Spanky and Our Gang

Spanky and Our Gang was a folk-pop group from the United States, which could place in the 1960s, several hit singles on the charts. The group was founded in 1966 in Chicago. Their lead singer was Elaine " Spanky " McFarlane.

The band experienced their rise, as the hit parade success of the Mamas and Papas subsided. With these together they had a similar stage appearance, sophisticated choral arrangements and the voice of McFarlane, who resembled Mama Cass. Both singers had met in the early 1960s.

The beginnings

McFarlane was the jazz singer 1962 lineup Jamie Lyn Trio and joined in 1963, during the height of the folk boom of the folk group The New Wine Singers at which combined the best protest songs with Dixieland jazz. During this time she became friends with the singer and trombonist Malcolm Hale. After the group disbanded, she went in 1965 to California, where they at a party, which was held on the occasion of a hurricane, met Paul Bach and Nigel Pickering. While the storm raged for three days, the musicians jamming intense and Bach and Pickering McFarlane invited to follow a them to Chicago. Once there, she worked as a singer in a club whose owner asked an ensemble as the opening act for there gas animal musicians together. They recruited Pickering and Bach, with whom she rehearsed for three voices carried forward folk songs. There had been little time available for rehearsals, they filled their repertoire with comedy routines, similar to the then-popular Kingston Trio.

With Bach on bass, Pickering on guitar and McFarlane on washboard and kazoo, the trio sounded like a jug band in minimal occupation. Originally intended as a joke, they called themselves Spanky and Our Gang. They had borrowed comedy short films from the 1920s to the 1940s, which had been generally known as Our gear and produced by Hal Roach the name. This series with numerous children actors were later under the title " The Little Rascals " very popular with children. One of the main roles were played by a certain George Robert Goldman " Spanky " McFarland. As newspapers announcing under this name, they eventually kept him. After Malcolm Hale was joined on guitar and percussion, the band soon entered on the case of larger events.

1966-1970

As 1965/1966 the folk-rock boomed, the record label Mercury Records on the band was attentive and took it in 1966 under contract. Producer Jerry Ross made ​​sure that the studio recordings of the group were given a sound similar to that of the Mamas and Papas. At their first recording session in New York in 1967 them the song Sunday Will Never Be the Same was offered, which was also previously offered to the Mamas and Papas and The Left Banke. With his choir intro, arranged by Malcolm Hale, the song was a perfect fit for the mood of the Summer of Love in June 1967 and reached number 9 on the U.S. charts.

In the summer of 1967, drummer John Seiter joined and the group took another hit singles such as Making Every Minute Count ( number 22 ) and Lazy Day ( 14th) as well as their first album.

Early 1968 Paul Bach left the group and was replaced by Kenny Hodges on bass, his friend Lefty Baker (actually Eustace Britchforth ) brought, a guitarist and singer. Despite the successes that they had recorded with producer Jerry Ross, criticized the musicians that the sound was too polished and elegant and not representative of the group. Stuart Scharf and Bob Dorough, a songwriter and producer team, which had produced the Chad Mitchell Trio, took over. Under Scharf and Dorough, the pictures were taken to the place 30 chart success Sunday mornin ', with a six-part choral singing as a special feature.

During the recording of their second album and the next single - Hit Like to Get to Know You, the LP gave the name originated. Stylistically, the band expanded their repertoire to include blues and jazz singing in the style of the 1940s, the template for the song Manhattan should be transfer later. Another single release was not Give a Damn, who, despite a radio ban reached for his title and socially critical text, number 43 on the charts.

Their third album, Anything You Choose ( Without Rhyme or Reason) was again a mixture of blues, jazz, folk and pop with increasingly sophisticated compositions and arrangements by Scharf and Dorough, but lacked a hit single. While the band set out on new musical shores, the audience, the program was, however, perceived as " too serious ".

In October 1968 Martin Hale died. The doctors went out of gas poisoning, which had caused a faulty gas furnace. The 27 -year-old multi-instrumentalist, singer and arranger had been a central figure and his lack rushed the band into a crisis. After his death, the musicians had more contractually agreed performances contest. Following McFarlane, who was pregnant at that time stated that its withdrawal. Soon after, also Seiter, who had accepted an offer by The Turtles. Instead, the group re-organizing the resolution was adopted. McFarlane and her husband Charly Galvin, who had been the road manager of the band, worked after the release of the LP Spanky's Greatest Hit (s) that led to a controversy, because many of the original songs were reworked on it.

Published in 1970 Mercury Records album Spanky and Our Gang Live. It was one of her first appearances in 1966, shortly after they had been contracted to hear. Today, valued as a historical recording that documents the early sound of the band, the band members at that time were not done on the publication.

After 1970

On August 11, 1971 Lefty Baker died of cirrhosis of the liver.

1975 founded McFarlane and Pickering, together with the musicians Bill Plummer, Marc McClure and Jim Moon a new band under the same name. They recorded an album (Change) country- and-western style with Epic Records and played 1975 and 1976 several concerts for their old fans, where Paul Bach also rejoined them. McFarlane 1973 contributed vocals on the first album by Roger McGuinn. Spanky and Our Gang toured until 1980, primarily in Texas. McFarlane then brought some plates out as a solo singer before the Mamas and Papas was founded again joined. Nevertheless, they remained their folk and blues roots loyal, about a benefit concert in 1996 for the diseased folk singer Bob Gibson. In 1999, Spanky and Our Gang again during a reunion concert at the Tradewinds Lounge in St. Augustine (Texas ) on.

In September 1998, Paul Bach died of a cancerous condition.

Discography

Albums

• Spanky and Our Gang (1967 )
• Like to Get to Know You (1968 )
• Anything You Choose ( Without Rhyme or Reason) (1968 )
• Spanky and Our Gang Live (1970 )
• Spanky's Greatest Hit (s ) ( 1970)
• Change ( 1975)
• Give a Damn (1994 )
• Spanky and Our Gang (2005)

Singles

• Sunday Will Never Be the Same / Distance (1967 )
• Making Every Minute Count / If You Could Only Be Me (1967 )
• Lazy Day / Byrd Avenue (1967 )
• Sunday Mornin '/ Echoes ( Everybody's Talkin ') ( 1968)
• Like to Get to Know You / Three Ways From Tomorrow ( 1968)
• Give a Damn / The Swingin 'Gate (1968 )
• Yesterday's Rain / Without Rhyme or Reason (1968 )
• And She 's Mine / Leopard Skin Phones (1969 )
• Anything You Choose / Mecca Flat Blues ( 1969)
• I Will not Brand You / Same (1975 )