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Milan rick rodellTRANSCRIPT
MILAN
by Martin Winfree
INTRODUCTION
Most garage rock fans know Milan by the four
singles that he released as “The Leather Boy” in
1967 (effectively, there are only three – the
“Jersey Thursday” single is extremely rare, and
it has yet to be comped). I am probably like
most people in having been introduced to
Milan’s music on the Pebbles, Volume 11 LP,
and I still consider it my favorite among the
dozens of Pebbles albums in my collection. I
think I became a fan of Milan on the first spin.
When I got the Pebbles, Volume 10 CD, which
also included several Milan songs, the liner
notes gave a hint of the breadth of his career
but, intriguingly, still nothing about his identity.
My very first article in Wikipedia was on The
Head Shop, and I can still remember the thrill I
felt when I ran across a copy of the LP at a
record convention in Hillsborough, NC and saw
Milan’s name on the album cover as the
producer. There were already well over one
million articles in the English Wikipedia alone,
but there were several major garage rock and
psychedelic rock artists that were not included,
and I set out to do something about it. For
instance, there was only a paragraph on the
American band the Outsiders, and there was
nothing at all on Mouse and the Traps. It
wasn’t long before I tried to tackle writing up a
Wikipedia article on this enigmatic figure in
garage rock. I have started more than 100 of
them now, but this one was the most difficult.
I started by scouring the Internet for any
mention of Milan. Though I didn’t find any real
blogs (there are two or three now), I saw
several bulletin boards and discussion groups
about him, most of which have since vanished
from the Web. I quickly ran across the names
“Milan Radenkovich”, “Milan Radenkowich”,
and “Rick Rodell”. But mostly the information
available was connected to simply “Milan”.
The Head Shop had been reissued on CD by
then, so I also found out that the real name of
the other mysterious figure on that album,
Maxim was Max Ellen. In all, I found something
like 40 or 50 tidbits about the man, even though
a lot of them were contradictory, if not
guesswork.
Going by a single name is definitely a 1960’s
thing, but it makes Internet searches triply
difficult. The big city in Italy and the Mercury
car are just the beginning of what comes up. A
Google search on the single word “Milan” now
brings up an astounding 88,300,000 web pages.
Additionally, I came across an ad for a copy of
Milan’s album I Am What I Am for what I
considered a very reasonable price of $22 – well
under what the 45s often go for. Even though
the orchestral pop music was not at all like “On
the Go” or “Shadows”, I found myself playing
his album again and again – I have probably
listened to it 3 or 4 dozen times at least. One of
the problems with most albums from the first
half of the 1960’s is that they are usually filled
with the same old songs that everyone else was
recording at the time. In this case though,
Milan – or actually “M. Rodell” – was the
songwriter on all 12 songs.
Oddly, in all of the information I had collected
by then, I had hardly heard about an album at
all. One or two of the sources mentioned that
there was allegedly an LP that might have been
made by the same man who did all of those
great garage rock singles. Once I got a copy of
the album though, there was no question that
this was the same man who was on the cover of
the singles issued in the name The Leather Boy.
Even more surprising, none of these sources
mentioned anything about his having died. In
fact, on one of the bulletin boards, someone
asked what Milan was doing these days; and
there was a response from another who
claimed to have heard from him “just last
month”.
I knew I didn’t have everything right about
Milan by a long shot, but I still pieced together
an article in Wikipedia by December 2006. I felt
pretty good about it and thought that at least
Milan’s discography was probably right – I even
imagined that I might have been the first person
to put that whole list together in one place –
even though I was missing a lot of details about
his life.
I also knew that there had to be many more
records for other artists that Milan had had
something to do with; I dare say that is still the
case today. Greg Shaw has written that Milan’s
name “shows up as writer/producer on a big
pile of records, from the early 60s right thru the
end of the decade”; and I have hardly found
anything that looks like that yet.
I kept an eye on the article to see who out there
might know something more, and I also got an
e‐mail once in a while about Milan. As an
example, I had missed a couple of singles in the
discography – as someone from France (!)
pointed out in the “Talk” section for the article
in Wikipedia – but I believe I have them all now.
I didn’t get a reply to an e‐mail that I sent to
that person either.
Then, in December 2008, someone with a user
name “Klaushoehn” (from Germany perhaps?)
attached a cryptic note about Milan to the
article, and then immediately deleted it.
Fortunately, Wikipedia saves absolutely
everything, so I was able to retrieve it:
Milan (real name Milan Radenkovic) was
born in 1944. During the making of the
Head Shop album, he was diagnosed with
brain cancer. He probably died in the
seventies. He was the son of folk
singer/guitar player Rascha Rodell.
Now I was getting somewhere! Besides having
the first indication from anyone that Milan had
died many years ago, I had another name to
look up: that of his father Rascha Rodell. Also,
to my surprise, there was another Radenkovic
right there in Wikipedia; and there was a longer
article on this Petar Radenkovic in the German
Wikipedia that gave more details about his
father Rascha Rodell, so he was clearly Milan’s
older brother. Petar had been a goalie of some
renown with the Munich soccer team in the
1960’s; I couldn’t get an e‐mail address, but I
did send a letter to him asking about Milan to
see if he could help me out. As usual, I heard
nothing back.
The release of a long‐awaited compendium of
Milan’s work in 2009 – a 19‐track vinyl‐only
compilation album called Hell Bent for Leather –
has finally brought his music to a wide
audience. It is available for purchase on dozens
of websites and probably numerous record
stores as well.
Most delightfully though, in October 2009 I
made contact with Milan’s younger sister
Darinka (Dara) and brother‐in‐law Ricky, who
are now living in Florida (where Milan grew up).
She uses the name Rodell as well. Together
with their oldest son Derrick, they have both
been trying to get the word out about Milan’s
great talent for years, through Facebook and
other ways. I am dedicating this article on
Milan to my friends Dara and Ricky, without
whom I would never have gotten the whole
story.
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
Milan is a remarkable man from a remarkable
family. By most accounts, Milan was known in
the recording industry as Rick Rodell, and
several sources give this as his "real name". In
actuality, on December 15, 1941, he was born in
Belgrade, Yugoslavia as Milan Radenković, as
the son of Mila Radenković and her husband
Radaslav Radenković. His name has been
anglicized as Milan Radenkovich (and
sometimes Milan Radenkowich), though the
surname is rarely if ever shown on records
attributed to him. He adopted his father’s stage
name and changed his name to Richard Rodell
(nicknamed Rick and Dicky) while he was still in
high school in Miami Beach, Florida.
Milan showed his athletic prowess by pitching
for a minor league team affiliated with the
Chicago White Sox while he was still a teenager.
Shortly afterwards, Milan headed for New York
City, where he was based for his entire career,
moving easily among the big shots in most of
the major record companies for nearly a
decade, when the Brill Building was the hub of
America’s music industry.
Milan’s father Radaslav Radenković, the son of
the police chief of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, first
began traveling to America to perform during
World War II, where he used the name “Ray
Rodell” and performed often for the American
troops. By the late 1940’s, he was beginning to
use the name “Rasha Rodell”. He received
favorable notices in 1948 in Billboard for an
appearance at New York’s Penthouse Nightclub.
In the 1950’s, as Ray Rodell, he had a regular
show on NBC radio.
After he and his family settled in Miami Beach,
Rasha performed as a popular folksinger,
guitarist and bandleader who worked for tips,
using the name Rasha Rodell (sometimes
Rascha Rodell, presumably on his European
dates). Newspapers of the day describe him as
a “strolling guitarist and romantic baritone”
who was often accompanied by an accordion
and a piano; and he headed a six‐piece band in
Palm Beach for a time. He could sing in 11
languages and was also an accomplished
painter who had regular showings in area art
galleries. By the early 1970’s, he had relocated
to California, where he owned a beer bar and
café called The Inn Between in Hemet; a
wedding there of two people who met at the
bar made news across the nation in 1971.
