Ben Harmony Memoir Springfield, Illinois October 17, 2006

Chris Reynolds: This is Ben Harmony, it is Tuesday October 17, 2006 we’re at Ben’s home in Springfield, IL. We are at his dining room table which is nicely cleaned off, which is great. And we’re going to do an oral history on the Harmony Brother’s musical career. I’m Chris Reynolds and I’ll be interviewing and the video taping is being done by Dean Williams Production Company. So let’s get started.

As I had discussed with you earlier, I wanted to talk in time frames. So the first question I wanted to talk about was your pre 1956 career, before the band gets going. So I wanted to ask, does your family have a musical background and how did you get into the music business?

Ben Harmony: Well, the way that all started, there was an old gentleman who had a music school here in town and he was going door to door signing up kids to play music. Of course my dad used to sing out in the garden all the time, but he never did anything professionally. We talked and he asked if I would like to take guitar lessons. Of course Charlie wanted to, but I really didn’t want to. My dad said well we can’t have him going on the bus by himself downtown, clear up on North 6th street, it was almost up to Carpenter. And he said Benny you’ll have to take lessons with him. Charlie really wants to take lessons so you’ll have to take lessons with him. So, I had to go ‘cause I was the older brother; 3 and a half years older. So anyway that was how it all started, we started taking the guitar lessons, and I don’t know how long we took lessons there before we started doing some singing, but our singing was mostly in church at that point. My mom was quite interested. . .

Chris: Do your parents sing? In the church choir?

Ben: No, no

Chris: O.K.

Ben: No, we went up here to South Side which was close, we could walk.

Chris: Again, pre “the band”, what were the kind of music related activities that predated the band that got you started in the music industry?

Ben: Well, we took lessons on steel guitar, like this guitar here, called Hawaiian guitar at the time. And, the way it’s tuned we just used a bar on it and I used it for accompaniment. And like I say, we started singing in church first and as time went on , my mother listened a lot to country music and my mother kind of encouraged us to do some of the Homer and Jethro type stuff. So we started doing those songs, I played the guitar and Charlie sang and he went through all the comedy parts, I was more serious. She began taking us around to different talent shows, and so it was just the two of us at that time.

Chris: Just locally? In the Springfield area?

Ben: Well yeah, down to Taylorville and different places, little towns around here that were having talent shows. And radio stations, the radio stations had a lot of things going on at that time for young musicians, they had different talent shows and they would go out to these little towns and they would bring the talent shows with them.

Chris: How would you characterize your act that you did at these talent shows? Was it purely country? I know you mentioned you did some comedy with it, would you call yourselves a country-comedy act.

Ben: It was more country-comedy than it was just plain country.

Chris: So you did like novelty songs?

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: Can you think of any of the songs that you did ?

Ben: Well one that we used so many times was “Too Old to Cut the Mustard.” Was the name of the song. And we did that, we won several contests with that song.

Chris: Was that originally recorded by someone else? or, how did you pick that up?

Ben: Yes, and I can’t remember who that was, it was one of the country musicians, that was a comedy song that they did, and I couldn’t remember who did it.

Chris: Now, including the talent shows, were you also doing like church, school events, things like that?

Ben: Yes, we were real active with our church at that time, and we did a lot of singing in church. Mostly for, like on Sunday night services, or when they had special events like pot-lucks and that sort of thing, we provided a little entertainment. .

Chris: You weren’t up to the county fair circuit as yet, or doing shows, it was pretty much doing the talent shows?

Ben: Well, we went out to New Berlin a few times, they always had talent shows out there. We did go to the New Berlin fair and a little later we began getting into other fairs, a couple times I think we played at the state fair, for amateur shows out there, too.

Chris: Oh, O.K. For the most part talent shows and amateur shows?

Ben: Right.

Chris: The first thing I wanted to show you Ben was these ribbons that were in your scrap book here. And it looks like it is an International Music Organization of some type. That was

at Baldwin Wallace College in 1953. Looks like both you and Charlie won an award there, what was that about? Do you remember?

Ben: Well, the music school where we took lessons here, they were the ones that encouraged this and there were several of us that went, we went on a bus. I remember it was my first trip on a bus, my first trip out of town without parents, and it was quite a deal for us. And, up there we did, our orchestra did win, I don’t remember what prize we won, but we did get ribbons for appearing, everybody in the orchestra got the ribbons.

Chris: So you were part of an orchestra that had been organized in the area?

Ben: By the music school here.

Chris: The music school where you were taking your guitar lessons?

Ben: Right.

Chris: Oh, O.K. So lets get a little closer to when the band started, what do you think was your break out appearance with the band? Now, I saw reference to this T.V. show that went on in Decatur, the “Uncle Tom’s Barn Dance,” and later they had a rock n’ roll version of that called “Stairway to the Stars.” Did I get that right? Is that where you think the band gelled and got it’s first big break, as they say “showbiz break”?

Ben: I think it started there, we had quite a following already. Charlie and I played one time for some kind of a birthday party or something and our guitar player at that time was there and a couple of other guitar players, so we kind of got together and practiced some and we played a few jobs with these other two guitar players. One of them was Ray Dipple, and he ended up staying with us and being in the band. But, for quite a while there was just the four of us. And then I just couldn’t tell you exactly how it happened but it was mostly from parties.

Chris: So when you were playing, what kind of jobs were you playing before you got the Decatur thing? Were you playing like at school dances and those kinds of things, church related square dances and things?

Ben: No, that came about the same time, after we once got on T.V., then we started getting opportunities to play other places, and at that point, that’s when we organized the band.

Chris: Right, how did they approach you about the T.V. show? Did somebody see you at one of your performances and say we got to have these guys on? Was it the comedy-country act that they noticed first?

Ben: I believe it was, and I think it was probably a disc jockey who went by the name of Harry King. Harry really took an interest in us. And WMAY at the time was bringing in all the stars and that sort of thing, and Harry took an interest in us and began working with us.

I think he was the one probably that saw the opportunity for us to audition for these other shows, and it just happened.

Chris: We are taking about a radio show, not a T.V. show, right? Did I get that?

Ben: Right. WMAY was a radio station at that time and Harry King was his jockey name on the air.

Chris: So this “Uncle Tom’s Barn Dance,” that was in Decatur?

Ben: Right.

Chris: Was that on a radio station also, or was that on the T.V.?

Ben: You know what, I think that was a T.V. program that didn’t really last real long, I don’t think.

Chris: But you started out doing the country thing for the T.V. show and then they said, can you do rock n’ roll? Then you started doing their rock n’ roll show for them?

Ben: Well, when Elvis came along, that’s really when we got the band organized and started playing the 50s rock n’ roll stuff.

Chris: Was there a long period of time between the time you were doing the “Barn Dance” show and the “Stairway to the Stars” show? Or was it happening about the same time? This is all 1955 ?

Ben: Well, I think the “Barn Dance” preceded the “Stairway to the Stars” and the “Barn Dance” was more country, but “Stairway to the Stars” then included 50s rock n’ roll and the old standards like “Stardust” and there were a lot of others, there was one young girl, Jackie Le Baugh, who did a lot of nice music at that time, more of the Big Band type stuff and the pop music, and “Stairway to the Stars” was kind of a variety show. . .

Chris: Oh, so it wasn’t just rock n’ roll?

Ben: So, it wasn’t all rock n’ roll. And there was not a whole lot of country on that show. It was mostly pop.

Chris: Well I want to start talking about the band now, since you introduced the fact that there was an event in rock n’ roll that got you guys going in rock n’ roll. But I got to ask to begin with, and looking over all your materials, you have gone by several names, and I want to just review the names. It looks like when you first began, you were the Harmony Boys? And then you became the Harmony Brothers, that’s, straighten me out if I get this wrong, and then you became the Harmony Brothers and the Harmonitones, did I get that right?

Ben: Harmonitones.

Chris: Harmonitones, and then you became the Harmony Boys and the Rockabeats, now was that just over time, or was it because there were different people coming in and out of the band?

Ben: Mostly because of the times and what music we played, Harmony Boys sounded very country, as we went along then, people started calling us the Harmony Brothers, because they realized that we were really brothers, Charlie and I. And there was some confusion with the Harmony Boys that all the boys in the band were Harmony’s. And, there wasn’t a problem with it, but different places where we would go to play, they would interview us and they wanted to know, were we all brothers. So we went then to the Harmony Brothers which was what the record label later on decided they wanted us to go by anyway. And the Harmonitones, at that time we were playing kind of a mixture of country, some of the old standards, 20s, 30s and 40s, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue,” and those kinds of songs, like “My Blue Heaven” .

Chris: So that was a little later, after the rock n’ roll period?

Ben: No, that was kind of before the Elvis period, because a lot of these were songs that my dad liked.

Chris: Oh, O.K.

