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| My fantasy of the Red Velvet.... |
The Hit
1966’s “Lies,” which sounds a lot like The Beatles precisely because The Knickerbockers lifted the guitar, chord progressions and all, on one of their songs and dropped the word “Lies” after it. They are not remotely shy about copping to it either.
The Rest of the Story
The band’s core came together in the early-1960s around two brothers, Beau and John Charles (born Robert and John Carlos Cecchino), in Bergenfield, New Jersey, a town north and west of Manhattan. Buddy Randall (born William Crandall) added a third member and a saxophone to Beau’s guitar and John’s bass when he came over from another band, The Royal Teens (famous for “Short Shorts"). Their drummer, Jimmy Walker, found them performing at an outdoor Memorial Day event (for a fire department, maybe, or they just hijacked a parking lot), and he decided he’d make a good fit as their drummer. When the rest of the band auditioned him, his drumming impressed them less (or Beau Charles’ mom) than his singing voice (“Hire that guy,” she said, “he does sound good.”). Even though Walker came over from another band called The Castle Kings – who had done recordings with Ahmet Ertegun and (holy shit) Phil Spector that went nowhere – he wasn’t the polished product. In interviews, he recalls taking pointers from Randall and others on the art of drumming.
The Knickerbocker’s big break came when the newly-minted East-coast rep for Challenge/Four Star Records, Jerry Fuller, spotted them at the University Swing Palace in Albany, New York. While they’d started with early rock ‘n’ roll – e.g., Elvis, Sam Perkins, and so on – The Knickerbockers learned Meet The Beatles start to finish during that residency and developed that into a repertoire. They knew their way around their instruments well enough to learn just about any song, and they built their success around mimicking. According to Walker (the living member with the greatest ongoing media availability), Fuller bought in when they played a song he suggested, but wasn't even sure they knew (Johnny Mathis’ “Misty”) with musicians’ flair. Fuller signed the band, produced “Lies,” a song the band had written during that upstate residency, as well as a couple near-misses (e.g., “One Track Mind” instead of their preferred “Just One Girl”) and moved The Knickerbockers to Los Angeles. Their story picks up here.
With a hit single under their belts, The Knickerbockers picked up steady gigs at a venue called the Red Velvet, an off-the-radar spot where actors and musicians gathered after time on the set of Shindig, and they spent just shy of a year as regulars on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is. (A place called The Pancake House is involved as well, but mostly as another celebrity and semi-celebrity hang-out.) They also went on a couple of the Dick Clark package tours that typified the early(-ish) rock era, something they loved and hated in equal parts. But the meat of the stories about The Knickerbockers happened in LA, where they spent years mimicking popular bands, sometimes with members of those bands in the audience, much like they’d done with The Beatles. They impressed some of your harder to impress artists too:
1966’s “Lies,” which sounds a lot like The Beatles precisely because The Knickerbockers lifted the guitar, chord progressions and all, on one of their songs and dropped the word “Lies” after it. They are not remotely shy about copping to it either.
The Rest of the Story
The band’s core came together in the early-1960s around two brothers, Beau and John Charles (born Robert and John Carlos Cecchino), in Bergenfield, New Jersey, a town north and west of Manhattan. Buddy Randall (born William Crandall) added a third member and a saxophone to Beau’s guitar and John’s bass when he came over from another band, The Royal Teens (famous for “Short Shorts"). Their drummer, Jimmy Walker, found them performing at an outdoor Memorial Day event (for a fire department, maybe, or they just hijacked a parking lot), and he decided he’d make a good fit as their drummer. When the rest of the band auditioned him, his drumming impressed them less (or Beau Charles’ mom) than his singing voice (“Hire that guy,” she said, “he does sound good.”). Even though Walker came over from another band called The Castle Kings – who had done recordings with Ahmet Ertegun and (holy shit) Phil Spector that went nowhere – he wasn’t the polished product. In interviews, he recalls taking pointers from Randall and others on the art of drumming.
The Knickerbocker’s big break came when the newly-minted East-coast rep for Challenge/Four Star Records, Jerry Fuller, spotted them at the University Swing Palace in Albany, New York. While they’d started with early rock ‘n’ roll – e.g., Elvis, Sam Perkins, and so on – The Knickerbockers learned Meet The Beatles start to finish during that residency and developed that into a repertoire. They knew their way around their instruments well enough to learn just about any song, and they built their success around mimicking. According to Walker (the living member with the greatest ongoing media availability), Fuller bought in when they played a song he suggested, but wasn't even sure they knew (Johnny Mathis’ “Misty”) with musicians’ flair. Fuller signed the band, produced “Lies,” a song the band had written during that upstate residency, as well as a couple near-misses (e.g., “One Track Mind” instead of their preferred “Just One Girl”) and moved The Knickerbockers to Los Angeles. Their story picks up here.
With a hit single under their belts, The Knickerbockers picked up steady gigs at a venue called the Red Velvet, an off-the-radar spot where actors and musicians gathered after time on the set of Shindig, and they spent just shy of a year as regulars on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is. (A place called The Pancake House is involved as well, but mostly as another celebrity and semi-celebrity hang-out.) They also went on a couple of the Dick Clark package tours that typified the early(-ish) rock era, something they loved and hated in equal parts. But the meat of the stories about The Knickerbockers happened in LA, where they spent years mimicking popular bands, sometimes with members of those bands in the audience, much like they’d done with The Beatles. They impressed some of your harder to impress artists too:
