<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While recounting the saga of former Eagles guitarist Don Felder (FTV:\u00a0 Don Felder 11-20-19),<\/span><\/p>\n we discussed the hot musical \u2018coasts\u2019 that existed in the 1960s.\u00a0 New York City and California were considered the east and west coast hotbeds of musical activity.\u00a0 Eventually we added Florida to the mix citing names like Felder, Tom Petty, and the Allman Brothers, just to name a few of the talented musicians with roots in the area we would call the \u2018third coast\u2019.\u00a0 As a musician who cut his teeth on 1960s rock and roll, I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t throw Michigan in as the \u2018fourth coast\u2019 during this extremely fertile period in music history.\u00a0 This does not mean Michigan was the only state that produced a zillion garage bands in the post-Beatles era.\u00a0 Rather, it hints there were a lot of successful bands with roots in the Great Lakes State.\u00a0 Some were one hit wonders, some crafted careers lasting decades, and some even found their way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps it is best if we start with the godfathers of Michigan rock:\u00a0 Bob Seger and Mitch Ryder.\u00a0 Oddly enough, both of these legendary artists have at least some connection to the Upper Peninsula including our own Western U.P. backyard.\u00a0 Let us start with the artist formerly known as William Sherille Levise, Jr (born February 26, 1945 in Hamtramck, Michigan), better known professionally as Mitch Ryder.\u00a0 Levise spent his high school years in Warren, another Detroit suburb, and later, he lived for many years in Livonia.\u00a0 In his teens, Levise spent some time as a backup singer with a soul-music group called The Peps.\u00a0 When his presence in a mixed-racial group caused \u2018animosities\u2019, he went on to form his own band, Tempest.\u00a0 Bill also fronted his next band, Billy Lee & The Rivieras – they gained experience performing but, career-wise, they had limited success advancing beyond the club and party circuit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Things took an upswing when The Rivieras came under the wing of songwriter \/ producer Bob Crewe.\u00a0 It was Crewe who rechristened the band Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels and guided them as they recorded a string of radio friendly hits in the mid-1960s.\u00a0 The original Detroit Wheels included the world class talents of Jim \u2018Jimmy B\u2019 Badanjek on drums and Jim McCarty on lead guitar.\u00a0 Classic Rock radio continues to spin their biggest hits <\/span>Devil With A Blue Dress On <\/span><\/i>(which reached No. 4 on the charts), <\/span>Jenny Take A Ride! <\/span><\/i>(No. 10 in 1965), and <\/span>Sock It To Me, Baby! <\/span><\/i>(No. 6 in 1967).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My first experience playing Ryder\u2019s music came via a <\/span>Greatest Hits<\/span><\/i> compilation my mother found for me when I first began playing the drums along with records.\u00a0 It was one of those packaged albums sold at the local dime store.\u00a0 The album\u2019s producers faded out the songs halfway through each track in order to cram in the promised \u2018thirty hit songs on one LP\u2019!\u00a0 The first time Ray (the lead singer and guitar player in my band Knockdown) introduced <\/span>Devil With A Blue Dress<\/span><\/i> for a party at the NCO Club at Sawyer Air Force Base, we had never even rehearsed it.\u00a0 This was a common occurrence with Ray, thus the nickname\u00a0 \u2018the Human JukeBox\u2019.\u00a0 He looked puzzled when I commented, \u201cThat is the first time I ever played the whole song\u201d which of course meant I had to explain the \u2018thirty hit songs on one LP\u2019 story.\u00a0 \u201cGreat,\u201d Ray laughed, \u201ctell me the names of the other half-songs you know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Crewe decided Ryder could be the next great soul singer so he broke up the band and formed a new ten piece group.\u00a0 Composed of white R&B musicians from Baltimore, MD, he sent them on the road as The Mitch Ryder Show in February, 1967.\u00a0 Mitch had the voice to pull off fronting a large ensemble and made no bones about copying the stage mannerisms of one of his idols, James Brown.\u00a0 Unfortunately, his version of Brown\u2019s \u2018high flying drop to the stage on his knees\u2019 move wasn\u2019t performed quite right.