Ben: So, we thought that the Harmonitones was a better sounding name for the band because of it being the type of music we were playing and of course, when Elvis Presley came along and we started doing all of the 50s rock n’ roll and the Little Richard stuff and that, then we changed the name to the Rockabeats because it sounded more like the kind of name we needed at that point.

Chris: It sounds like this all happened over a short period of time, in 56 you were the Boys, and then you decided since the rock thing started to happen you would become the Brothers, and then there was confusion about who in the band was Harmony, so you went to the two separate names with the last name being the name that you used as the performing band through most of your career, The Rockabeats?

Ben: Right.

Chris: And then when you got the recording contract you just became the Harmony Brothers.

Ben: Right.

Chris: Cause they thought that you were all in the same family.

Ben: Right, you know before the Harmony Brothers and Harmony Boys, the Harmony Brothers was really a lot of just Charlie and I, but the Harmony boys was more with the band.

Chris: O.K. I want to talk about these early T.V. programs that were done locally. I am at least old enough to remember American Bandstand, I want to say Bandstand got started in 1957. So there seemed to be, quickly local shows that became the local version of American Bandstand. They seemed to play a pretty pivotal role in your popularity. So, I wanted to just talk about doing those shows, what shows were there. The ones that I saw mentioned in the materials that I reviewed were “Teenage Rage,” which channel 20 did, here in Springfield. “The Hop,” which was done in Champaign and then of course this “Stairway to the Stars” which was a T.V. show in Decatur..

Ben: Yes, that was in Decatur.

Chris: That was in Decatur. And then of course it sounded like there were a lot of radio shows that did almost the same kind of thing. They had you appear and then they interviewed you and that kind of thing.

Ben: Yes, they went out and did sock-hops and that sort of thing, the disc jockeys did. They usually would hire local bands to play, there weren’t too many local bands at that time, that played rock n’ roll we were probably one of the first.

Chris: It sounds like by doing the “Barn Dance” show and then the “Stairway to the Stars” you were probably the only band available for doing all of these other shows when these other T.V. stations started them up. So what was it like doing those shows? Did they have a live audience? Did the girls scream and all that stuff?

Ben: Yes, we had one dance that we played, I played for quite some time out at the little towns out around Dawson and Mechanicsburg and those places. When we had the records out, we played out at Dawson. At that time we were wearing red pants, white shirts, white bucks shoes, red glittery ties, of course we always had to sign autographs afterwards. We would always stay around and sign until the last one got their autograph. Because that was the one thing we were disappointed with bands that would say well that is all we can sign and off they would go. So we stayed to sign all the autographs. And, out at Dawson, this one night, the girls actually come up on the stage, after we played and we were packing our stuff up, they got us down, took the shoe laces out of our shoes because they wanted a souvenir, then they wanted Charlie and I to autograph shoe laces. So, the next time we played out there we took all kinds of white shoe laces and we autographed shoe laces for them because they were disappointed that there were only four shoe laces for them to get.

Chris: What were the format of these shows, did they actually have kids dancing on the show? Would you perform a couple of numbers and kids would dance while you were performing?

Ben: Yeah, most of the time it was pretty much like the Bandstand. They didn’t have huge big crowds because the studios were all small but they’d have maybe six or eight couples in there dancing.

Chris: Was there much difference between the shows, or were they all pretty much the same in terms of the format?

Ben: They were all pretty much the same.

Chris: Were there any particular radio stations that had a crucial role in giving you some exposure? Disc jockeys that you appeared with regularly, that would play your records?

Ben: Right at first, WTAX was the big station, they did a lot of talent programs. There was a Jim McKinney that played big-band music and stuff. He went out on location, I think they called it the Breakfast Club and we would go out to places like the Harness House or different places. We would have breakfast and do a show from there and we would get asked to appear as guests on the show. They wouldn’t have a lot of people in the audience ,but they would have, once in a while. He played a big role in helping us right from the start, Jim McKinney. And then, WCVS got into doing these sort of things also, then WMAY. So they just all kind of followed suit, all real close together.

Chris: This was all happening about 55, 56?

Ben: Right, and of course, at the time we were real popular with the kids, because like I say we were probably the first 50s rock n’ roll band here in Springfield. Hoby Henson and his band came along shortly after that, so then there were the two bands that competed, but I never did really consider it competing. Because I felt that we had a little different style then their band , we had the Everly Brothers sound that we could do all of those songs and the other bands didn’t do too much of the Everly’s stuff.

Chris: So your band starts in about 56, you are already performing in 55, you are making some T.V. appearances. Within the course of probably 24 months, all of the sudden, all of the radio stations are beginning to play rock n’ roll and having these rock n’ roll shows. All of the local T.V. stations are beginning to do American Bandstand type shows, so this happened over a very short period of time with the start of rock n’ roll. I wanted to show you the picture of, it appears as though you and Charlie are appearing in a T.V. studio. Two pictures, there. Do you remember what that was about? Is it before or after the band got started?

Ben: I kind of believe that that was the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, which was on the Chicago television station and we did have to audition for it, you didn’t just get on it, you know. We auditioned and that was, at that time, that was the farthest away from home we had gone to appear any where. And we were on that station and I can’t remember if that was WGN in Chicago.

Chris: Do you think you did country music for that amateur show performance?

Ben: I think so, because I think it was, I’m not sure of the date on it, I’m not sure if we had the band at that time or if it was just the two of us.

Chris: I thought that was kind of interesting, these pictures, it’s nice that they made them, did they give you those pictures as you left?

Ben: No, this was, somebody here at home took a picture off of the television set, you can tell by the old televisions, the way they were, you know. And I can’t even remember who gave us those pictures it was probably somebody that ended up being in our first fan clubs that they organized, we had a lot of kids that watched us on TV.

Chris: Well, we kind of touched on it already but let’s talk about the artists that probably had the most influence on your music career at that point and the band. To get the time frame right here in 1954 of course, “Rock Around the Clock” comes out, Bill Haley and the Comets, and that becomes a number one hit, for a year, Elvis Presley records “That’s Alright Mama” which is, there’s a debate, but a lot of people consider that the first rock n’ roll song recorded, so that must of predated Haley.

Ben: Right, that song was one of the songs that we were singing back when we were singing “Too Old to Cut the Mustard,” “That’s Alright Mama.”

Chris: And then of course in 1955, the movie “Blackboard Jungle” comes out with the Haley song and that becomes a huge hit and the song stays on the charts, I think I saw somewhere, 38 weeks and then we’re really rolling. By 1956 Elvis Presley has five number one songs and you’ve got a whole host of artists that are out there doing rock n’ roll: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Louis, all that kind of thing. Were you buying records at that time? Did you see that movie? Were you, how did all of this stuff that was happening influence what your band was doing?

Ben: Well, I didn’t see the movie “Blackboard Jungle” until a girl that I was going with at that time and another couple that we were friends with went to Chicago, and the girls stayed with relatives of theirs and we stayed with my sister and we saw “Blackboard Jungle” in Chicago. It was such a controversial thing at the time, we didn’t know if we could see it in Springfield.

Chris: Did you even know if it was going to play here in Springfield?

Ben: Well, we didn’t know if it was going to get here or not so we went to Chicago to see it. But, Elvis Presley probably was our biggest influence, then probably Bill Haley and from there, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Louis, Little Richard and of course that, you know, when Little Richard became popular, a lot of the radio stations weren’t playing his music because he was a black artist. That was back during the time that they had black stations and white stations and we really liked him, and of course all the kids wanted to hear, his music, so we played it.

Chris: So, Chuck Berry, Little Richard those kind of bands, as well as obviously the Everly Brothers influenced your sound, which was a lot like the Everly Brothers.

Ben: Fats Domino is another one.

Chris: Oh yeah, absolutely. And the Everly Brothers, I think, it’s kind of interesting, I’ve been looking at, kind of tracking your career with the Everly Brothers and you hit about the same time, they started having hits I think in 57 or so, they were discovered in Nashville by Chat Atkins and had a professional song-writing team at their disposal and I think it was 1957 when they really started having their hits. No, yeah it was 1957, so you guys were already doing T.V. performances and that kind of thing, so although that might have really helped to sign your record contract. We’ll talk about that later. I just wondered about, some of the local artists, which played in this time period. When I look at the reunion concert that was done in 98 and so I picked up some of the names of the people that were locally playing, did some of those people have any kind of influence on you ? Bill Evans was one name I picked up, he seemed to be in lots of rock bands, he seemed to be a very legendary guitarist.

Ben: Most of these, most of these probably that you are going to name came along just shortly after we got going, because at different times many of these people substituted in our band for somebody else, if somebody got sick or something, Bill Evans was one of the first ones that substituted in the band when we needed him, he was there.

Chris: Now, Jules Blattner was another name that I saw repeatedly, over and over again, now does he come after you, or kind of at the same time, cause I know he is from St. Louis?