Rasha struggled
over the years to
achieve success, and
though the music
business was even
harder then than it
is today, he was a
well known
performer who was
often written up in
the local society and
show‐biz columns in
Miami Beach and Palm Beach newspapers. As
one indication of his presence in south Florida,
an on‐line article that was posted in 2002 on
the website for Breaking Travel News (originally
published in the magazine Spa) gave a
remembrance of the heyday of the Eden Roc
Hotel in Miami Beach; only one other performer
(Maxie Fransko) was mentioned in describing
the Mona Lisa Room, where Rasha was a fixture
for some five years. Milan’s first public musical
performance was with his father at the
Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.
Petar (Radi) Radenkovic, Milan’s older brother
was raised in Europe by his grandparents after
Milan’s family moved to America. He was a
very talented goalie who was a member of the
Yugoslavian soccer team that won the silver
medal at the 1956 Winter Olympics. Radi was
one of the first four immigrant players in the
top soccer league in Germany, Bundesliga,
where he played for the Munich soccer team
that won the German Cup in 1964 and the
league title in 1966. He is credited with the
unequalled feat of never allowing more than
one goal in any game throughout his career. He
was enormously popular in Germany during the
1960’s and scored a Top 5 hit on the German
singles chart with “Bin i Radi, Bin i König” (“I am
Radi, I am King”). He is also the author of two
books and owns a hotel in Munich called
(naturally) the Hotel König. Radi, who is 75,
now lives in a small town near Munich.
MILAN AND THE TWIST
Among the many recording artists in the 1960s
who went by only one name, at least for a time
– Donovan, Melanie, Jennifer, Keith, Oliver,
Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, Jan and
Dean, etc. – Milan was one of the first,
beginning with his earliest single in 1962 when
he tried to cash in on the enduring popularity of
the twist: a dance that anyone can do but that
no one can do particularly well (it will probably
never be featured on Dancing with the Stars).
“Santa’s Doin’ the Twist” was the first of many
Milan songs with a dropped “g” and was
evidently a one‐off for the Migon label: There
wasn’t really a catalogue number, just the date
of release with “A” and “B”. As Rick Rodell,
Milan was also shown as the songwriter for
both sides of the single; in fact, among all his
recordings, his only cover was evidently of the
Donovan song “Jersey Thursday”.
In the early 1960’s, this or that dance became a
fad seemingly on a monthly basis, so it is easy
to forget how long the twist craze lasted. The
original version of “The Twist” by Hank Ballard
and the Midnighters dates from 1959, and
Chubby Checker took the song to the top of the
charts in 1960 and again in 1962. When
Billboard Magazine marked the 50th Anniversary
of the launch of the Hot 100 chart in August
1958 – after Elvis and a lot of the other early
rockers had already scored many of their
biggest hits – “The Twist” was placed at #1 on
the “All‐Time Hot 100 Top Songs”.
Additionally, “The Peppermint Twist” (Part 1) by
Joey Dee and the Starliters – the house band at
New York City’s Peppermint Lounge, the
epicenter for the phenomenon (there was a
Peppermint Lounge in Miami Beach also) – was
the #1 single for three weeks in January 1962.
One of the Starliters, Eddie Brigati would later
be a founding member of the (Young) Rascals.
Many of the biggest musical acts of the time
also had hit songs about the twist in this period:
Bo Diddley, Sam Cooke, Bill Haley & His Comets,
the Marvelettes, Gary “U. S.” Bonds, and the
Dovells, among many others.
As if that weren’t enough, as one of their early
singles, the Beatles released “Twist and Shout”,
which had been a #17 hit for the Isley Brothers
in 1962. This became the most successful cover
song for the Fab Four when it reached #2 on the
charts on April 2, 1964, during the week when
the Beatles had the Top Five songs on the
Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. This was
the seventh Top 10 twist song stretching over a
five‐year period.
Nor was that even the end of the story.
Incredibly, “Twist and Shout” almost reached
the Top 20 in 1986, when it was featured in a
memorable scene in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day
Off, and also in Rodney Dangerfield’s hit movie
Back to School in the same year. In 1988,
Chubby Checker recorded “the Twist” again,
this time accompanied by The Fat Boys; this
version of the song made the Top 40 here, and
it also topped the German singles charts and
was #2 in the U. K.
A NEAR HIT IN 1963
Milan’s second single, “Innocence” was
released in early 1963 on End Records; by this
time, the label had been acquired from its
founder George Goldner by Roulette Records,
which was controlled by the notorious
recording industry mogul Morris Levy. Though
it did not make the charts, Milan evidently
made an impression on Levy with this
recording.
Lou Christie had just released his second single
on Roulette, “Two Faces Have I”; and it would
prove to be a bigger hit than his debut single
“The Gypsy Cried”. At Levy’s insistence, and
during the middle of a tour, Christie went into
the studio and recorded Milan’s song “How
Many Teardrops” on May 16, 1963, with George
Goldner and Nick Censi as producers. The new
single moved quickly up the charts but, due to
Christie’s induction into the U. S. Army, stalled
at #41 on the Cash Box charts on June 22, 1963
and as high as #46 on the Billboard Hot 100 (in
July 1963). In October 1963, the song reached
#8 on the charts in the nation of Israel.
Lou Christie would revive his career many
months later in a very different musical
landscape; in a testament to his strength as a
performer, his biggest hit of all, “Lightnin’
Strikes” became #1 during the height of the
British Invasion (on February 19, 1966).
Milan and Lou Christie – real name: Lugee
Sacco – actually have more in common than just
this single. When his first single “The Gypsy
Cried” was released on the tiny C&C label, the
artist was shown as “Lou Christie” without his
knowledge or permission. He has been quoted
as saying: "I was pissed off about it for 20
years. I wanted to keep my name and be a one‐
named performer, just 'Lugee'."
Additionally, Lou Christie wrote most of his hit
songs, along with his songwriting partner Twyla
Herbert (and that is quite a story in itself). As
such, he is one of the first singer‐songwriters in
popular music, a fact that John Lennon has
remarked on, among others. He was also not
afraid to take chances with his music; the
melody for his controversial hit “Rhapsody in
the Rain” (1966) was inspired by Tchaikovsky’s
“Romeo and Juliet”.
“How Many Teardrops” is the earliest song that
is included on Hell Bent for Leather. (A foreign‐
language schedule of artists who made the
charts in Australia, together with highly detailed
discographies, listed a second Lou Christie
single written by Milan, “Guitars and Bongos”;
but this is another song that was co‐written by
Christie and Twyla Herbert).
AMERICAN BEETLES?
Beatles imitators were quite common as
Beatlemania took hold in 1964 – not that there
is any shortage of them now, though the more
polite term “tribute band” is used these days.
The record is unclear, but one last project for
Morris Levy might have been Milan’s serving as
the producer on one of the singles released on
Roulette by the American Beetles; he is also the
songwriter for one of the songs, “You Did it to
Me”. There are some indications that Milan
had further involvement with the band, but I
have not found any evidence of it to date. On
one of the blogs that I uncovered, someone said
they had spoken with a member of the
American Beetles, and he never recalled
meeting Milan. The story is that the band’s
manager like Milan’s demo of the song and had
them record it.
While assuming the total Beatles sound and
clothes and hair, the American Beetles were
actually a fine garage rock band from West
Palm Beach, Florida – Milan’s neck of the
woods, as it happens. The band formed as the
Ardells in 1959; despite the numerous name
changes – they were also known as the R‐Dells
and released a single as The Tones – they
stayed together with the same lineup through
1967. The band released nine or ten singles in
1964 and 1965 as the American Beetles for
Roulette and also for Bob Yorey’s labels. In
1966, they began recording as the Razor’s Edge
and made the Top 100 in 1967 with “Let’s Call it
a Day Girl”; the song was later covered by
Bobby Vee.
I AM WHAT I AM
When Milan released his LP in 1964, he moved
to a different record label, 20th Century Fox
Records. Though one of the most recognizable
brands in the world, their record company was
pretty minor league and was probably created
mainly to release their movie soundtracks. The
label’s biggest success came with the release in
1958 of one of the first recordings of “Little
Drummer Boy” by the Harry Simeon Chorale;
after being reissued and renamed several times,
the accompanying LP would go on to become
the largest selling Christmas album of all time.
I Am What I Am is something of a time capsule:
an album that might have been recorded by
somebody like Bobby Vinton, Paul Anka or
Bobby Rydell, but having the advantage in the
2010’s of being composed of unfamiliar songs
that are definitely of the period, which have not
been played to death for 50 years on oldies
radio stations. Add the something extra that
comes from a man singing his own songs and
not someone else’s, and the result is an
unexpected treat from a bygone era. Just one
of the songs from the album, “Runnin’ Wild” is
included on Hell Bent for Leather; and if that
track grabs you at all, let me assure you that the
LP is well worth tracking down.
The album was produced by Budd Granoff, and
he also wrote the liner notes. Granoff had a
storied career in show business, beginning as a
Broadway press agent representing the likes of
Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante and Doris Day.
Following his marriage to Kitty Kallen, one of
the most popular singers on the 1950’s, his
activity in the music industry was mainly related
to managing her career.
Budd Garnoff is best known though for his work
with Chuck Barris in creating legendary game
shows like The Gong Show and The Newlywed
Game, not to mention the first television
syndication company to distribute these shows
to independent TV stations for prime‐time
audiences. Along the way, he put on what has
been described as the very first telethon, a
marathon 1951 television broadcast to raise
money for a cardiac hospital that also happened
to showcase two of his clients at the time, Dean
Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lewis of course would
become the most visible presence in the
telethon world over the ensuing six decades.
The liner notes give some details about Milan
and describe him as “a darkly handsome, six
foot, 160 lb. twenty year old" (he actually
turned 22 in late 1963); they continue: "Milan
is popular music . . . he lives it, loves it and
understands it and refuses to allow the
tendency to copy whatever happens to be in
the top ten at the present time to influence his
work."
I included that last quote in the Wikipedia
article mainly because I thought it was a great
quote. As I have been thinking it over while
preparing this more complete article, I have
come to realize that, strictly speaking, it is not
really accurate in describing Milan, at least not
his career as a whole. Like anyone else in show
business, Milan was interested in getting good
material out there that was in keeping with the
times; and there is certainly nothing wrong with
that.
More to the point, I have been mulling over just
what Budd Granoff might have meant by
“whatever happens to be in the top ten at the
present time." On February 1, 1964, the Beatles
had their first #1 hit song in America, “I Want to
Hold Your Hand”; and the Beatles and the other
English bands in their wake dominated the
charts for years to come. To these ears though,
despite the numerous musical styles and
personas that Milan undertook over the years,
the British Invasion left scarcely any mark at all
on his recordings.
Though the record company released two
singles and presumably made the usual efforts
at promoting the album, the record‐buying
public passed it by. Had the album been
released just one year earlier, when Lou Christie
nearly took one of Milan’s songs to the Top 40,
it might have been a different story.
CHANGES IN THE WORLD OF MILAN
From the descriptions given above, it is clear
that few if any of Milan’s recordings up to this
point would fall into the category of “ugly
things”; in fact, much of his music is quite
beautiful (not that there is anything wrong with
that).
In 1965 and 1966, Milan issued three more
singles, this time in the name of the World of
Milan. These songs represent a transition
toward the garage rock sound for which he is
best known, and away from Milan’s first love:
the melodic American pop music that probably
represented in his mind an updated
continuation of the music that his father sang
over the course of his career. Milan was willing
to issue an album full of this kind of music in
1964, right in the teeth of the storm from
Britain that swept nearly all of the American
musicians from the charts, so it was probably
only with the greatest reluctance that he
allowed himself to move on.
Additionally, there is a glaring gap in the
admittedly incomplete discography that
documents Milan’s efforts as a songwriter,
producer and arranger for other musicians,
which might be as long as three full years from
the release of the American Beetles single in
1964. No one else seemed to be willing to join
Milan in his pursuit of what was already viewed
as hopelessly old‐fashioned pop music, and that
could have been what clinched the decision for
him.
One track from each of the first two World of
Milan singles are included on Hell Bent for
Leather: “Luva Luva” – Milan really loved
double word song titles – and “Follow the Sun”.
In any case, once he got his garage rock legs,
Milan hit it out of the park. As described in a
2005 post by Brian Marshall on the It’s Great
Shakes website:
Milan hits it off by yelling "Ready! [Get] Set!
Go!", followed by a pounding drumbeat
that charges at you with the force of a
buffalo stampede! Then, twangy guitar and
crazy organ come in with a one‐two punch,
as Milan sings:
One track mind
My baby's got a one track mind
My baby's got a one track mind
She'll never stop until she finds
L‐O‐V‐E, Love!
L‐O‐V‐E, Love!
Oh Yeah!
Oh Yeah!
Both sides of the third World of Milan single,
“One Track Mind” and “Shades of Blue” book‐
end Side 1 of Hell Bent for Leather.
I’M A LEATHER BOY
Milan really hit his stride with his next
endeavors: the four superb Leather Boy singles
that were released in quick succession in 1967.
Three are in the name of The Leather Boy – and
both of the MGM singles had picture sleeves –
and they were preceded by another single in
the name of Milan (the Leather Boy), just in
case anyone missed the connection.
These songs celebrated motorcycles and the
joys of leather at a time when Harley‐Davidson
was practically in receivership. In “I’m a Leather
Boy” and “[Leather Boy] On the Go”, Milan
added the sounds of real motorcycles in the
background (almost continuously in the case of
the latter song) – even Steppenwolf didn’t go
that far when they emerged the following year
(though they were used as the intro to “Born to
Be Wild” on the soundtrack of Easy Rider).
Milan was also looking out for his listener’s
inner life, with “You Gotta Have Soul” and
“Soulin’”.
It looked as though Milan’s efforts in the
recording industry were beginning to pay off.
The Leather Boy made several appearances on
television, such as the Dick Shaw Show, and in
musical venues, such as the Ambassador
Theatre in Washington, D.C. (see above poster).
MGM played up the motorcycle connection in a
big way by having the Leather Boy ride from city
to city on his motorcycle – a 1960 Harley –
during the promotion of the records. The above
photograph shows Milan posing with MGM
record company executives – with the lot of
them mounted on motorcycles – in front of a
dealership that appears to be in Canada. Milan
often took the stage on a motorcycle at concert
and television appearances, a stunt that was
unheard of before and hasn’t occurred very
often since.
All four of the songs mentioned above are
included on the 2009 compilation album. Also
included is my favorite Milan song of all, the
dreamy psychedelic masterpiece “Shadows”,
which was the flip side of “I’m a Leather Boy”.
What is apparently the last of Milan’s singles, a
cover of “Jersey Thursday” (on yet another
label, Parkway) is impossibly rare. However, the
other Leather Boy singles sell on a regular basis
at auction on eBay and other locations. The
website popsike.com reports that the “I’m a
Leather Boy” single sold four times in 2009 and
once already in 2010 for anywhere from $28 to
$90; the “On the Go” 45 sold twice in 2009 for
£20 and $34; and “You Gotta Have Soul”
brought $25 in 2009.
