked. The result was a very tight, strong band. It was like a family, and it showed onstage and off. We would eat together, go to movies together, go on dates together, stay at each other’s homes, and most important; after finishing up a 6-hour gig at 2 AM we would find a 24-hour bowling alley and bowl until 5 or 6 AM. It was a party and we were loving it. Thank God none of us got involved in drugs! We would never have been able to keep it up. We never looked at it as work. We learned hundreds of songs. I had to listen to songs many times before I would remember the lyrics. The other guys could listen a couple of times and play their parts. I really felt inferior because all I did was sing and fill in on sax or flute. They carried the load of making the music. But it sounded good and that is all that mattered.
Now that we had a band that could go somewhere we needed a theme. As founder of the band, Jim took on the task of writing it. It became the first song we played every time we performed; The City Squire Theme Song. In retrospect, it sounds a bit corny, but it’s no worse than “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees”, and they made a ton of money!
We kept very busy at local venues, but especially one; The Playboy Lounge. The Beatles had the Cavern and we had the Playboy Lounge. It was a small lounge with a little stage, small dance floor, and it sat about a hundred people. We packed it every night we played. Many nights there wasn’t even standing room available. As small as it was, it’s where we learned to work a crowd. This is what you would have heard if you popped in to see us. Please keep in mind that this was recorded live on a reel-to-reel machine with two open mikes near the stage. No mixing, no effects, just music.
As we got tighter the venues got bigger, but we still hadn’t achieved something that we really wanted; a top 40 record. So Jim and I got busy writing and testing our stuff on audiences. When we were ready we took them to Testa. He liked a tune that Jim wrote called “Lonely Boy” but felt it was B-side material. For the A-side he had us do a song called “Is it Time”. Testa released them on his TEMA label and “Is it Time” broke into the top forty on the Cleveland WIXY 1260 charts.
Now the fun really began! We appeared on the Big Jack TV show, did radio interviews on WIXY and WMMS (which had just started on FM). We were the band for the Plain Dealer Dance Contest (which had a stage in the center of a racetrack facing the grandstand with a seated audience of thousands). We were the house band for the Cleveland Teen Fair. We played the Hullabaloo circuit, the Cedar Point Ballroom, Cain Park (a Hollywood Bowl type amphitheater), and yes, THE CLEVELAND STADIUM!!!! Remember I told you that Testa could sell fudgsicles to Eskimos? Well, one day he came to us and told us we were booked at the stadium. We were so excited we were beside ourselves. This was the same stadium I had seen The Beatles perform in. Could this really be happening? He gave us the appointed date and told us to meet him at gate C at a specific time. Gate C was the largest pedestrian gate that there was. On the appointed date, at the appointed time, we met Testa and immediately asked him where we could drive the van in to set up the equipment. He replied, “You don’t. You set up right over there” pointing to a makeshift stage that had been erected about 100 yards from the entrance. We were young and naïve and never thought to see if there was a ball game that day, nor did we notice that there had been nothing in the newspaper about it. Oh well, screw it. I PLAYED AT THE CLEVELAND STADIUM!! (I just didn’t play IN the Cleveland Stadium.) We still had a ball and it was a heck of a crowd.
Jim and I realized that all this was fun but very temporary. We needed to get back into the recording studio. By this time Bill McCracken had left the band to relocate to Michigan with his parents (remember, we were only 17 at the time). Enter Bobby Dillinger, a fifteen-year-old dynamo whose drumsticks were an extension of his soul. When he auditioned for us it was obvious he was “our kind of people”. He was a couple of years younger than us and wasn’t the “human metronome” that Bill McCracken was but we knew that would come with time. We would return to the Playboy Lounge periodically to break in new material and get back to our roots. When we did we would often leave Bobby on stage to do a ten or fifteen minute drum solo while we had a beer (don’t tell my mom). The crowd loved him. I regret I do not have pictures of him with the band. So much has been lost over time. I must pause here to say that a lot went on during this period. We were in the studio a lot. We were also going through petty arguments (as families will). Jim even left the band for a time over some disagreements about band management and equipment. Without Jim there was no City Squires and we knew it. We made peace and moved on but we knew the magic was gone. The City Squires had become a business. Gone were the days when we didn’t even care if we got paid. The guys had car payments, equipment payments, and wanted to start accumulating wealth. We had to turn down a Las Vegas tour because I was still in school. Some of the guys got other jobs because they didn’t see us making it national. This was in spite of a recording contract with ABC-Paramount! As a matter of fact the ABC contract helped to fuel the fire.