\u00a0 Mitch subsequently suffered from self-inflicted knee damage trying to copy the move show after show.\u00a0 Ryder holds the distinction of being the last person to perform with Otis Redding on a local Cleveland TV show called <\/span>Upbeat<\/span><\/i> on December 9, 1967.\u00a0 They sang <\/span>Knock On Wood<\/span><\/i> together the night before Redding and four of his band members were killed in a plane crash near Madison, WI.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The last \u2018new\u2019 music I picked up from Mitch Ryder was an album he recorded in 1971 called <\/span>Detroit.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>I especially liked his version of Lou Reed\u2019s <\/span>Rock & Roll<\/span><\/i> which for one reason or another proved to be a difficult song for us to do a decent cover of.\u00a0 Reed liked it enough to lure Detroit\u2019s guitar player, Steve Hunter, to join Robert Wagner (from another Michigan band called The Frost) in his backing band.\u00a0 Ryder\u2019s discography lists activity up through 2019, including contributions to many compilation albums, but his career never reached the late 1960s level again.\u00a0 On the other hand, Ryder\u2019s presence remains as his work influenced a bevy of artists from Bruce Springsteen to John Mellencamp.\u00a0 The Detroit Wheels were inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2005 and Mitch Ryder was inducted as a solo artist in 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While I have never seen Mitch Ryder perform in person, there is a small connection between his career and Ontonagon.\u00a0 Bass player Mark Gougeon has performed twice at the Ontonagon Theater for the Performing Arts with Al Jacquez\u2019s band, Measured Chaos.\u00a0 Gougeon\u2019s resume puts him in Mitch Ryder\u2019s band in the early 1980s.\u00a0 It also lists something called <\/span>The Mitch Ryder Band Survival Masterclass, <\/span><\/i>but not being a Facebook user, I can find no other information explaining exactly what this involves.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bob Seeger may be retired and splitting his time between his beloved Detroit and Los Angeles, but he has seen a fair share of Upper Michigan and Wisconsin scenery first hand.\u00a0 Born in Detroit (May 6, 1945), the Seger family moved to Ann Arbor when he was five.\u00a0 Seger began building a regional following with his first high school band, The Decibels, who also recorded his first original song, <\/span>The Lonely One,<\/span><\/i> in 1961 at Del Shannon\u2019s studio.\u00a0 After The Decibels disbanded, Bob joined The Town Criers and later Doug Brown & The Omens.\u00a0 Bob became a good buddy of the late Glenn Frey of the Eagles and later recalled their thinking at the time:\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re nobody if you can\u2019t get on the radio.\u201d\u00a0 Frey would later head west to find his musical nirvana, but Seger continued working the Detroit scene.\u00a0 He eventually became friends with his future manager Edward \u201cPunch\u201d Andrews who utilized Bob\u2019s talents as a songwriter and producer for other bands.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Seger\u2019s reputation grew and he was signed to the Cameo-Parkway label with another new band, The Last Heard.\u00a0 When the label folded, he turned down an offer from the Motown label in favor of signing with Capitol Records.\u00a0 The Last Heard soon changed their name to The Bob Seger System.\u00a0 The release of his second single for Capitol in 1969 resulted in the No. 17 national hit <\/span>Ramblin\u2019 Gamblin\u2019 Man, <\/span><\/i>which also became the title of his first LP for the label (the LP reached No. 62 on the <\/span>Billboard Charts<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 The <\/span>Ramblin\u2019 Gamblin\u2019 Man <\/span><\/i>session also marked Glenn Frey\u2019s introduction to a recording studio as he provided guitar and backing vocals to the track.\u00a0 The System\u2019s next two albums failed to find commercial success and The Bob Seger System dissolved.\u00a0 Their career wasn\u2019t as long as it should have been, but they were still inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The next iteration of Seger\u2019s career centered on Bob becoming a one-man act.