Ben: No, we were about the same time because we were both on the record label together.

Chris: He was on Bobbin. There was a name that popped up several places, Louis Harmony, now he wasn’t related at all,

Ben: That’s my cousin.

Chris: That’s your cousin, oh, O.K.

Ben: He played drums with us for quite some time, a couple different times.

Chris: Oh yeah, so at one time you were a three brother band, or a cousin rather and brothers, at least he was in the family. How about some of the black artists that I saw mentioned? Did Eddy Snow, Roy Williams or Marvin Jackson these people performing doing this time period?

Ben: Marvin Jackson, it was real funny with Marvin Jackson because Harry King from WMAY knew him, and he told us that, you know, he thought that we sounded so much like the Everly Brothers and that was good but, he thought that if we could get together with Marvin Jackson and some of his friends, we could pick up a black sound behind us, which would give us a better option on Bobbin Label.

Chris: Which was very much behind what Elvis Presley was doing.

Ben: So, at that time, you know, there was a lot of prejudice and so Harry said well, Ben I know you live in pretty much of a white neighborhood, he says, let me see if I can set something up with Marvin out at his place. So, it was over on South 15th or 16th, probably 16th, I think it was, we went over there to practice with Marvin and his group.

Chris: Do you remember what his group was called? I didn’t see reference to what his group was called.

Ben: No, I don’t remember, they might have just went by Marvin Jackson.

Chris: Were they considered just a rhythm and blues group or were they rock?

Ben: Yeah, more or less , we went over to his house to practice, it was a little house and we were all, I’ll never forget, we were all sitting in the living room there, at that time we had a drummer and my guitar player and I and Charlie, I guess. And there was just the four of us, and so, we’re there practicing in his house, and in comes Marvin’s father and he says, put that stuff away, that music is not the kind of music you boys should be listening to, he said you ought to be playing church music. I was scared to death; he absolutely scared me to death.

Chris: How did your parents feel about you going over to the other side of town to practice with Marvin and the band?

Ben: Well they felt better about that than bringing them over here. You know, and of course that was people’s attitude back then and our neighborhood was all white and they probably would have been very uncomfortable coming over here but, you know, Ray lived over on South 18th street so many times, we practiced on his front porch and we had black and white kids both all out there in the crowd listening to us, you know, and cheering us on and everything, so it wasn’t fearful at all for us to go over in that neighborhood and play ‘cause that was Ray’s neighborhood, you know.

Chris: Would it have been impossible for you and Marvin’s group to play at the same establishment or the same show or something like that because of the attitudes of that period of time?

Ben: Well, you just didn’t see it happening, now, a little bit later. . .

Chris: Now, Allen Freed was putting on some integrated concerts at that point, it seems very controversial, too. He got himself into some trouble.

Ben: But in the early 60s when we played downtown, we were at one bar, and Marvin and his group was at a bar just about four doors from us. And I’ll never forget the owner of the bar where we played at he says you guys keep attracting those guys from down the street in here, and he says my customers really don’t like it because whenever they took their break, they would come down and hear us and of course we would go down and hear them when we took our break, you know. But it was real funny because, it wasn’t probably real funny

to them but it was just strange the way things were back then. Things have changed a lot today.

Chris: So how was it resolved that you guys would blend your sound, obviously you had some practice together but it just wasn’t going to happen.

Ben: No we just never did really get it to work. We had other practices with them, and we enjoyed, you know, and of course there was a few times that, I think, there may have been a time or two that Marvin sang with us when we were downtown, but I’m just not real sure.

Chris: We talked about this a little bit but I want to talk, at least a little bit about the musical styles that influenced the band. The fact that you had a lot of people coming in and out of the band , it was hard for me from the materials to figure out at what point they were in the Band. So maybe it was always going on, just to name some of the people that were in your band, Ray Dipple, Gordon Jones, Bill Waldmire, who of course is famously related to the Route 66 people here in town, Tom Blasko, who I think was on the school board for a while, probably a prominent Republican in town. He owned the Lake Club for a while? I think I read reference to that.

Ben: They had the business there; I don’t know that, there were two of them in there as partners. And I don’t remember if they bought the place or they leased it, but they ran it, anyway, it was their business.

Chris: And then Gary Turley, and Jerry Black came in as a sax player later on, maybe when you made your sound a little more rhythm and blues and Mike Brokamp, and I wasn’t sure what he played,

Ben: Sax

Chris: Sax, I also noticed that there were a few shots that were of some accordion players.

Ben: Well, that was Tom Blasko.

Chris: So, that was Tom Blasko, it sounds like you came from a very strong country background, you were obviously influenced by Elvis and maybe some rhythm and blues type acts like Chuck Berry and Little Richard and those kind of bands, and maybe even more bluesy type stuff. Would you say that is the major influences, and did these people that came in and out of your band, did they change your style at all as they came in and out because their abilities as musicians?

Ben: No, it was just that with some of them, after they married, you know, they decided that they didn’t want to play any longer, or the wife got tired of all the traveling around with the husbands, and there weren’t any hard feelings, with any of them, I mean there was never any friction, or anything like that caused the departure.

Chris: So no one said well I don’t like the direction that the band is going and so I am leaving.

Ben: No, it was never anything like that, it was just that at different times, different things changed in their life and they had to adjust to that so we would lose a player and we would pick up somebody else. We always had somebody waiting that wanted to play, you know.

Chris: Clearly, even from the name changes, you and Charlie were the main part of the band, obviously, and the other players were kind of like front players and they were interchangeable in terms of, although I must ask you, I have to ask you about a picture here of a guitarist. There’s a couple of pictures of a guitarist there. And he’s doing, I’ve seen a lot of blues guitarists do that kind of stuff, but the rock guitarists to begin with were kind of doing the Chuck Berry duck walk or whatever, but this is, he was playing behind his back and was that a regular part of your act?

Ben: Yes it was, at that time I was able to do those kinds of things, I did the back bend with the guitar over my head and of course they really, the people got excited about it ‘cause it was the type of things that Chuck Berry and them did, you know.

Chris: Right, right. So, you thought that might have been Ray, but it might have also been you doing that?

Ben: No, that’s me there. Ray is in the background, he’s up here.

Chris: So that was you doing that?

Ben: Yeah, that’s me.

Chris: I’m impressed. That’s really good.

Ben: I’m depressed, ‘cause I can’t do it no more.

Chris: That’s really good stuff, I tell ya. Do you remember what song you used to do that in, any particular song or did you do it several times in an act?

Ben: It was usually a Chuck Berry song, “Johnny Be Good” because I could get that behind my back, you know.

Chris: Did you do the duck walk too?

Ben: Oh, I could, but I didn’t do that so much as I did this, they just really were impressed with that.

Chris: Very impressive.

Ben: Ray sometimes would do the duck walk. He would just clown around in the background, you know.

Chris: In terms of the instrumentation of the band, you always had a drum player, and occasionally had keyboards and accordion, in terms of guitar parts, was Ray your lead guitarist? You would do rhythm, who was doing bass?

Ben: Well, later on we had Rich Hopper on the bass, and he had played with Marty Ushman’s band, he played with a lot of the bands, we had tried bass players at different times, then they always seemed like they wanted to be the loudest in the band, and that didn’t go over too good with the other fellows in the band, they wanted to be heard, too. So, until Rich came along, and then Rich was with us a long time, and he played a good bass and did not drown everybody else out. So, we basically were the accordion, lead guitar, I played rhythm guitar and a drummer, for many years it was just the four of us.

Chris: And Charlie sang, right, so he really didn’t play the guitar? He was more your lead singer?

Ben: No, he was more the PR guy in the band and did all this getting people going, you know I was kind of bashful, Charlie wasn’t. He could really get the crowd going.

Chris: Well, we’ll ask Charlie about some of that stuff. Now, while you’re doing this, is Charlie doing an Elvis Presley thing? (referring to a pictures in scrap book)

Ben: No this was, this here was after Charlie had left and got his own band. He had been in the service, and when he come out of the service, our likes and dislikes in music were a little different so he organized his own band at that time.

Chris: OK, so this, these pictures are after the actual Harmony Brothers in your other band. OK well I am glad we cleared that up. I am still very impressed, that’s even later, you were even older than that.

Ben: Yeah, that was early 60s, yeah the photograph says May of 61.

Chris: OK, I missed that, so that would have been after the Harmony Brothers? Would Charlie have left by then? I want to talk about your memories of some of the places that you played here in Springfield, and some of the artists that you either, the Harmony Brothers band or yourself, opened for or played with or even maybe saw them perform in Springfield and were able to go back stage afterwards or whatever. Some of the places that I had, well I had a whole list of places, that come up in all these scraps of newspaper clippings and things, Virgil’s and Betty’s and the Derby, are these all sounding familiar?

Ben: Those are bars, yeah.

Chris: Big Earl’s Hop, The Buckhorn.

