Asked why people in their 60s turn out to hear live performances of songs popular during the days when transistor radios were standard issue among teens and sock hops still drew crowds, Cryan’ Shames front man Jim “J.C. Hooke” Pilster hazarded a guess.
“Memories,” Pilster said. “Things they remember. You hear a song and it brings back a certain moment.”
Capturing that sentiment, for example, is “It Could Be We’re In Love,” the Cryan Shames’ biggest hit, which spent several weeks at No. 1 in Chicago and reached 85 on Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” in 1967.
“People tell me, ‘We got married to that song,'” Pilster said, adding with a chuckle his response is, “Don’t blame me!”
Pilster and lead singer Tom “Toad” Doody — both founding members — reunited earlier this year after a 21/2 year hiatus. They are scheduled to appear as part of the Cryan’ Shames lineup at 8 p.m. Oct. 5 at the Beverly Arts Center.
Pilster said, “At any given show other members that played on our albums may appear. Most of the players we use have been with us for 34 years. Tom and I consider them as ‘original.'”
Opening the show is former New Colony Six singer-songwriter Ronnie Rice, now a solo performer. Rice penned the New Colony Six’s two biggest hits, “Things I’d Like To Say” and “I Will Always Think About You.”
Rice said he focuses on Rock ‘n Roll roots that mixes his own work with “stuff I’m used to, stuff I was raised on. The best part is the audience. It’s a mutual party!”
He said he probably would perform his set, sing “Always Think About You” with the Cryan’ Shames and then leave. “After I do my time, it’s really their time,” he said.
Both the Cryan’ Shames and New Colony Six came of age in the mid- to late-60s as WLS-AM and WCFL-AM, then hotly competing top 40 stations, were giving air time to the American Breed, the Buckinghams, the Flock, the Ides of March, Shadows of Knight and other Chicago-area bands.
Pilster said the Cryan’ Shames were the first local group to sign with a major label, joining Bob Dylan, the Byrds and Paul Revere and the Raiders in the Columbia Records catalog.
They immediately hit it big in Chicago with “Sugar and Spice,” a high-energy song about an ideal girl recorded four years earlier by a British group.
Setting apart the Cryan’ Shames’ cover, however, was a jingle-jangle guitar introduction that sounded reminiscent of … another band. “Yeah,” Pilaster said. “He (band singer-songwriter Jim Fairs) ripped that off of Jim McGuinn” of the Byrds.
Initially Columbia sent the Cryan’ Shames out on “traditional” promotion tours on radio and sock hops, where members would lip sync as records played.
“We finally convinced them, ‘You gotta put us out where we do live shows.’ We had a great live show with good music that was well-rehearsed.”
It was the Cryan’ Shames’ high-energy performances – with Pilster fronting – and multi-part harmonies reminiscent of the Beatles that helped chart “Sugar and Spice,” “I Wanna Meet You,” “It Could Be We’re In Love,” “Up On The Roof” and “Young Birds Fly” on Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” from 1966 through 1968. With the exception of the ambitious “Young Birds Fly,” all of the songs focused on romance.
While they were able to make money from Midwestern performances, the group received nothing on the promotion tours. “Payment was in record sales,” he said.
And there were ample one-of-a-kind experiences for those teenagers — the oldest band member was 21.
For example, “Jim Fairs wrote ‘I wanna Meet You’ in a van on our way down from Wisconsin,” Pilster recalled. “We recorded ‘Mr. Unreliable’ in one afternoon and heard it the next morning on the radio.”
Disk Jockeys’ support was crucial, Pilster said, noting Dex Card at WLS was influential in the band’s early success.
Rice agrees, crediting WLS on-air talent Dick Biondi and Jean Taylor, who became program director, with personally introducing him to Pete Wright, “the biggest record promoter in Chicago. He got us (New Colony Six) signed to Mercury Records.”
Pilster said bands would “do things that’d never be done today,” noting paying disk jockeys to play a record was forbidden, but quid pro quo arrangements were common.
“We’d do sock hops for no pay; we called them ‘freebies,’ and the next thing you know, the record’s being played.”
Ironically the most successful founding band member may have been bass player Dave “Grape” Purple, who left the band in 1967 for the military and then re-entered the music business as an engineer. Purple earned a Grammy in 1971 for “Best Engineering” on “Theme from Shaft.”
Pilster, who said he thrown out of high school for having long hair, said his father thought “it was a joke” when the Cryan’ Shames signed with Columbia Records. “Two years later, I was making more money than him. Two years after that, I was broke.
“We got screwed, but we had a good time.”
Cryan’ Shames
When: 8 p.m. Oct. 5
Where: Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W 111th St., Chicago
Cost: $38 ($34 members)
Information: 773-445-3838; https://beverlyartcenter.org
Dennis Sullivan is a freelancer for the Daily Southtown.
