Who were Bill Deal and the Rondells? Beats me. I've never heard of em. I just grabbed this one because i recognized the Heritage label from one of the other 45 blogs i follow, and figured it was worth taking a chance on. A quick google search informs me that they had three chart hits in 1969, and this was one of them, but that's all i got. This aint a bad little ditty if you ask me. The flip side though- not so much.
Check it out.
get it
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7 shout outs:
This group was based in the Tidewater area of Virginia. During the '70's I often vacationed in Virginia Beach where they were the house band at a club called Rogue's Gallery. They were a party band and very popular in the region. Their biggest hit (at least where I lived) was "May I".
Nice. I love hearing first hand accounts like this about forgotten acts of yesteryear... Thanks for chiming in.
Hi Jeff!
This song was originally recorded by the Tams in 1964 and no disrespect to Bill Deal & the Rhondels(or to Multielvi ;-)), but I find the original to be much more pleasing - in fact it's one of my fave songs ever. If you've never heard it, you might want to check it out.
As always, thank you!
Holly:
I figured it was a cover song. It's too damn catchy to have been written by a bunch of white hippy beach bums... It is a pretty righteous groove though, i'll have to seek out The Tams version. Thanks for the info.
Weird blog synchronicity - check today's
http://diddywah.blogspot.com/
for Bill Deal & the Rhondels cover of the Beatles' Hey Bulldog!
And do seek out the Tams - if problems let me know, I'll send to you.
Thanks for the link Holly, Cool stuff- who knew?
1/16/11
RobGems.ca wrote:
Bill Deal & the Rhondells were originally from New York City forming in 1965, as "Bill Deal & The Big Deals", and eventually found major success down south in the Virginia/South Carolina Beach Shack districts that were into Northern Soul/R&B/White Blue Eyed Soul long before the British discovered it in the late 1970's dance clubs. Their first 45 for Mala Records ("Big Toe In The Wind") flopped, but they soon gained a reputation in late 1968 by hooking up with blue-eyed soul producer Jerry Ross, who owned the Heritage/Collossuss Labels. Heritage signed a deal with Mike Curb at MGM Records in late 1968, & Ross got Deal & the Rhondells signed to the label along with The Duprees (already top-40 has beens by this point)& The Cherry People. the Rhondells besides Deal consisted of Ammon tharp (drums),Mike Kerwin (Trumpet),Bob Fisher (lead guitar),Jeff Pollard (2nd trumpet), Kenny Dawson (3rd trumpet),Don Queinsenburry (Bass guitar), & Ronnie Rosenbaum (Trombone). the group racked up 5 Top 100 singles between January 1969-March 1970, three of them ("May I", "I've Been Hurt", & "What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am" reaching the top 40 on Billboards' charts. "Hey Bulldog" came in 1970, & was their last noted chart entry, "Bubbling Under" the Top 100 charts in July 1970. Further releases on Polydor & Buddah Records didn't chart nationally, but remained popular in the "Beach Shack" districts of Virginia & South Carolina. The band remained popular until the 1980's down south with the Beach Music Lovers, & found some success in England with the "Northern Soul" poularity during the late 70's-early 1990s. Bill Deal passed away recently in 2010.
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