Beginnings
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The Merry-Go-Round
Colorado Springs, Colorado
1970
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THE
GRINGOS: AN APPRECIATION
by
Mark S. Alper |
Not
too long ago, a friend and neighbor of mine asked about the kinds of music
I listened to while growing up. Without hesitation, I began rattling
off the names of my favorite bands: The Beatles. The Rolling Stones.
Cream. Blood, Sweat and Tears. Chicago. The
Gringos.
It's important to understand that I have been asked this question numerous
times over the years and my answer is always the same. And so have
been the responses of the questioner. They nod understandingly until
I mention the Gringos. Then their brows furrow (occasionally) and
the ultimate of quizzical looks takes over their expression. "Who
were the Gringos?," they ask....sometimes less than politely, using a
scatological term that Nixon's White House transcripts refer to as an
"expletive deleted."
There is an old saying that if you remember the 1960's, you weren't really
there. Well, if you were on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and some other
locales during the 1970's and didn't hear the Gringos, you weren't really
there. Or you didn't get out much, whichever is appropriate,
although the purpose of this essay is not to remind people that they were
geeks three decades ago.
A few factoids really don't tell you anything about the Gringos and their
music, but such things are now de rigeur so far be it from me to be an
iconoclast. The Gringos began their career influenced by Herb Alpert
and the Tijuana Brass, and took their name from the slang (and rather
derogatory) expression for "white man north of the border."
This much is beyond argument. The Gringos were white. All
of them. Really white. Totally white. The original
astronauts weren't as white as the Gringos. But so what? They
could swing...I am speaking musically...this is a family website. And
they could be funky...I am speaking musically...they all were really good
with personal hygiene. Indeed, I remain convinced that the song
"Play That Funky Music White Boys" was inspired by the Gringos.
(Probably not, but I am entitled to be delusional if I want to be).
So, despite their early influences, the Gringos music went beyond
"Tijuana Taxi" and "Lonely Bull."
The Gringos were Jim Miller, Ty Newcomb, Lynn "Bush" Tivens (so
called because in the early years he wore an afro hairstyle...the only
white guy to do so other than the redheaded actor on the series "Room
222"), Alan Harkrader, Joe Vaughn, Steve Jones, Clyde (a/k/a Klide)
Score and, for several years early on, an immensely talented vocalist
named Donna Byrd. Miller, Newcomb and Byrd were California natives;
Jones and Harkrader were Kansans; Vaughn hailed from Tennessee and Score
from Arizona. (I am not sure where Tivens was born, or if he just
appeared. I have a sneaking suspicion that all records regarding
Tivens have disappeared, and that Chicago's Jim Pankow is behind it all
since Tivens also played rock and roll trombone).
The Gringos met as students in Arizona and, aided by the growing
popularity of high-powered brass in rock music and the relative absence of
Mexican restaurants of similar name, took to the road. And the road
took them to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
I first heard of the Gringos in 1971. As a 12 year-old music fan
newly arrived on the Cape with my family, I was hearing the
"buzz" about the Gringos. Luckily for me, they were booked
at the "Tavern on the Green," a nightclub in what was then the
Sheraton Hyannis Resort, managed by my father. In an apt
demonstration of the dictum that "it is not what you know, but who
you know," I was able to meet the band (I remember helping them set
up on their arrival, watching them remove equipment from a battered red
van parked outside the club). I was also able to watch them perform,
despite being nine years younger than the drinking age.
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I
was, in fact, always uniquely embarrassed when Jim Miller would spot me in
the back of the room, sitting with my dad (and occasionally Gringos
manager Charles Johnston) and ask in front of the entire audience where my
I.D. was. Sadly, no one asks such questions of me anymore and I have
had vague notions of bringing Jim Miller down to Florida for the sole
purpose of trailing me to nightclubs, grabbing a microphone and asking if
I had a valid I.D. The problem is that what was cute and appropriate
30 years ago would get Jim locked up for psychiatric evaluation today.