Ben: Big Earl’s Hop was a teenage place and the Buckhorn, that was later, it was Big Earl’s Hop and then went back to the Buckhorn, I think. It was the original Buckhorn and they closed up and became a teenage place and then it went back to being a bar.

Chris: It sounds like you played a lot in places like Grandview and Girard and Taylorville and those kind of places, various bars.

Ben: Raymond, 9 years, 9 years at Raymond every Saturday night at the American Legion Hall.

Chris: Oh OK, I talked to a few people who remember seeing you play and they remember the Elks club down on 6th street. Which is now an office, probably a state office building, or something like that. And Teen Land was mentioned a lot, and you were in their ads, there was a lot of advertising related to Teen Land, was that sort of a premier place for people to play at that time?

Ben: No, it, that was at 15th and Taft which is at the southeast corner of the fairgrounds, about a block north and a block east of there. And it had been for years, it had been an old nightclub, a strip club and across the street from it was a place called the Rex club. And it was still a strip club, and no air conditioning, they had the doors open at night and when, there was a couple named Ruth and Bob Taylor, who opened up this Teen Land, they had the idea of making it a teenage nightclub and it was very nice that it had the raised tables on the side where you could look out on the dance floor, you could see the band, people weren’t in front of you where the band was up on stage. Really, really a nice place and he had some background, well, right away they complained about the kids being able to see the strippers in the strip club coming up to park there because the doors were open on the strip club. So older people began to raise a ruckus about that.

Chris: So the crowds were kind of mixing to an extent, because that place was right across the street.

Ben: Well not really, because that was really older people. It was just that, you know, young kids back then, if you got a chance to look at some of this or peak at it you peaked.

Chris: So it wasn’t that the rowdy people that were going to the strip club, that were bothering the kids, it was just them looking.

Ben: It was just them leaving the doors open to where the kids could see this but back then they didn’t have air conditioning, you know. So, anyway they dug back into Bob’s background and they found something, he had served prison time at one time, so they closed the place because he could not run it with his past record, you know. And, so anyway they took me out to dinner one night and talked to me at a steakhouse there on, it was at 5th and Sangamon avenue, I can’t remember the name of it. They took me out there to eat and during the conversation we were talking and they said that they would like to see the place open back up again and would I take over as manager of it because with my reputation I could go in there and run it, you know.

Chris: What year is this that we are talking about? This has got to be later, after the band used to play there?

Ben: No, let’s see, I was still driving a 55 Ford.

Chris: So you were. . .

Ben: So it had to be somewhere between 55 and 59, it was before I got married.

Chris: So you were like 18, 19 years old and they asked you to be the manager of the place?

Ben: yeah, so anyway after all of the red tape that they went through, they were able to reopen as long as I was manager. So, but they cautioned me at that time that I was not to take any under aged girls home, they were going to be watching me and, I mean I was watched and I was followed several nights.

Chris: Are we talking about the City of Springfield or who was. . .

Ben: It was in the county at the time and so it was. . .

Chris: So it would be the Sangamon County Sheriff?

Ben: Yeah, and there was a deputy that we knew at the time that was really a nice man Bob Fahey, and he told me. He said Benny pay attention to what they say, because he said they are looking for a reason to close that place. And, I found out later, she had many offers from two Springfield politicians who wanted in on the ownership or managing of that place and that’s where the problem lay, was in the fact that they wanted a part of it.

Chris: Always a political side to the story here in Springfield.

Ben: Yeah, they were out to get me, but what they really didn’t know, was that I had a very strict father and he gave me exactly one half hour from the time we quit out there to pack up my instruments and be home. So there was no way I could drop anybody off even.

Chris: No time to go to the strip club across the street.

Ben: At that time no, so anyway then, you know but the original complaint was that the young people were able to see the strippers in the place next door.

Chris: But there may have been some other issues it sounds like.

Ben: Yeah there were other things behind it.

Chris: So how long did you manage the Teen Land then after that?

Ben: Well I think she was probably open for a couple of years after that.

Chris: Yeah, O.K. There’s reference to a teen center in the cabbage patch part of town, which is kind of interesting to me because I know where that area of town is and you hear stories about that, what was that all about, was there a place that you played there?

Ben: Yeah, it was the Mildred Belmont Youth Center and it was right over by, it was close to where the AC Union Hall. It was where they had all the dances and stuff for years, it was right over in that area, it backed up to the railroad tracks there between there and Stanford. It was a really nice place for kids, and they were wanting something to keep their kids busy in that area.

Chris: So it was a real active community that used to sponsor these concerts? Let’s start talking about the more upscale places where you probably, maybe played with bigger stars. I got to ask you about, I’ve seen reference to this Battle of Bands at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel. Do you remember that at all? What are you memories of that? It looks like you won the Battle of the Bands and I don’t know whether you beat local bands?

Ben: Yeah, it was mostly local bands. And I remember it, but not real well.

Chris: I remember the format of those, you would play a song and then they would play a song and then maybe they would use crowd response to decide who was winning and then maybe if there was a tie you would play another song, is that kind of the way it went? Do you remember anything about what music you played that night? Did you do your original stuff?

Ben: No we did stuff that I am sure, you know, Charlie and I sang, probably we probably did, he did a lot of Elvis’ stuff, I did a lot of Jerry Lee Lewis stuff and we did the Everly Brothers so it was probably songs of those types that we did.

Chris: So probably songs that were popular on the charts at that time. O.K. There’s reference of course to this series that I think the radio station sponsored called “Shower of the Stars,” it was at the armory, and it looked like some pretty big acts came in and played there, were you, did you open for any of those acts?

Ben: Well, I think their very first one was at the Orpheum Theatre. And it got, so big that that’s when they went on to the armory then. But we played at the one at the Orpheum and Johnny and the Hurricanes were there, a lot of real popular stars at that time were there. And that one we played at. Now the others, Charlie got behind stage a lot and met a lot of the different ones at the armory.

Chris: O.K. Yeah I saw mention of some of the people that maybe played there at that time there was Buddy Holly obviously and I think Charlie’s got a story about meeting Waylon Jennings who was in a band at that time, Freddy Canon, Fabian.

Ben: Yeah, Fabian, he was really nice. He was friendly.

Chris: So you got to meet him?

Ben: Yeah, I got to meet him.

Chris: Dion and the Belmonts, and also later on, and I’ll ask Charlie about this, but he’s got pictures of Louis Armstrong and Diana Ross, which I’m sure maybe they just played here in town. ‘Cause Charlie was kind of a celebrity in town he would get back stage?

Ben: Oh yeah, it was pretty easy to get back stage at that time, if you really wanted to get back and meet people.

Chris: Now I know you had a story about opening for Jerry Lee Louis, was that with your band, not the Harmony Brothers, do you recall that?

Ben: No, I think, I think Charlie was there with us at that time. Because it was right after we had our records out.

Chris: So you opened for Jerry Lee Lewis, where was that at?

Ben: It was at, a swimming pool, I think it was Down’s swimming pool.

Chris: This was in St. Louis?

Ben: It was like a splash party, yeah, and I was petrified because they were throwing everybody in the pool and I couldn’t swim.

Chris: So, do you remember when that was because let’s see Jerry Lee Lewis hit the skids, when did his scandal hit? It was I guess in 1958, is when he supposedly, I guess not supposedly, but married his under aged cousin.

Ben: Yeah, I was, I have to go back and think what car I was driving, I was driving a 59 Chevy that my wife had bought.

Chris: Is that how you make reference to the time, by what car you were driving?

Ben: We had bought that just before we got married, and I was married at the time, so it had to be 59, 60 maybe or 61, but he was really on the skids at that time and he drove up from Louisiana in a Cadillac.

Chris: So this was just a private party? It wasn’t a concert or a show?

Ben: No they had, they advertised that it, it was advertised over the St. Louis radio stations and it was just a pool party that they had him scheduled to play for.

Chris: And they were concerned about whether the audience would be accepting of him because he had this scandal?

Ben: So they asked us to, they asked my band to get out in the crowd, spread out and get out and give applause when he did his numbers, you know.

Chris: What do you remember about old Jerry Lee Lewis, anything in particular?

Ben: Oh, he was funny. The thing I remember was that he drank vodka in milk.

Chris: He must have had an ulcer as well as a drinking problem.

Ben: We were with the people, and I can’t remember their names, there was two sisters and a brother I think that the pool was in the family or something and they lived right there by the pool and we had, we got to meet him and sit with him and his band and talk to them and visit with them, which was really something for us.

Chris: Was he a very personable guy? After a couple of milks and vodkas?

Ben: Oh yeah. He was, well you know, when all this crazy stuff come out that he had done, we just could hardly believe it ‘cause he was such a, seemed like such a friendly, happy-go-lucky guy, you know.

Chris: He didn’t have his wife with him, did he?

