About two weeks ago, I stocked a flash drive with about a dozen digital albums that I have stored away on a separate hard drive from the one in my computer. It has become something of a sub-hobby of mine to transfer over analog vinyl disks to the digital format, so I also have thousands of LPs and singles which I have transferred over to this format.
Anyway, I planned to listen to what was on the flash drive while I was in my car, something I have been doing a lot of lately.
I was taking things at random, and when I got to this particular act's LPs that I had in the digital format, I literally thought to myself, "I haven't heard them for awhile. This album has all of their best, so let me put it on the flash drive and listen to it in the car."
And that is what I did.
The act wasn't the first album on the drive, so it took me a few days to get to their music.
And once I got there, I knew I was "home," so to speak.
Yes, I really do like this stuff, even though it is as geeky and quirky as can be, yet it sticks in your head and refuses to leave as if it had some musical stickum on it.
I am talking about Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Yup, Jerry's son with a couple of his childhood friends, who one day decided to start up a band, without using Gary's connections to Hollywood.
To make a long story short, somehow they auditioned for, and got, a regular gig at Disneyland in about 1964 or so, as Gary and the Playboys.
A neighbor, legendary record producer Snuff Garrett, on a tip heard the Lewis had a band, and without dad Jerry knowing, started to fine-tune them for the big time, using Lewis' mom's money.
Dad supposedly never knew, because from what I read, he wouldn't have been too happy with his son's musical choice. He was away from home for long stretches, so it was relatively easy to stop dad from knowing.
Gary started out as the band's drummer, and Garrett brought in no less than drum legend Buddy Rich to tutor him. But Garrett's prime intention was to not only play off of the Lewis name, but make Lewis the lead singer of the act, which he was not at the beginning of the band's run.
The band was raw as could be, but when they were adequate enough to start recording, Garrett hooked them up with "This Diamond Ring," partially written by Al Kooper, and the rest is history.
The song went to No. 1, nobody cared that Lewis couldn't sing (by his own admission, it was not one of his musical strengths) and the band wasn't very good, and right away, the name of Gary Lewis was as well known as the name of Jerry Lewis.
Although Gary led a "band," the clear focus of the "band" was on Gary. He had the name, and he was now the lead singer of the band. Photos of the band often showed him out front and clear, with his bandmates behind him and often out of focus.
What came after "This Diamond Ring" was a rapid succession of hits, often worked on in one form or another by Leon Russell and Garrett, who used tricks in the studio to make Lewis' voice palatable.
Songs that suited Lewis' vocals were crafted specifically for him to sing, and Garrett, Russell and the legendary Wrecking Crew studio musicians did the heavy lifting. Out of this conglomeration came some of the most well known pop songs of the mid 1960s, including "She's Just My Style," "You Don't Have To Paint Me a Picture," "My Heart's Symphony," "Everybody Loves a Clown," "Green Grass," and several other huge hits.
From 1965 to 1968, Gary Lewis and the Playboys had 10 Top 20 singles, and several others that hit the Hot 100.
The elder Lewis acknowledged his son's success by appearing with him on several TV shows, including "Hullaballoo," and even featured Gary and his band in a couple of his films.
In late 1966, Lewis and his band were on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and with Lewis being drafted into military service, Sullivan held a farewell show for the singer, where girls from the audience came up and wished Lewis well, often giving him kisses on the cheek while they were holding in screams for their teen idol.
Lewis went into the Army in January 1967, and his record label continued to release older recordings that had not yet been released during his stint in the service, which ended in 1968.
When he was out of the service, he almost immediately returned to recording, often sans the Playboys name, but musical tastes had changed, and he never really got the musical momentum back from the early days.
Lewis released an album in late 1969 entitled "I'm On the Right Road Now," which attempted to direct his music to what was then happening, but it fizzled, and except for a couple of singles here and there, Lewis has been a fixture on the oldies circuit for the past 40 years or so, with a new group of Playboys.
Anyway, when I heard his music for the first time in quite a while, one song after another, well, yeah, he was geeky, but the music really was quite good.
Yes, it fit however you wanted to define his vocal style, but with excellent musical backing by the Wrecking Crew--the Playboys were reportedly so inept or at least not up to then-current standards that they used backing tapes when playing live, as many bands did at the time--and with the genius of Garrett and Russell behind him, Lewis--a true non-singer if there ever was one--became one of the 1960's top vocalists.
The music was infectious, and Lewis had just enough talent--and a lot of brains--to go with the flow, and was able to pull it off.
Yes, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but like Nancy Sinatra, he took that spoon and ran with it for as long as he could.
I always liked Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and now, listening to them again, I know why: their fun tunes were like 2 minute and 30 second mini-stories, and there was a beginning, a middle and an end to them.
And they stick in your head like glue.
Sure, in the musical world there is room for Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and boy, I am glad that I re-discovered them.
Fun for fun's sake, and nothing else in between the lines.
Speak to you again on Monday. Have a nice weekend.
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