Fact #138735

THE STANDELLS

GONNA TELL YOU A STORY…

Springsteen, U2 and Aerosmith have all covered it live. It's the theme tune of the Boston Red Sox baseball team and it was transmitted into space by NASA on March 25, 2009 as the wake-up song for Tony Antonelli, pilot of the space shuttle Discovery.

Yes indeed, The Standells' rep as the scuzziest garage punks ever to bust out of Boss Angeles would be assured on the basis of that one timelessly gnarlacious track, Dirty Water, but there's more. This is the band whose Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White is easily the tuffest Rolling Stones track The Stones never recorded and whose Why Pick On Me? remains the definitive teen-tease put-down four decades after it was first recorded.

And yet hordes of self-professed 60s aficionados still prefer to worship at the altars of comparative under-achievers – dare I mention the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, The Strawberry Alarm Clock or The Seeds? - relegating The Standells almost to the status of also-rans. Surely, any rational analysis of the facts would place them ahead of the field from the start?

HEY HO, LET'S GO…

Finding that start, however, isn't as straightforward as it might seem because The Standells actually created one memorable hit long before their name appeared on the Billboard charts.

Guitarist Tony Valentino explains how. "I started a band, The Starliters, with this guy Jody Rich on bass, and Lenny Duncan, our lead singer, and Benny King on drums."

It was the dawning of the 60s, and when The Starliters dropped by a high school football match at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, Valentino noticed how the crowd was, "going crazy clapping their hands. So we came outside and I go, 'That's it. We'll clap our hands and yell, 'Let's go!'"

Rehearsing at Valentino's mother's house, The Starliters perfected that simple but infectious concept by adding a driving guitar riff, also devised by Valentino. "So we went to a studio in Glendale, outside of Hollywood, and we each chipped in five dollars to pay for the recording."

Unfortunately, The Starliters went the way of all things when Lenny Duncan quit, leaving Valentino, Rich and King to re-group with keyboardist Larry Tamblyn as The Standels – note that single 'l'.

This new quartet had the good fortune to fall in with a go-getting Hollywood agent, Gale McConkey. According to Valentino, she "looked like a whorehouse madame, with the blonde hair and all the jewellery round her neck, but she worked hard for us." McConkey's diligence quickly landed The Standels a plum three-month residency at the Oasis Club in Honolulu, Hawaii.

So The Standels soaked up the sun, sand and surf in their island paradise until, on 24 November 1962, a song called Let's Go by The Routers rocketed into the Billboard Top 40. "All of a sudden this song came on the radio," recalls Valentino, "and I didn't know what to do. In fact, I was so mesmerized by being in a band playing in Hawaii, being successful already, that I didn't do anything about it.

Let's Go was, of course, the song Valentino had conceived, composed and invested his $5 in. Lenny Duncan, it seems, had taken their track to Warner Bros, where hot producer Joe Saraceno (who gave the Beach Boys their first recording contract) re-recorded it with the same hot sessions group who'd previously worked under the name of B.Bumble & The Stingers but were, for the purposes of Let's Go, re-named The Routers.

Today Valentino would have his lawyers onto Warners in a trice but back then he simply didn't know what to do about it. "I guess I lost out on that one," he grumbles.

So, right from the start, The Standels knew they were in a kill or be killed kind of business but, infused with the eternal optimism of youth, they weren't about to let that knowledge stop them from making the same mistakes all over again.

AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE

As well as being blighted by the Let's Go debacle, their dalliance in Hawaii also saw the first incarnation of the Standels fall apart.

"At the time, Jody was the leader of the band," explains Larry Tamblyn. "He was jealous of Tony and I. We were single and he wasn’t. An ex-marine, he became a tyrant. We had to spit shine our shoes every day and all dress the same every place we went. He began staying up all night, taking uppers - as though he wasn’t hyper enough. Because we weren’t living up to his expectations, Jody first fired Benny who returned to Los Angeles, and then he fired Tony and I. Then he realized he didn’t have a band anymore, so we finished out the Hawaii gig and we fired him!"

The Standels returned in disarray from Hawaii and set out to conquer Los Angeles by recruiting new bassist Gary Lane and drummer Gary Leeds. This quartet's first break wasn't long coming.

"We got a regular gig at Peppermint West," remembers Valentino, "by going there every day, hanging out, showing the owner pictures of us in Hawaii and asking him to give us a chance. It was incredible because that was the most popular club in Hollywood, all the movie stars used to go there. You'd see Zsa Zsa Gabor, Connie Francis, the guys from the Batman tv show, just so many people hanging out. We got really popular and ended up staying there for a long time."

The Standels at this point were basically a covers band, and part of their appeal to the image-conscious Hollywood set undoubtedly derived from their distinctive look. "I was reading this Italian magazine one day and I see some long-haired guys from England," says Valentino. "Our hair was already kinda long, but we decided to really grow it. This was, like, before The Beatles took off here. At first we put wigs on to make it look longer, and people were going crazy for it."

Word about the wigged-out wonders began to spread and, working in such a high-profile venue, it was almost inevitable that they'd attract some serious attention.

"Burt Jacobs, who was a bookie for boxers and horse races, came to see us at Peppermint West," remembers Valentino. "He walked in with an entourage of characters like the Goodfellas, know what I mean, in that movie? So we go to a bar and the Goodfellas are there and they make us a deal, they want to manage us. Burt said, 'I'm gonna get you guys a recording contract.' So we signed with him and he took us to Liberty Records."

Larry Tamblyn adds a vital detail that shows, again, how little The Standels understood the arcane machinations of the music industry. "What we didn’t know was that Burt took bets from some of the Liberty execs, who owed him money. That’s how we got signed to Liberty, sight unseen."

If the alarm bells didn't start ringing at that point, they certainly did as soon as the band went into the studio. "Our first recording for Liberty was The Shake, written and sung by me," reflects Tamblyn. "It was meant to be a loud, raucous rock song. Unfortunately Liberty's producer, Dick Glasser, had it completely re-arranged. We didn't know until we got in the studio. As always, though, we did what we were told."

This watered-down version of The Shake was released as the b-side of a blatant cash-in single, Peppermint Beatles, which died the ignominious death it deserved.

IN PERSON AT PJ'S

Valentino and Tamblyn both feel that, despite his clearly shady dealings and the pickle he'd landed them in at Liberty, Burt Jacobs worked hard for them and delivered their next step up.

"It was Burt who booked us into PJ's," notes Valentino. "Trini Lopez was at PJ's, but he went to Vegas and we took his place. There was more action at PJ's. We used to get Frankie Avalon coming by there all the time. Bobby Darin used to sit in with us on drums, and so did Bill Cosby. The Rolling Stones came by on their first trip to America."

PJ's, however, wasn't fulfilling the dreams of drummer Gary Leeds, who had his eyes set on a further horizon. "We were playing at PJ's and Gary took me to one side, he goes, 'Tony, I wanna go to England. That's what's happening now.'"

The cultural melting pot that was the Los Angeles music scene in the summer of 64 was simmering rather than boiling. The Beach Boys were the biggest local phenomenon and Phil Spector the biggest LA producer, but The Beatles and their attendant phenomenon of the British Invasion overshadowed both. It would be a full year before The Byrds would lead America's fight back with their jangly folk-rock reinterpretation of Bob Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man.

To an ambitious young musician like Gary Leeds, Los Angeles had little to offer. While The Standels were whooping it up at PJ's with their hard-driving, but absolutely typical, covers of Louie, Louie, I'll Go Crazy and Money, traditional rock'n'roller Johnny Rivers was knockin' 'em dead at The Whisky A Go Go, and the Ash Grove was catering for the rootsier crowd with bluesmen like Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt and bluegrass bands like The Kentucky Colonels.

Also playing around town was a young singer called John Maus, in a brother/sister act called John & Judy, and a former bass player for The Routers, name of Scott Engel, who was trying to make it as a big-voiced solo heart-throb. In that summer of 64, Gary Leeds brought Maus and Engel together in a trio called The Daltons who secured a residency at Gazzari's on Sunset Boulevard before upping sticks for London and pop stardom as The Walker Brothers.

Larry Tamblyn concedes that, all things considered, The Standels' drummer made the right decision. "Gary had wanted the Standels to go in a different direction. He wanted us to change our name, which we’d taken several years to establish, to the Children. He wanted us to bleach our hair blond, basing our look on the children from the movie Village of the Damned. We didn’t go along. If you notice early photos of the Walker Brothers, they all had blond hair." (Another trio, The Police, would revive this gimmick in the mid-70s).

Meanwhile, though, The Standels had recorded a live album at PJ's. This ploy had worked well for latino folkster Trini Lopez, whose Trini Lopez At PJ's had given him a No2 album in 1962, but the magic didn't work twice. Not only did the album bomb, but it achieved what Gary Leeds had failed to do. It changed their name.

ONE L OF A NEW NAME

The band's original monicker, The Standels, had come to them when they realised how much time they spent standing around on the corner outside Gale McConkey's Hollywood office waiting to hear if they'd landed any new gigs.

The second 'l', which made them The Standells, came courtesy of a typographical error at Liberty Records when their debut album, In Person At PJ's, was being manufactured.

As well as giving them the name with which they'd find fame, 1964 solidified the line-up of the band with the arrival of Gary Leeds' replacement, Dick Dodd. At this point it's probably worth illuminating a little more of the background of this definitive Standells foursome.

On the same day that Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota, Emilio Bellisimo popped into existence half a world away in Italy. Emilio moved to Los Angeles in the early 60s and changed his name to Tony Valentino. "My big dream was to come to America and play music," he explains. "I had this guitar my uncle built for me. When I first got here, I could barely speak more than a few words of English. My cousin took me to see Fabian, Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell at the Hollywood Bowl, and I'll never forget that concert. I was mesmerized."

Singer, keyboardist and guitarist Larry Tamblyn came from a rather more showbiz background. He was the brother of successful actor Russ Tamblyn, best-remembered as Riff, the leader of The Jets gang in the musical West Side Story.

While still in high school, Larry had signed with Faro Records where he wrote and recorded several late 50s solo singles, without much success. "My big thrill was doing a concert in San Francisco with Connie Francis in 1959," he recalls. "Evidently, she was very over-worked and, right in the middle of the airport terminal, Connie fainted in my arms. Here's a high school kid with his idol in his arms…what more could a teenage boy ask for?"

Dick Dodd, similarly, was steeped in showbiz, having learned his stagecraft as an all-singing all-dancing Disney Mouseketeer on the original Mickey Mouse Club TV show before moving on to play drums and sing with The Casuals, Eddie & The Showmen, and The Bel-Airs.

"When Gary Leeds' left we auditioned several drummers, none of whom were right," admits Tamblyn. "Then, in walks this punk kid. We gave him some good-natured ribbing for having been a Mouseketeer but, when he sat behind the drums, we were blown away, especially when he asked for a mic and sang. He turned out to be so good that I was replaced as the lead singer. Dick provided the final touch The Standells needed."

Gary Lane, the bassist who had joined at the same time as Leeds, is the dark horse of the quartet. A more than capable musician, he has nevertheless managed to remain decidedly low profile over the years. Early PR handouts for the band stated that his ambition was "to be married with a nice family and then live happily ever after." After a couple of years with The Standells, he would do exactly that.

STARS OF STAGE, SCREEN AND NICARAGUA

Even before they had a hit single to their name, The Standells enjoyed more than their fair share of tv and movie exposure and Tamblyn knows exactly why. "Producers were looking for a rock group who could also act. So with Dick being a former Mouseketeer and me coming from a show biz family, we were perfect."

One of their first such breaks was an appearance in the movie Get Yourself A College Girl alongside the Dave Clark Five, The Animals and Nancy Sinatra. It was good exposure but Tamblyn rightly dismisses it as, "low budget exploitation, like Beach Blanket Bingo and all the other Beach Party movies."

By the end of August 1964, still hitless, they had made their first appearance on impresario Dick Clark's daily tv pop show American Bandstand and then, following a visit to PJ's by a group of Central American plantation owners, The Standells found themselves on their first foreign tour.