Ben: No, I think it was just he and the band. We didn’t meet her.

Chris: And then of course there were places like the Pekin Theatre and we already talked about the Orpheum, were there any other places you remember in Springfield that I haven’t mentioned that you have any memories about?

Ben: Well, there was a place out on Monroe street that had been a bar for several years, a nightclub and it was owned by people by the name of Throop, here in town, Throop’ Tree Service family, they opened that place and we went out there and played, right out there across from the middle school and it was up on a hill like

Chris: So where Fairhills Mall is right now?

Ben: Yeah, it was made into a teenage place, a lot of the places where the bars got into trouble they went to teenage dances then.

Chris: So they didn’t serve liquor, obviously, in these places, but enough of those kinds of places had opened up so that you had a lot of places to play in Springfield and around.

Ben: Oh yeah, then we began to play a lot of the school proms.

Chris: Right. How many times a week were you playing, do you think, during those years? Several times a week?

Ben: I’ve told many people, I said, you know, there were a lot of musicians that just play music and they don’t work jobs besides and when in 59 after my wife and I got married, at Virgil’s and Betty’s, there was a time that we played eleven nights in a row without a night off. And we played till one o’clock in the morning and I had to be at work at eight o’clock the next morning. And I never missed a day of work when I was playing.

Chris: And where were you working full-time at that point?

Ben: Illinois Insect Control. And I had worked there; I worked there for about nine years I guess. And most of the time while I was playing, but for the most part we played pretty much three nights every week sometimes four.

Chris: What kind of money were you making playing at these places? You had a band of like five sometimes six people,

Ben: Yeah, we would get 50 or 60 dollars for three or four hours.

Chris: So everybody got like 10 bucks, 10 bucks or something like that for playing? And if you played eleven nights in a row, well, I guess you are talking about some real money there.

Ben: Oh yeah, because I was only making about 55, 60 a week so I mean that was twice my pay.

Chris: That’s pretty good, yeah. O.K. Well let’s talk about the Bobbin Records period and which looks, roughly looks about 1959 to 1962. You were under contract at Bobbin Records and I am interested in, your first recording session. I guess it was the Premier Recording Studio in St. Louis is where you would go and record your records down there?

Ben: I guess, I don’t remember the name of it.

Chris: Well you know I only know because I looked at all your materials and stuff. Do you remember how many sessions you actually had with them, were they doing them annually or every six months or and I was unclear as to how many records you put out, so, give us kind of an overview of that if you can.

Ben: You know, I can’t even remember what it was costing for their recording studio, but I thought it was lots of money, which I’m sure it wasn’t, but they were charging by the hour to use the studio and Bob had told us to be sure we had our material ready before we came down there to record. And I don’t remember if we did all three of those records in one session or if we might have went back for a second session, but we might have went back for a second session because when we did “Lock on the Old Back Door” and “Remember Me” that recording was a much better quality recording than, the other two were, so we probably went for two sessions.

Chris: So two sessions in all for Bobbin Records, and how many records then did you cut? Maybe three singles with an A side and a B side?

Ben: Right.

Chris: So three records then. And I’ve got, that CD of the copies of your recordings, is that pretty much all of the stuff that you recorded with Bobbin? So there were three records

recorded. Did you pretty much do all your original songs or just some of your original songs?

Ben: They were all original except “Remember Me.” That was Stuart Hamblin.

Chris: Did the record company have any opinion about whether you should do covers or your own songs.. .

Ben: Well no, they wanted us to do our own, to do our own songs.

Chris: O.K.

Ben: And then like I say they at one time there, Bob gave us some music that had been turned over to him that they thought might be good for Charlie and I to do there were three or four songs that they were, they were nice songs but we never did get to record them.

Chris: You never got to record them. The, who were the musicians that you used in the sessions, was it your band at that point or did they bring people in?

Ben: No, it was just our band.

Chris: Can you remember who the people were, since you had a lot of members of your band, who the people were? And I can ask Charlie this, too. But who were in the sessions?

Ben: Charlie and I and Ray Dipple, I think the drummer at that time, boy I don’t remember.

Chris: Was it Bill Waldmire maybe at that time?

Ben: I don’t know if it was Bill Waldmire or if it was Gordon Jones, I’m not sure.

Chris: Yeah, Gordon might have been your original guy, so maybe he and this is 59, so he’d have still been with you by then? Ah it doesn’t matter.

Ben: Well, I’m not sure, let’s see, Jerry Black was the saxophone player, there was Jerry and Tom and Ray, Charlie and I, I guess. The five of us, and the drummer, there was six of us. I don’t remember.

Chris: You don’t remember who was your drummer, you know you had several drummers, you know that thing about drummers and rock n’ roll bands. I was just thinking about Spinal Tap and the drummer in band. I’ve noticed in some of the write ups on the record company, it was a rhythm and blues type record company, for the most part, most of the artists they had signed. Did they want you to do a more rhythm and blues type presentation ?

Ben: No, but he said, it was basically a black label, outside of Jules Blattner and us and he was, I think he was trying to get into the radio stations with our songs.

Chris: He wanted to move over into the crossover, to the white stations or the pop stations or the rock n roll stations and signing you and Jules Blattner was an attempt to do that, right. Did you produce your own records, or did they have somebody there that helped produce it?

Ben: No, we had to do it all ourselves.

Chris: There was no staff.

Ben: Didn’t have all that good stuff.

Chris: So it was basically like, the sessions were like live performances then; you weren’t like laying down track or anything. They would just say O.K. let’s start this and how many takes would you do on a song? Do you remember?

Ben: It didn’t take very many.

Chris: You didn’t want to use a lot of time because it was expensive.

Ben: And all of us, all of the fellows in our band could play music or by ear. Ray couldn’t play from music, the guitar player, lead guitar player, he played only by ear and telling him what key you were in didn’t help at all.

Chris: So you did the three records. Did you ever find out how many records you sold, or could you tell from the royalty checks that you had sold many records?

Ben: We never got any royalty checks.

Chris: You never got any royalty checks?

Ben: No, never got one royalty check. No.

Chris: Wow. What happened?

Ben: I don’t know, he said that all went into the expense of making the records.

Chris: so they never sent you a royalty check at all, never sent you a check? You never found out how many radio stations played the songs.. . .

Ben: No, different people let us know that they had heard the record in maybe Colorado or someplace else.

Chris: So you got national play?

Ben: It got some because, you know, we never did get any kind of reports.

Chris: Now I notice that you had one list where you were on the charts in Champaign because they did a survey, of record stores. So you knew you were selling some copies in Champaign because you were on the charts there but they never, you never knew that you sold one copy of this single, never indicated to you any of that stuff or where your record was played, but did you hear your records being played here in town?

Ben: oh Yeah, yes, and stations from the little towns around here, I mean they were, all the little radio stations around here were playing, Jacksonville, Taylorville, you know, those places were all playing the records, Decatur.

Chris: Could you go into a place like The Platter, which I even remember when I came into town, it was still a record store, could you go into there and say hey, how is the record selling?

Ben: Yeah in fact they told us it was selling good and so did the music shop, both places told us the record was really selling.

Chris: But you never heard a word. In terms of the way the group was managed, did somebody in the group act as a manager or did you have somebody that managed the group?

Ben: Not really, he dealt mostly with me and I took most of the calls for the jobs and stuff.

Chris: So you were kind of the manager that booked the jobs and all that kind of stuff. I showed you that letter earlier from Bobbin Records and you kind of remember it was sort of talking about your last release for Bobbin Records and the effort that they were going to put into promoting it which is interesting now that we have learned that they never sent you a royalty check and never told you how well the record sold or anything like that. They talked about another band that they’re promoting and there is sort of a discussion about we want to get Bobbin accepted in the pop field and we think that this record, the one that you had done, and this other record by this other artist is finally going to get us over the hump. Do you remember that whole discussion with them and what their feelings were? Were you somewhat frustrated with the record company because they kind of couldn’t get over that hump for you?

Ben: Well no, we were, we were just happy that the record was being played and that we were getting calls for jobs, different places and it was exciting to be going out of town all the time to you know, when I got the 59 Chevy it would hold all the members of the band, all six of us, the trunk was big enough, it would hold all the instruments. But now today the instruments are a lot bigger .

Chris: So you were just happy to be playing?

Ben: Just happy to be busy.

Chris: Playing, making records.

Ben: And meeting people.

Chris: Having girls scream at you at local concerts and radio shows.

Ben: Stealing your shoe laces and your neckties and, they did, they took our neckties.

Chris: Just one more thing the record company, Bobbin Records, which I guess they went out of business at, shortly after your contract with them was over, or maybe, I think I maybe wrote it down somewhere, but maybe in the early 60s, 62, 63 something like that. And that was the end? You never heard from them again? They owned your records.