But there they were on stage, on Cape Cod, cutting through covers of songs
by Chicago, Carole King and Chase. (Does anyone today remember
Chase, a veteran of Woody Herman's "Thundering Herd" and a band
that brought the power of brass rock to new levels?). They also
wrote some charming and memorable originals in those days, most notably
Harkrader's gentle, brass powered "The Life I Lead."
The Gringos went on to play numerous venues on the Cape. Most of
them are no longer in existence. The Cape has changed, as have all
of us. The Tivoli Room, Bobby V's Cabaret, The Swamp Fox, the 213
Room, the Mill Hill Club. But, the Gringos also played Las Vegas and
garnered rave reviews from columnist Forrest Duke ("The Duke of Las
Vegas"), and had stints in Europe as well as the ever popular
"Animal House" in Anchorage, Alaska.
For several years, my path and the Gringos paths diverged. They
played music, accumulated fans, wives and girlfriends (not at the same
time and besides, this is a family website). I went through
adolescence and puberty, and gave considerable thought to dating homeless
women in the belief that it would be easier to talk them into staying over
(apologies to Garry Shandling). |
But
our paths did cross again in the late 1970's when the Gringos played the
Bluewall at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Both Lynn
Tivens and Donna Byrd had left the band for other pursuits. The
Gringos followed an engagement at the Bluewall by former Johnny Winter
sideman Rick "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" Derringer, and blew
the Bluewall apart with packed houses.
At around this time, the Gringos released their second LP (the first was
self-produced on Leer Records and contains some of the Gringos' best
original music). The second album found the band's name shortened to
"Gringo" and was released on United Artists records. Produced
by "Snuff" Garrett, noted for his work with Gary Lewis and the
Playboys and Cher ("Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves"), the album was
not really representative of the Gringos as a band although it did include
a beautiful song by Jim Miller ("One Good Reason"). The
band also had the misfortune of being signed to a label that was in its
waning days, since United Artists records went out of existence shortly
thereafter and was acquired by MCA. (A bit of trivia, the album made
an appearance in the background on an episode of "WKRP in
Cincinnati.").
I remember the Bluewall appearance for many reasons, most notably the fact
that I put the band up in my dormitory after an error in their hotel
reservations. It was "Back To School" for the Gringos, and
I saved countless dollars in meals by sharing Score's pressure-cooked
beans and rice. It was also during this time that I had my picture
taken in front of the UMass-Amherst student union wearing the a Gringos
motorcycle jacket. (The closest I have come to being on a motorcycle
was when my father got behind my bike and pushed).
Of course, no retrospective on the Gringos would be complete without
mentioning the band mascot, a stuffed camel fondly named Cecil. To
be perfectly blunt, I never understood Cecil and he never understood me.
Decorum prevents me from writing more about Cecil because this is,
after all, a family website. But I can and need to mention a then
middle-aged couple named Vic and Marge Mendes. Vic and Marge, in
addition to being huge Gringos fans, also did a jitterbug that brought
down the house. |
The
Gringos played their last performance together at the Swamp Fox in
Hyannis, Massachusetts in 1980. But I cannot close without
mentioning that the Gringos played the Cape Cod Melody Tent years before
Chicago played there (it is now an annual stop on Chicago's summer tours),
and they played big band music years before Chicago made their big band
CD.
Now, this fact may not make the Gringos trendsetters. But then, they
really didn't need to be. They were a great band, no more and no
less. They never had a hit song, but that's okay considering what
has passed for hit songs in the past few decades. The Gringos had
us, in the words of a song by Boston, "dancing in the streets of
Hyannis." Many thanks to them for the music and the memories,
both of which can be relived through this website. And if you never heard
of the Gringos before, now you know what all the shouting and tumult was
about. So, in the now hackneyed expression common to the 1960's and
1970's...."dig it."
Mark S. Alper is a longtime friend and fan of the Gringos. He
proudly notes that all of the Gringos are older than he is...he just looks
older than they do. He is a writer, a nationally recognized expert
on housing and civil rights, and a private investigator living in Florida. |
        
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