The first leg of their journey south that October was on a regular passenger flight from LA to San Salvador but, remembers, Valentino, "The next flight was a little propeller plane that took us to Managua in Nicaragua, and they had like goats and chickens on board. We landed on this tiny strip, and we were like, 'Is this the airport?' They drove us into town along this dirt road lined with guys with machine guns. It was unbelievable. We had to play a big gala night concert for the President (Luis Somoza Debayle) at his palace … and all the poor people outside begging. Oh God, it was an incredible scene."

Like so much of The Standells career, the Nicaraguan jaunt, as Tamblyn vividly remembers, wasn't quite as simple as it should have been. "They had made a deal with Burt Jacobs to book us for a one month tour. They realized they could make a quick buck by billing us as the North American Beatles. Of course, they'd never had any kind of performers there before, so everyone thought we actually were The Beatles. We had to cut the tour short when one of the Nicaraguan guards fired off his AK47 over the heads of a wildly enthusiastic crowd, many of whom were screaming “Paul”, “John”, “George”, and “Ringo”. We decided, gig or no gig, it was a dangerous place to be."

The nightmare, however, was not yet over. "They wouldn't let us leave," says Valentino. "The soldiers stopped the plane, made us get out. They wouldn't tell us why. Oh my God, I thought they were going to shoot us. Then they took us back into town, where they finally tell us we didn't pay the musicians' dues, like $300. We had to pay that and stay an extra day, which was torture."

THE TOKEN TV BAND

Back in LA, still all in one piece and still unencumbered by anything resembling a hit single, the boys embarked on a year of high profile tv appearances.

On January 18, 1965, the great American public saw The Standells appearing as The Love Bugs in The Bing Crosby Show, a short-lived sitcom with the Old Groaner decidedly typecast as middle-aged crooner Bing Collins. In the course of this laff-fest they performed a creditably Beatle-ish knock-off, Someday You'll Cry, penned by Tamblyn.

Even better remembered is their appearance in The Munsters episode, Far Out Munsters on March 18, in which the band rents The Munsters’ house as an alternative to a hotel, then performs a ditty called Do The Ringo plus a cover of The Beatles’ I Want To Hold Your Hand.

They turned up again as a generic rock combo on tv doctor series, Ben Casey (29 March), in an episode entitled Three Li’l Lambs, and were heard on movie soundtracks including Zebra In The Kitchen and When The Boys Meet The Girls. 

This media barrage led to more appearances on American Bandstand, plus Shindig, Shebang, Shivaree and Hollywood A-Go-Go. All they needed now was that elusive hit.

CHER AND CHER-ALIKE

Their Liberty contract having run its course, The Standells now signed to Vee Jay Records where they were allocated Phil Spector protégé Sonny Bono, of the soon to be famous Sonny & Cher, as their producer.

The only significant outcome of this liaison was the single The Boy Next Door, which Valentino recalls as an amusing episode. "Cher sang backup vocals for us. Once in a while she'd go out and get us some food. It was funny because Sonny sang just like Cher. He even wanted Larry to try to sound like Cher."

Despite Bono employing the Spector technique of enhancing the band with LA's legendary Wrecking Crew session team, The Boy Next Door didn't light up the charts, so The Standells moved on, this time to Capitol Records subsidiary Tower Records where, finally, they made the connection that would deliver the hit they so desperately needed.

PREPPED FOR SUCCESS

At Tower, they found themselves label-mates with Pink Floyd, Tom Jones, Ian Whitcomb and The Chocolate Watchband, whose vocalist, Dave Aguilar, reveals, "We didn't know how many other groups they had. We thought we and The Standells were it. We didn't realize they had all these other people on the hook also. It's like buying sixteen baseball teams and hoping one of them can go to the World Series."

Their Tower Records' producer, Ed Cobb, enjoyed an extraordinary history. He had first tasted success as a member of 50s close harmony hitmakers The Four Preps, who scored two Top 5 US hits in 1958 with Big Man and 26 Miles. He reinvented himself in 1960 as a member of novelty instrumental band The Piltdown Men, then went on to write several more winners, notably Tainted Love which charted for Gloria Jones, Soft Cell and Marilyn Manson.

"The Standells were probably a much better band for him to use than us," reckons Aguilar. "They, I think, were more malleable, and more interested in just being stars. They were much better in a recording studio than we were."