Ben: And they passed up a couple of chances for us to record with other labels, good labels and he wouldn’t release us without him going as our manager with it and so we never sign with anybody else.

Chris: So you were never able to sign with another record company, the comparisons to the Everly Brothers are clear. After you have listened to your music, in many ways your music was on a par with them in terms of your harmonies and the way you sounded. There were probably a number of record companies that would have liked to have you because the Everly Brothers at this point were having hit after hit after hit. They began to write their own music toward the end, but they had one of the best song writing teams in Nashville writing songs for them. You were not able to, like I said there was probably a lot of record companies that would have like to have an Everly Brothers type act and you weren’t able to sign with them ?

Ben: And the real opportunity I think there was one label that was looking for a group because at that time the Kaylen Twins were popular, Travis and the Bob was popular, the Everly Brothers were popular, they were looking for a brother team or a male duo and I can’t remember what that label was, but I do remember we appeared on a show down in St. Louis and Annette Funicello, she was on the program with us.

Chris: With Frankie Avalon, were they together?

Ben: No, just her, and she had just released her record at that time and her manager with Disney label was interested in us but Bob Lyons would not let us go and we could have been on Disney probably.

Chris: Right, right. Now there is a picture of another record executive in your scrap book, his name is Web Pierce, I showed it to you earlier, was he of any significance in any of this ?

Ben: No I think, I think I got his picture, I think we were somewhere where he, where he appeared and I’m not sure that we sang on the same program, it may have been something we attended, and that was where we got his picture.

Chris: So he was an artist?

Ben: Yeah, he was a recording artist.

Chris: And he became an executive for a record company, I think it was Decca Records. So a pretty big record company. I noticed that some of the little clippings that you had in your scrapbook were fund raisers by your fan club to raise money to copyright your songs, so apparently the record company wouldn’t even as part of their deal, copyright your music, you had to do that yourself? So, and that was a big expense, what did it, do you remember what it cost ?

Ben: No, I don’t. I think in fact I don’t know that we ever really got copyrights on them.

Chris: Did you ever get your songs copyrighted?

Ben: I see some receipts in there for something that I did with copyrights, but I don’t remember what it was.

Chris: Well, I’m not a lawyer so I can’t tell you exactly what that meant, but I thought that it was kind of interesting that you were raising money to do that. And in the end the record company ended up owning your music anyway so I’m not sure how significant a legal issue it was but anyway did you ever go back and take a look at your contract with Bobbin and, and you just sort of said what the heck. We had a nice run with it.

Ben: One of those experiences that you don’t forget.

Chris: Let’s talk about how the band ended. Oh, I do have a note here, your record company closed in 1965, by about 1962 I guess we’ve been saying when you had the release “Remember Me” and what was the other song?

Ben: “Lock on the Old Back Door.”

Chris: Which you played at the reunion concert as well. That was a good song, I liked it. That was by then, wasn’t it? Because Charlie was going into the army.

Ben: That was quite a blow to us when he got drafted.

Chris: Yeah, he got drafted and he was gone, was that pretty much the end of it right there or what did you do, in terms of the band the Harmony Brothers?

Ben: Well no, after he got out of the service he came back and he sang with us for a while but he and I, I guess were competitive at that time.

Chris: So after he came back?

Ben: No, everybody said after Charlie went into the service, so what are you going to do with the band and I said well I’m going to still play and we remained popular and everything so when Charlie came back I may have been a little too bossy maybe because at that time I

had, we had made it without him for over two years and so we had some issues that, and like I say we kind of had a difference, at that point we kind of had a difference in the type of music we liked.

Chris: Style of music?

Ben: I was not so much going into the Beatle era and all this other type music that was coming out at the time, Motown and that kind of stuff and Charlie liked that kind of music, of course he was younger than me and this was probably stuff he listened to in the service and so at that point we split.

Chris: So really though, and you look at the history of rock n’ roll and there’s sort of a period with what they call “The First Wave” where it was really a short period of time and then things started happening, Allen Freed, they put him in jail for inciting riots and there were the scandals, and Buddy Holly dies which of course according to Don McClain was when the music died and then you’ve got Motown forming where sort of these teen idols start cropping up and surf music, the Beach Boys, which actually they owe a lot to your kind of bands ‘cause of the harmonies that they did.

Ben: We did some of that.

Chris: And then of course the British Invasion and the Beatles, George Harrison is here in Illinois in 63 they play his music down in Benton and pretty soon the Invasion’s off and running and so, you keep the band up and do sort of the old time rock n’ roll stuff from sort of that first wave of rock and Charlie decides he wants to move on and do the newer type of stuff.

Ben: Right, and then at that point, where I kind of refused to do Beatles stuff and that sort of thing, my bands popularity began to drop, but at that point the Johnny Cash show came on television and all these country programs, country music so I though well, that’s what we played before, we’ll go back to playing “Green Grass of Home” and that kind of stuff, and then the 50s stuff still had that kind of country-rock sound to it so at that point then the bars and that wanted us and we started playing a lot of receptions and again we were busy three and four nights a week. You know, and we were having a problem with conflicting dates because we booked, I think Curley’s we were playing three nights a week there and people wanted us for wedding receptions so there were a lot of times we played wedding receptions on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and went there and played till three o’clock in the morning that night, and so at that point we took on the country music and we became, and we went back to the 20s, 30s and 40s, that was the stuff they really enjoyed.

Chris: Well you were playing to your demographic at that point, too.

Ben: We had older people, yeah we had older people then, we went from the teenagers to the old ones.

Chris: Right, so that pretty much was the end of the band, you guys kind of went stylistically in different directions, Charlie was gone and then he came back and of course eventually he went to Nashville, and we’ll talk to him about that. What, at this point you have been married since 59, did you have some children by then?

Ben: Oh yeah, in fact four, when I started playing at Curley’s, which was in probably the early 60s, my two older boys, we had them singing songs like “Singing in the Sunshine,” Helen would bring them over to the bar just to make a little appearance there at the bar, and those two boys would sing.

Chris: It doesn’t sound like the family demands, of sons and I know you were married and I don’t think Charlie was married so did that have anything to do with the break up of the band or, ‘cause you continued your music career it sounds like.

Ben: Yeah, no, it just, it mainly was the difference in likes of music and the fact I guess that I had went ahead and kept the band going while he was gone and I probably tended to want to run it more, then where it was more of a partnership like thing before and I kind of wanted to take control ‘cause I had been in control all that time.

Chris: And your bands were the Ben Harmony Combo, was that the first band you formed after Charlie left?

Ben: Yeah and I just changed it. . .

Chris: And you did some country music and went back to maybe standards and things like that. But then I also see that there was the Ben Harmony Rockabees at that point did you try to pick up on the 50s rock stuff and do that?

Ben: You know what, I don’t know when I changed.

Chris: Maybe the Ben Harmony’s Rockabeats was the first band that you formed.

Ben: I think that was before we went to Combo, ‘cause each time that we changed the name of the band, it was kind of to give the impression of the type of music we were playing and when I went back to Ben Harmony Combo that was kind of all kinds of stuff that we played.

Chris: O.K., I wanted to show you that picture of the, your later band. It looks like Helen is in the band, tell me the story of that.

Ben: That was when we, yeah see that was my last name of the band, Ben Harmony Combo, that was when we were playing at Curley’s and of course Johnny Cash and June Carter were very popular with “Jackson” and I was getting requests all the time for the song “Jackson” and of course, with no woman in the band I couldn’t do it. So, Helen never ever sang except at church and stuff like that and so I told her, I said Helen we’ve got to learn “Jackson,” so we learned “Jackson,” So anyway at that point Helen became a star at Curley’s because, and

then I told her you got to learn something else, I said Helen you can’t keep just singing one song, so she learned “Bill Bailey” and of course they always would say, get Helen up there to sing, get Helen up there to sing. And there was a song called “I got the Horse and you got the Saddle” well we did that one, and that was, I mean that ended up being the song at Curley’s, because I kind of acted up a bit when I did it and of course Helen is a joker anyway and it was more of a comedy number than anything else, but they all always wanted “I got the Horse,” get Helen on up there do “I got the Horse” get Helen up there for Bill Bailey, so she did three songs.

Chris: We’re talking about the mid 60s here, late 60s you think ?

Ben: I was driving a 61 Chrysler so it was some time between 61 and 63 probably, that’s the only way I can relate to things, when you get 70 it gets pretty hard.

Chris: Back in those days’ people took a lot of note of what year car you were driving and the new cars that came out and that kind of thing. So Helen was a reluctant entertainer, but she sounds like she enjoyed it.

Ben: Not real reluctant after a few times they hollered for her, and she used to come over there and sit, of course, the night that Curley’s burned, Helen was overdue with our third child and he didn’t move for three weeks after that and we thought we lost him because of the fire.

Chris: So there was a fire during the performance?

Ben: Yeah, on New Years Eve,

Chris: Really?