During our recording sessions two of the songs we recorded were “Dialated Eyes” which I wrote (yes, I misspelled dilated) and “Like A Man” which was one of Jim’s tunes. Testa sent those songs, with others we had recorded to major labels and ABC was interested in those two songs. They wanted us to contract for those and a few future recording sessions which we readily accepted. They flew a producer to Cleveland to remix the songs before pressing and wanted me to come back into the studio to redo some vocals. All went well and before long we were ABC-Paramount recording artists. One minor problem…we had no idea we had given them the authorization to change the name of the group for the record label. What did they change it to? The Gregorians! Imagine what the group thought of me. Did I know that they would use my first name as the name of the group? Wow. That sucked. We NEVER performed under that name and refused to ever use it. Being young and dumb I called ABC to ask if I could get some copies of the promotional copies they had pressed. I was surprised at how easy it was to order 100 copies shipped to my house. I thought we could use them to give out to fans, etc. I was also surprised when, a couple of weeks later, Testa almost choked me over the bill ABC had sent him for the records!
Now there were more interviews for Greg and Jim and, as you might imagine some alienation occurred. Gus and Jerry felt it was time to move on. Who could blame them? No matter how much Jim and I expressed that we were a band with no member more important than the other. Frankly, Gus and Jerry had good jobs as computer programmers and didn’t need any more of the insecurity that a life in the music industry offered. Soon thereafter I became disenchanted because it was increasingly hard to find talented musicians to fill the vacancies that seemed to occur regularly. I won’t mention all the people who came in through the revolving door but I want to mention one, because she was, and still is a dear friend. Cindy Klamut (now Kehoe) was a singer and guitar player for a girl’s group called Bridey Murphy. We had always enjoyed hearing them, so when we found she was available she came aboard. Unfortunately the band did not have much time left. Even Jim wanted to start a life with a little more security. So we went our separate ways. I went into the military service in December of 1969. But, years later, the City Squires would rise again.
But before moving on I want to ask you a question. Did you ever have an experience that seemed uneventful at the time, but years later turned out to be one of the high points of your life? One of those times, before cell phones, that you wished you had a camera with you, or that someone else had taken a photo of? Well, let me tell you about one of those times.
It occurred on November 16, 1968. We were scheduled to play at a dance at an armory in Willoughby, Ohio which was to benefit Muscular Distrophy. The promoter was a WIXY radio personality named Chuck Dunaway. Chuck had also booked another very popular local band to ensure the success of the benefit. Upon arrival at the venue a bit of a pissing contest ensued. The other band argued that they were more popular than us and that we should open for them. We felt very differently. The final deciding factor was that we had a record on the charts and they did not, so they reluctantly agreed to open for us. However, it never really mattered. It turned out that the publicity release and all the advertising did not get placed in time. All there was to publicize the event was a small ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s weekly “Dance Chance” column. I will show you that ad in a moment. Bottom line was that nobody showed up. The promoter had sunk his own money into the event; there was the hall rental, refreshments, and of course the two bands. We all felt sorry for him so we let him off the hook for our pay. And since both bands’ equipment was set up we decided to brush aside the earlier disagreement and just get on stage and jam together. I recall that we did Kansas City. It was a tune everyone knew and it gave everyone a chance to show their stuff. I split verses with their singer/guitar player and Jimmy alternated guitar solos with him as well. A good time was had by all and as we packed up I recall their leader (the singer/guitar player) mentioning he planned to take the band out of Cleveland because it was just too tough a town to break onto the national scene from. I think he mentioned Detroit, but I couldn’t swear to it. Apparently, he was right. Here’s that small ad I mentioned which is the only proof I have that what I just told you really happened. By the way, The band? The James Gang. The singer/guitar player? Joe Walsh. Yeah, THAT Joe Walsh. Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, The James Gang, The Eagles. He’s sold more records than Bayer has sold aspirin. God love you, Joe. I’m sure it’s not even a memory for you, but it’s a thrill for me to be able to say I was onstage with a rock n roll legend.