\u00a0 The commercial failure of his first all-acoustic album (<\/span>Brand New Morning – 1971<\/span><\/i>) resulted in Capitol dropping him from the label.\u00a0 His next move would acquaint him with the Upper Peninsula.\u00a0 Bob got the band bug again and joined a keyboard \/ drum duo called Teegarden & Van Winkle.\u00a0 It was with this group Seger first performed in Marquette at a Greek Week concert \/ dance at the Hedgecock Field House.\u00a0 They opened with Seger coming out to play a set of solo acoustic numbers.\u00a0 I have previously recounted Seger pulling out a sheet of notebook paper at this gig and saying, \u201cI wrote down the lyrics to a song we heard on the radio coming up I-75.\u00a0 It is really cool and I think you will dig it.\u201d\u00a0 The song was John Lennon\u2019s <\/span>Imagine<\/span><\/i> and to this day, whenever I hear the song, it comes into my head in Seger\u2019s voice.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Drummer Dave Teegarden and Hammond B-3 player Skip Van Winkle then came out to do a set of their own material capped with their 1970 hit <\/span>God, Love, and Rock & Roll<\/span><\/i> as their closer.\u00a0 At this point, they were joined by Seger, now sporting a Les Paul, to run through a cover heavy set they had recorded for Punch Andrews\u2019 Palladium Records.\u00a0 We have featured this LP (<\/span>Smokin\u2019 O.P.\u2019s – 1972 <\/span><\/i>– which is shorthand for <\/span>Smokin\u2019 Other People\u2019s Songs<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 During this same tour, the band would have an encounter (in Wisconsin and not \u2018somewhere east of Omaha\u2019) retold in one of Seger\u2019s most poignant songs about the rock and roll life, <\/span>Turn the Page.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Seger would go on to much wider national and world-wide success with the Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band phase of his career.\u00a0 I have been told he also played a show at Lakeview Arena in Marquette with this band, but for some reason it went under my radar, otherwise I would have been there.\u00a0 Seger was never shy about acknowledging his Michigan roots.\u00a0 Two of his best selling albums (<\/span>Live Bullet (1975) & Nine Tonight (1980)<\/span><\/i>) were recorded at Cobo Hall in Motown (although parts of <\/span>Nine Tonight<\/span><\/i> were also recorded in Boston).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We can not talk about Michigan\u2019s place as the <\/span>Fourth Musical Coast<\/span><\/i> without talking about Vincent Damon Furnier who was born in Detroit on February 4, 1948.\u00a0 If the name doesn\u2019t ring a bell, perhaps you will recognize his more familiar stage (and now legal) name, Alice Cooper.\u00a0 It was a little confusing when Alice Cooper the band became Alice Cooper the man, but that part of the story goes back to the days after the Furnier family had relocated to Phoenix, Arizona.\u00a0 It was at Cortez High School that Vince decided to make music his life\u2019s work, declaring his ambition to \u2018sell a million records\u2019 in his senior yearbook.\u00a0 His first high school \u2018band\u2019 was The Earwigs who came together to perform at the school\u2019s annual Letterman\u2019s talent show.\u00a0 The Earwigs included future Alice Cooper band members Glen Buxton and Dennis Dunaway plus two other members of the track team.\u00a0 The Earwigs dressed in wigs and costumes to resemble The Beatles and did covers (and some parodies with altered lyrics) of The Fab Four\u2019s music.\u00a0 Buxton was the only musician in the group so he played while the others mimed their parts.\u00a0 The Earwigs went over well enough to encourage them to become a real band, soon to be named The Spiders.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The band\u2019s members graduated in 1966.\u00a0 Between making frequent trips to Los Angeles and recording, they gained a new drummer, Neal Smith, and a new name – Nazz.\u00a0 By the end of 1967, they had relocated to LA permanently.\u00a0 Several things transpired for the band to become The Alice Cooper band in 1968.\u00a0 First, there was Todd Rundgren\u2019s band who were already called Nazz.\u00a0 Then it was Furnier\u2019s belief the band needed a gimmick to stand out among the many LA bands.\u00a0 They picked \u2018Alice Cooper\u2019 because it sounded wholesome and normal, the exact opposite of the music they played.