Ben: A waitress, after they shot off the streamers and all this stuff, a waitress was playing with a cigarette lighter and lit one of the streamers and, it, when it got up to the roping, it just, that place just went up like a, well you know how Christmas trees burn, and being in a bar where it had been dry and everything else, and the band, we ended up breaking that big window behind us for the band to get out, we kept thinking they were going to get it out, they were spraying it with fire extinguishers and stuff but it wasn’t working, you know, and the stuff was falling on the tablecloths, the tablecloths got going and the next thing we know, the band is up there and I told them, I said keep playing so people stay calm, we were afraid people were going to trample each other getting out, which there was a lot of pushing and shoving.

Chris: How big of a crowd was it, do you think? Several hundred people?

Ben: No, the bar wouldn’t hold that many but I would say there was probably 70 people in there and only one way to get out, you know, I mean they wouldn’t go through the kitchen, they didn’t even know that was an exit. So they all had to come up past the bar and the fire

was just on the other side of the bar. It was all that dining area and so, I broke the window with my guitar.

Chris: There you go.

Ben: That one right there.

Chris: That guitar right there.

Ben: Shoved the end of it right through the window. I’m lucky it didn’t tear my guitar up.

Chris: Maybe that’s where Pete Townsend got the idea to start wreaking guitars.

Ben: And at the time, Tommy Galassi was playing with us, during the fire and he had, he was a 16 year old boy and his parents had wanted to come out and meet me because they wanted to check me out before the parents let him play in our band, ‘cause they had heard a lot of things about bands. Well his parents absolutely loved us, they loved everybody in the band, but Tommy, standing outside after we all got out the window, and he says, oh my drums, I can’t afford any new drums, and he says what am I going to do? And I reached in the window and I got all of his drums out, I got my guitar out, but my amplifier and my music, about that time it was like a blow torch, this fire goes and it come out and the awning just melted, you know, and I just barely ducked down or that flame would have got me, you know, and I ran back over to the Lamp and Shade House and we watched it burn. And the fire department came and hit the hoses like this and I saw my music go all over that bar, I had it on the music stand and it just went all over the place. In fact out in my shop I have boxes of that music, because I never could remember the words to anything, Charlie remembered every word to every song and never had to write down one, never had to look at one, but I had to have the music in front of me or the words and so what I had to do was go over there the next day and pick up all that water soaked, burnt edged music.

Chris: So you actually tried to recover the music?

Ben: I did, and I recopied it by hand, hand wrote them all out again.

Chris: Well you had a lot invested in that. Where was that place at? Do you remember?

Ben: It was right up here, it was Mr. J’s.

Chris: Oh, O.K. I’ve been there. Over the years it has been various reincarnations.

Ben: And there was a big window over on this side right where you went in the door you know.

Chris: So it didn’t burn to the ground,

Ben: Well they gutted all the inside.

Chris: That place has had many lives it sounds like.

Ben: Yeah, when I was a kid it was the Wayside Inn and it was wild, it was gangster operated at that time. We had a couple of mysterious deaths out here.

Chris: Isn’t that the place where you bought one of your guitars or something? Some guy told you about it?

Ben: A guy came in and was hard up and needed money for something, and he told me that he would sell me that guitar; I think he sold it to me for 60 bucks.

Chris: We won’t even talk about what that’s worth now. O.K. Well let’s talk about more recent times. After you had your run with your own band, of course the reunion concert in 98, I got a chance to take a look at that and I’d kind of like to get your memories of that but it sounds like you used to play a lot in Girard and they brought you back for a performance at their, what was it their centennial ?

Ben: Their centennial, yeah, we played down there for seven years in a row on Wednesday nights.

Chris: And they had you come out, you were in the parade, and you did a performance, did you do a rock performance or what kind of music did you do at this thing?

Ben: We did, I took my grandson down there with me because this lady that talked to us about it, she worked on the history book down there, she got to know Dustin and things just kind of went from one thing to another. First it was they were going to put us in the history book, and could we come, could Helen and I come down and maybe spend an hour just to talk to people that were coming back for this centennial and from there it came, well do you think that maybe you could do a few numbers for us. Then when she found out about Dustin, she said do you think Dustin would perform, too? And so we did a mix of some 50s stuff and gospel music, and because he has been singing gospel since he was four years old. He’s 14 now.

Chris: Dustin is your grandson? So have you been involved with his, do you think he’s going to have a musical career?

Ben: Oh yes, he’s out at Pleasant Plains, he’s in both bands.

Chris: So he’s in high school right now.

Ben: He’s in the Madrigal singers and also in the choir. In fact, we went out there the other night in that cold air to watch him play for halftime.

Chris: Does he lean toward rock n’ roll in any way, do you think he might follow in your footsteps?

Ben: No, he’s been, he was in the play out there “Annie” last year and did the songs that are older, and he’s in “Oklahoma” now and he likes that kind of music, of course that’s the kind of stuff they do in the choirs and stuff. They do, every once in a while they do, their choir will pick up on a 50s song.

Chris: Now you are doing gospel music? Mostly in churches I would imagine?

Ben: I have done gospel music for the last 15 years.

Chris: And do you just go in and become part of the choir at the church or do you actually do a performance?

Ben: No, I just do special numbers and do it with recorded tapes, prerecorded tapes and I occasionally, I just took a Johnny Cash’s song “I Walk the Line” and changed the words on it and made a gospel song out of it. Went over absolutely great on a Sunday night and I said you people were my experimental group I’ll do it now on a Sunday morning in a couple of weeks.

Chris: What kind of churches are you playing at here in town?

Ben: I go to Free Will Baptist Church. And it’s real funny, at 12 years old I was Baptized as a Christian at South Side Christian Church and then my wife’s family was Lutheran, went to a Lutheran Church, and I never did jive too well with the Lutherans. Now when I got started back over here at the Baptist Church, when I went to their “Get Acquainted” meetings I said, one thing I want to get straight with you people first, I said, I have a few questions about the Baptists, I want to know just how strict you are because I said I do belong to the Masonic Organization, if your against that I’m sorry and I said you know, there’s just some things that I have questions about the Baptist Church. And they took it pretty well, they kind of laughed about it .

Chris: There’s all different kinds of Baptists.

Ben: And I said well, this is Free Will Baptists, and they probably are closer to the Bible then any religion I’ve ever known, and I don’t agree with everything that they agree with but I don’t think there is a church anywhere that I would agree with everything anyway. So, I’ve been too open minded about God and Christ and so, but anyway it’s close here at home, I do my special numbers over there and get to keep up my music a little bit, and they’re like a family, they’ve been great.

Chris: Do you play the guitar with these guys for a performance?

Ben: Once in a while.

Chris: Let’s talk about the 98 reunion a little bit. Sounds like Charlie played a big role in putting that together. Was it hard to coax you? Because I noticed one of the comments

was, you know, Ben and I haven’t really sung together for 20 years. Was it difficult to get you pulled into that whole project?

Ben: No, and I have to tell you about that, we had some issues about my mother and Charlie and I had some disagreements, and it became very bad and some of the rest of the family got involved in it and so we just didn’t do anything together, we didn’t have family reunions or anything for that long period of time. And I was working in the shop this one day and Charlie came in with a handful of things in his hands and I thought oh now what.

Chris: So this was not a regular occurrence that he would come into the shop?

Ben: No, oh no, he hadn’t been in my shop for years, and he came in with this handful of things. And I was busy with somebody else and I said Charlie I’ll be with you in just a minute and he said, that’s all right, that’s all right no hurry. So when I finished with what I was talking with this other person I said what can I do for you. And he said well I just wanted to check with you, he said they are having a reunion of some kind with some of the old 50s bands and some of the entertainers and he said they’ve mentioned that they would really like to hear you and I sing together again. And he said would you be interested in doing this? And I said well why wouldn’t I?

Chris: Sure, excellent. So did, who picked the songs you guys sang? I noticed that you did a lot of Everly Brothers, which is what people would expect. You did several of your own original numbers, and I think you did a Hank Williams song and you did “Suzie Q,” which is, I think is a Creedence Clearwater, John Fogerty song.

Ben: Yeah, back when I can’t remember who did that originally.

Chris: Oh maybe it wasn’t a John Fogerty song, maybe it was just one that Creedence, I remember it as a Creedence Clearwater song.

Ben: Yeah, Creedence covered it later, you know.

Chris: Might have been some obscure guy that wrote that song, I tried to look it up but I couldn’t find it I always ended up with the Creedence Clearwater Revival site.

Ben: I’ve got it somewhere around here.

Chris: Oh it’s not important, but anyway that must have been one of your favorite songs.

Ben: Well it was, I can’t think of his name, Claudio, that’s real important in the, real active in the Republican party, he used to come to the dances back then and he always requested “Suzie Q” and he was there that day and he said Benny when you get up there I want to hear “Suzie Q” so that’s what, you know.

Chris: That’s why you guys did that one.

Ben: We, Charlie had me come to a few practices with his band and we worked, we kind of just decided which numbers we could do together because my voice is not what it was 30 years ago, you know.

Chris: You sounded good, I was just amazed that Charlie sang the whole night, I mean he sang for three or four other bands.

Ben: The whole thing, yeah.

Chris: And by the time they got to you, it’s tough to keep that going for four hours.

Ben: They kept us for last because they wanted to keep the crowd there and that’s what they told us, you know. Because everybody kept saying when are you guys going to sing, when are you guys going to sing, I can’t stay much longer, you know.

Chris: Was it fun doing that? Did you enjoy it?

Ben: Oh yeah, it was fun and there were a lot of people there that we hadn’t seen for years, it was just like going down to Girard and it was the same thing. I mean there were people that, I mean they, you know, they told me down there said oh you guys were our Everly Brothers, you know.

Chris: Well you were because you sounded an awful lot like the Everly Brothers. And you got, Marvin was there, he came up on the stage, we talked about him earlier and Jules Blattner was there, and he’s a pretty impressive guitar player. I was very impressed with him and has his career continued pretty much to the present day ?. .

Ben: I think so because I saw somewhere here just a while back where he played at one of the bars here in town, somewhere out north, I think maybe that one out on Dirksen Parkway, but I don’t remember.

Chris: And I think I caught a glimpse of, is it Bill Evans, the guy that the lead guitarist that played in two or three of the bands that night.

Ben: Yeah, he was more rhythm n’ blues player, he’s really, Bill is really a good. . .

Chris: Great guitarist, really played well .

Ben: And he, you know, he didn’t, Bill didn’t play, I don’t think as a young kid, I think he started playing about the time that they started coming to the dances and stuff and I mean he has really accomplished a lot.

Chris: Did he ever sign with a record company? Or did any of these other, I know Jules Blattner was with Bobbin, did he have a similar experience to you guys on Bobbin you know after they went out of business?

Ben: Well I don’t know you know Bobbin did promote him a lot and I think they used, there was Little Milton that was on that label, was very popular in the rhythm n’ blues field and I think they used a lot of other artists to promote Blattner and Little Milton.

Chris: So he might have had a little better experience with the record company than you guys did.

Ben: I don’t know.

Chris: Although it would be interesting to know if he ever got any royalty checks.

Ben: He was, you know, he always spoke to us but he was never the kind of person that we really could go, or that I could go talk to.

Chris: Have like that chummy talk with.

Ben: I always felt like he thought I would be nosey if I was asking any questions.

Chris: Well maybe he didn’t want anybody to know about his business or whatever. Just to kind of end with, your current business has been around for a long time. I know I have been a customer of yours, you do just really marvelous work with furniture, and you’re in business with your wife and you guys have really done some good stuff, I mean you have done stuff for the Governor’s Mansion. Do you want to talk anything about that?

Ben: Just, we’ve done a lot of historical stuff, we did all the stuff for Bryant Cottage over at Bement, we did, we’ve done work for Governor Thompson, we did work for the State Historical Society and state work and also his own personal work and his, it was real funny because. . .

Chris: Governor Thompson we’re talking about here?

Ben: Yeah, Governor Thompson, his wife Jane had an upholsterer that was a friend of hers up in Skokie and she wanted the work to go up there and he said no I want these people to do my work and we were really impressed with that, you know. And he was. .

Chris: Cause he knew the business, the antique business.

Ben: Yeah and at the time that we did a lot of his work, that time I was a Democrat Committee man and of course our truck had democrat sticker on it went right down there to the governor’s mansion and that never bothered him. He had work done by professionals that he knew that could work and the politics didn’t make a difference. Since then I’m not a committee man anymore so I vote whatever way I want and talk whatever way I want. . .

Chris: But you did have some family members in politics, I think, is it a daughter-in-law?

Ben: Yeah, they had called here a couple of years ago, they wanted Helen to run for that office and Helen says, she says Ben and I are 69, 70 years old, we don’t need to get in politics again she said and besides we’ve got friends on both sides and they’re very good about doing whatever they can to help us out and different things so I don’t want to be labeled Democrat or Republican and, but Brooke, she I think, I think she was more probably from a Republican family but Helen said well why don’t you get one of my daughter-in-laws to run, and she did beat an incumbent and that’s really something for her first run, you know. But she is in politics. Her husband, our son Jimmy is a union glass glazer.

Chris: Now is the Harmony Limousine service somehow attached to the family?

Ben: That’s our son.

Chris So that seems to be a very successful business in town.

Ben: And that all started out as a fluke because when our oldest son was still alive, just before he died he used to buy and sell cars they went to an auction and they had this old 78, maybe 87, 87 Lincoln Limousine up there for auction and he bought it and brought it home and the boys, the four boys were I mean they have always been very, very close. So they had these parties, take their girlfriends out and they had their own limo, you know big deal. And so then it started that people started wanting to book that limo and so he started getting jobs with it and Benny kind of, Benny was really a promoter, he really promoted Jay and it’s very ironic because today we see things in Jay that are so much like Benny it’s just like his ghost is here, you know. But anyway, he continued on, he bought another limo or two and he was booking the jobs out of our house here and down the street there was this lady who had never been married, she was a friend of ours, she passed away and at one time she had told me that she had me and a neighbor girl on her will as executors and then, and it was real funny because she told me when Helen and I got married, she says a Christian and a Lutheran, that marriage would be like a Catholic and a Lutheran, she said it would never work, you’ll never, you’ll never, she says I think you ought to find you some other girlfriend and she really was not for me marrying Helen and over the years, a few years back there was a zoning deal come up in the neighborhood that I was for and she was against and at that time she took me off the will and put Helen on for the executor. So anyway, Helen and this girl up the street where executors of the will and they had a buyer for the property, but the buyer wanted it to be zoned commercial and Jay said well how much are they offering for it? And so, Helen said well they’re offering 65,000 and he said well Jimmy and I will just buy it and I said oh my God, I said that place is not worth 20,000. It just had this little old house that was probably, I don’t know how old it was, but a little bitty house on there, sitting on concrete blocks, the foundation was uneven and everything else, you know. Jay says I’ll buy the place, so anyway, he bought the place.

Chris: And that’s Harmony Limousine now.

Ben: And it just, you can’t believe what that piece of property is worth today and I, you know I advised him against buying it and everything else, but he went down there and put a

40 by 80 building on it and it’s, the property is really worth lots of money and he got it zoned commercial and so anyway he runs his business down there and he’s well thought of, too.

Chris: None of the sons decided to do music, necessarily?

Ben: No, Jay, the one that’s got the limousine service, he wanted a guitar for Christmas a couple of years ago, so I did buy him a guitar. I don’t know if he’s ever took it out of the case or not, but he said I should have played music dad, I should have played music. I said well you should have.

Chris: well this has been a real pleasure talking to you Ben. And is there anything else that you want to talk about, anything that I missed in talking about your music career, anything that you want to, you know any memories that you want to talk about or have we pretty much covered it all?

Ben: No, I think we pretty much covered it all, it’s, it’s just a thing that if people would have known me in high school I went to Springfield High School, I had about three friends all the way through high school, and I had a very difficult time because I came from a little West Grand Grade School which was a country school until the last year that I went there, had a really difficult time and I didn’t fit in with anything and the music really I guess brought out my personality and over the years it has been, it’s been the thing that kind of catapulted us right into the upholstery business, when I got started, people would say oh are you the Harmony that had the band? You know, and it has just gone from there so it, I, sometimes I find people that say oh I don’t want my kid to be a musician, they’re all on drugs and this kind of stuff and they get, you know they kind of down the musicians because it’s a field that’s different and usually the people that are in that are more temperamental and sometimes you have an attitude which I have to say at times I have an attitude, also. You know, I’ll admit it. But it has been one of the greatest things in my life.

Chris: And it sounds like you really are satisfied with the whole thing and how it’s gone.

Ben: And I am, you know probably if our records would have went and we’d have become popular I don’t know that I’d still be married today.

Chris: Your life would have taken a different turn that’s for sure.

Ben: Wouldn’t have my family, my grandkids and it’s, I’m satisfied with all of it.

Chris: That’s terrific. Well thanks again Ben. This has been a real pleasure and this will conclude our interview. Thanks

Ben: Thank you.

Postscript to interview: Names of musicians that played with Ben’s bands: Tommy Vice, Drummer; Tommy Galassi, Drummer; Ron Auerbach, Base Guitar; Jerry Spitler, Sax; Mike Brockamp, Sax; Marcia Cass, Sax; Larry DuPont, Sax; Mary McCrayon, Piano; Joel Calandrino, Guitar; Jerry Hurst, Drummer; Russel Schroeder, Drummer; and Deek Fernandez, Drummer.