Even so, The Standells found working with Cobb a mixed blessing. Tamblyn says that, although Ed was initially "a pleasure to work with" the relationship soon went adrift. "Ed presented us with what we considered a pretty standard blues song, called Dirty Water. We weren’t impressed with it, but agreed to do it if we could add our personal touches. Tony came up with the wonderful guitar riff which is perhaps the most recognizable ingredient of the song. Dick came up with the introductory chant “I’m gonna tell you a story…” and the famous adlibs, “Ah, that’s what’s happening, baby”, etc. My participation was perhaps a little less obvious. I changed the chord structure from a standard E7th, to an E extended 7th."

It didn't seem to trouble the youth of America that this hymn to Boston's "lovers, muggers and thieves" was being sung by a band from L.A., because when the radically reworked Dirty Water was released on April 23, it took off first in Florida and then bulleted onto the Billboard chart on June 11.

LOVE THAT DIRTY WATER

The success of the single had two immediate effects, first being that the band had to record an album pretty damn quick. "We were playing in a nightclub up in Seattle when Dirty Water took off," remembers Tamblyn. "Ed Cobb flew up and we rushed the album together in three days. I think it is perhaps our best because it really typified The Standells' sound, capturing us raw."

The second effect of Dirty Water's chart action (it peaked at No11) was that The Standells were invited to support The Rolling Stones on a tour that started with a bang on June 24 in, appropriately enough, Boston. "The fans stampeded and created a riot," recalls Tamblyn. "The police had to shoot off tear gas, which we had to drive through while leaving the stadium, causing a tearful departure."

Just a few days later, at the War Memorial Hall in Syracuse, "The venue was very hot so Brian Jones wiped his sweaty face on a handy cloth conveniently hanging next to the stage. Little did he know it was the American flag. The police were actually going to arrest him, until The Stones' road manager paid them a nice sum to forget about the incident, under the table, of course."

A major hit single and exposure to huge audiences on The Stones' tour should have catapulted the Dirty Water album into the charts and cemented The Standells reputation but, as luck would have it, Liberty Records simultaneously rush-released some of their earlier recordings as a cash-in compilation called Live And Out Of Sight. With sales split between them, both albums suffered.

SOMETIMES GOOD GUYS DON'T WIN

The Standells had to deliver something special to rescue them from looming oblivion, and they did. Their next single, Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, was perhaps their crowning glory. "Ed Cobb wrote that," acknowledges Tamblyn. "It was one of the songs we had recorded in Seattle. I think it took us a couple of hours." Once again, though, Tony Valentino contributed the memorable guitar riffs that powered the track along.

Inexplicably, despite yet more tv appearances, Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White stalled at No43 in the Billboard Top 40, and The Standells never recovered their momentum. Another Ed Cobb composition, Why Pick On Me, didn't trouble the chart at all, although Tamblyn feels he knows why. "Cobb demanded we do the song the way it was written, with its polka beat. We didn’t care for it. It reminded us of Sonny and Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves. Also, it was recorded when we were in between bass players, so we had someone sit in with us. If you listen, right before the chorus, he gets lost but Ed Cobb refused to correct it."

Bassist Gary Lane had indeed jumped ship while the band was playing in Florida. "Gary missed his wife, and I understand she was pregnant with their first child," explains Tamblyn. "He made the decision to leave so he could be with his family, which I’ve never blamed him for."

New bassist Dave Burke was on board by the time of the controversial Try It, their final single of 1966. Another high octane affair that deserved a better fate, Try It was scuppered by circumstances beyond the band's control.

"Try It was a return to the group’s raw and raunchy sound and perhaps solidified our punk image, while at the same time aiding in our demise," figures Tamblyn. "As soon as we recorded it, we felt certain it was headed for the charts. It was considered by many to be our comeback hit. However, it was banned by reactionary Texan radio chain mogul, Gordon McLendon, a Christian fundamentalist, who considered the lyric to be obscene. He embarked on a campaign across America, appearing in the news media, displaying our record, and labelling it not fit for young people’s ears. Actually, by today’s standards, the lyric was pretty tame."

"We wanted to sue him," continues Tamblyn, "but even though the record was number one in many markets, our management and record company were afraid of this powerful man. Most of the radio stations followed McLendon’s lead and refused to air the song. In Los Angeles, it was number one on KRLA, but KHJ, the number one radio station, refused to play it. We even debated with McLendon on Art Linkletter’s House Party TV show and, by most accounts, defeated him by pointing out his hypocrisy. But it was all to no avail. The song died – and so did our popularity and hopes of another hit."

TEEN RIOT

The Standells, however, were not yet ready to throw in the towel. On January 28, 1967, Los Angeles music paper KRLA Beat reported that they had been signed up to appear in the forthcoming MGM teen movie, Riot On Sunset Strip.

Like the Buffalo Springfield hit For What It's Worth, this $250,000-budget movie was inspired by the teenage anti-curfew riots that had taken place near the Pandora's Box nightclub on the Strip two months earlier. "The movie was thrown together in three months," says Tamblyn dismissively. "We recorded two songs, Riot on Sunset Strip, sung by Dick, and Get Away From Here, sung by me, on the studio sound stage. Riot was later re-recorded for the single and album, but my song wasn't. The songs were recorded on four tracks, but whoever mixed them down for the soundtrack album forgot to include several of the tracks on Get Away From Here. The finished song was minus guitar, drums, and one backing vocal. If you want to hear how it was intended, watch the movie!"

Predictably, Riot On Sunset Strip was another flop but the final nail in the coffin of the relationship between The Standells and Ed Cobb came with their next single, Can't Help But Love You. "Ed brought in a bunch of black musicians," notes Tamblyn. "He wanted the blue-eyed soul sound. When we asked why we couldn't participate, he said, 'these guys sound more like The Standells than you do.'"

The end was in sight. The departure of bassist Dave Burke had been announced in late February and Dick Dodd was also heading out of the door. "Ed and his business partner, Ray Harris, got hold of Dick and told him, 'You are the star of the group. You don’t need the others'. What can you say? He was young and bought into their bullsh*t. Unfortunately, Ed also claimed ownership of The Standells name. We had an opportunity to sign with ABC Dunhill, but they were threatened with a lawsuit if they signed us. We retained an attorney to fight them, but it dragged on for months. After a period of time, we were old news; no one was the slightest bit interested in signing us."

THE GEORGIAN POSTSCRIPT

One fascinating detail remains from the period when The Standells were sinking fast but still, more or less, functioning. In Valentino and Tamblyn's efforts to keep the band alive, they drafted in an aspiring LA songwriter and guitarist named Lowell George.

"He was an incredibly spiritual, incredibly talented guy," says Valentino. "He used to rehearse on this horse farm, right in the stable with the chickens. Incredible. He played us a lot of songs he'd written that later turned up on his Little Feat albums. There was one called Juliette. I can still play it. We might have had hit records if we'd stuck with him but The Standells sound would have been completely different."

Larry Tamblyn confirms Valentino's assessment. "Lowell was brilliant musically, but I don’t think he really liked The Standells. He began to take over the group, taking us in another direction which was not really who we were. It finally ended when Lowell suggested we do a parody of ourselves as greasers, i.e. Sha Na Na. I didn’t agree. We then parted ways."

NOT WITH A BANG…

The end was messy and unmemorable, with efforts to form new bands, attempts to revive The Standells and Dick Dodd's solo career all coming to nothing. The thing was, to all outward appearances, dead.

Yet today, with the objective critical clarity that only hindsight can provide, The Standells are held in higher regard than they ever were in the 60s and their occasional concerts, still with the definitive line-up, are always hotly anticipated.

It wasn't, as is often the case, that The Standells were ahead of their time. Far from it. Their best songs were absolutely of the moment, quintessential mid-60s garage punk classics which, but for a series of business-oriented mishaps, should have made them one of the biggest acts of the period.

Happily, they seem reasonably content with the way life has treated them. "I find it totally astonishing," says Larry Tamblyn, "that a group which many had considered washed up and no longer hip, was resurrected and later considered legends, and that we have inspired so many others. When we appear together on stage; it’s as though we are still back in the 60’s….that’s the magic of the Standells!"

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Further reading : Love That Dirty Water – The Standells and the Improbable Red Sox Victory Anthem by Chuck Burgess and Bill Nowlin (Rounder Books)