\u00a0 The \u2018look\u2019 Vince developed came from the caked-on make up Bette Davis wore in <\/span>What Ever Happened to Baby Jane<\/span><\/i>, and Anita Pallenberg\u2019s appearance as The Great Tyrant in the 1968 film <\/span>Barbarella.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The band had not quite risen to their \u2018shock rock\u2019 heyday yet, but at a gig in Venice, CA, they were noticed by manager Shep Gordon (even though they emptied the room in ten minutes).\u00a0 It was Gordon who put them in touch with Frank Zappa.\u00a0 A small mix up in the message saw them arrive at Zappa\u2019s home at 7 AM instead of the appointed 7 PM, but the audition still landed them on Frank\u2019s new label, Straight Records.\u00a0 The rest of 1969 was spent dreaming up things that would eventually be labeled \u2018shock rock\u2019.\u00a0 For instance, there was the \u2018Chicken Incident\u2019 in Toronto.\u00a0 Part of their act found Alice tearing a pillow apart as he spread the feathers all over the place.\u00a0 Someone decided to add a live chicken to the feathery carnage.\u00a0 Vince did not know chickens couldn\u2019t fly so when he tossed it into the audience, it landed with a thud three rows back where the crowd disassembled the poor bird.\u00a0 Zappa called the next day to see if the rumors about Vince biting the head off the bird and drinking its blood were true.\u00a0 Shaken at the ughly turn events had taken, Alice denied any such thing had happened.\u00a0 Zappa told him, \u201cWell, whatever you do, don\u2019t tell anyone you didn\u2019t do it.\u201d\u00a0 Shock Rock was now a thing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So, how did Alice Cooper get back to the <\/span>4th Musical Coast<\/span><\/i>?\u00a0 Lack of chart action in early 1970 and indifferent Californian audiences relocated the band to Vince\u2019s home turf.\u00a0 With Midwestern bands like the Stooges and the MC5 already pioneering proto-punk music there, the band found acceptance.\u00a0 Cooper said, \u201cL.A. just didn\u2019t get it.\u00a0 They were all on the wrong drug for us.\u00a0 They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer.\u00a0 We fit much more in Detroit than we did anywhere else.\u201d\u00a0 Michigan would be their homebase until 1972.\u00a0 The music industry was on the tail end of the \u2018Peace and Love\u2019 decade and as Alice now says, \u201cWe wanted to see what was next.\u00a0 It turned out we were next and we drove a stake through the heart of the Love Generation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The band recorded their third and final album for Zappa\u2019s label in the fall of 1970.\u00a0 Producer Bob Ezrin coaxed <\/span>I\u2019m Eighteen<\/span><\/i> out of the band.\u00a0 The <\/span>Love It To Death<\/span><\/i> album opened the door to the <\/span>Billboard Hot 100 <\/span><\/i>where the single hit No. 21 in early 1971.\u00a0 It\u00a0 also caught the attention of Warner Bros. Records who were more than happy to have them shock their way up the record charts for many years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The whole Alice Cooper story will need to be told another day, but the band\u2019s early days were certainly anchored on the <\/span>4th Musical Coast<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 If we start listing all of the bands with connections to <\/span>The 4th Musical Coast, <\/span><\/i>we will need a longer sheet of paper.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see;\u00a0 Rare Earth, Ted Nugent, The Frost, MC5, Grand Funk Railroad, The Four Tops, The Supremes . . . stay tuned.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 The song that opened doors to the Billboard Charts for Mr Shock Rock himself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While recounting the saga of former Eagles guitarist Don Felder (FTV:\u00a0 Don Felder 11-20-19), we discussed the hot musical \u2018coasts\u2019 that existed in the 1960s.\u00a0 New York City and California were considered the east and west coast hotbeds of musical activity.\u00a0 Eventually we added Florida to the mix citing names like Felder, Tom Petty, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-local-music-news","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2397"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2400,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397\/revisions\/2400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}