THE HEAD SHOP
In 1967, Milan became good friends with
another professional musician named Max Ellen
after they met in the laundry room of his
apartment building. He had come to America
from Hamburg, Germany on the last boat of
refugees to arrive before Pearl Harbor – barely
two weeks before Milan’s birth – and was an
excellent violinist who backed the Who’s Who
in jazz: Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel
Torme, and Tony Bennett, along with many pop
and rock musicians like Ray Charles, B. B. King,
Stevie Nicks, Lenny Kravitz, Whitney Houston,
and women’s music pioneer Cris Williamson.
Max Ellen’s credits now fill three pages on the
allmusic website; however, none in the list are
dated earlier than 1970, so Milan might have
helped him establish his musical career.
Despite disparate musical backgrounds, Max
and Milan decided to try to work together on a
new type of music: moving the nascent style of
psychedelic rock to a new level of proficiency
and bringing in musical influences from both
jazz and classical music – as the CD’s liner notes
put it: “The Beatles meet the modern classics,
such as Schönberg and Mahler.” Using a band
that had been known variously as The Aladdins
and The Household Sponge, and with a working
title of The Underground Tunnel, the result was
an fascinating experiment showing where
psychedelic rock music could go, called The
Head Shop.
The band started off with Danny Prosseda and
Drew Sbordone singing on street corners in
Brooklyn in the early 1960s. Later members
were Joe Siano as the vocalist and also on sax,
Geoff Wright on organ, and Billy Hayes on
drums. As The Household Sponge, the band
released a single "Scars" b/w "Second Best" on
Murbo (#M‐1017); the August 15, 1967 edition
of Billboard listed “Second Best” in its Spotlight
section as a song that was expected to make
the Hot 100.
After Milan heard the band, he brought in Jesse
Luca to handle the drumming, and he used his
extensive contacts in the recording industry to
line up free studio time at Capitol Records so
that he and Max Ellen – now given the
sobriquet “Maxim” – could leisurely work with
the band on refining the concept and laying
down the tracks.
Joe Siano’s vocals are among the best on any
psychedelic album of the 1960’s, and the
complex arrangements include many sounds
and instruments that are unrecognizable. The
outstanding song on the album is Milan’s “I Feel
Love Comin’ On”, featuring jazz fusion guitarist
Larry Coryell. This was reportedly Coryell’s first
time in the recording studio, and most of his
solo was improvised while Milan praised him.
Milan also assisted him in getting his debut
album out on Vanguard in the same year as the
Head Shop album. The other original songs,
such as “Listen with a Third Ear” – shown as
“Listen with the Third Ear” on the CD reissue –
and “Heaven Here We Come” are also album
highlights.
Two of the three covers are of extremely
familiar Beatles songs, “Yesterday” – performed
similar to the version of “Help!” that was
recorded by Vanilla Fudge a few years earlier –
and a propulsive rendering of “Revolution”.
“Yesterday” was combined with an original song
called “Where Have All the People Gone” into
“Opera in Year 4000”, seeming to address the
state of the music industry at that point in time:
Even if everyone in the world went missing, the
then‐omnipresent Beatles standard would still
be around. Richie Unterberger has called their
other cover, of Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny” the “so‐
called ‘bad acid’ version” of this song. (A track
called “Ace of Folk” is sometimes listed with
songs by the Head Shop on Internet sites, but
this song is by a relatively new band that is
usually called Headshoppe or Headshop).
According to Geoff Wright, Milan told him that
the opening sounds on “Heaven Here We
Come” were from satellites. Milan provided the
screams near the beginning of the album and,
with Danny Prosseda, the “ohs” on “Where
Have All the People Gone”.
Milan was responsible for the design for the
album cover; it features multi‐colored cubes
arranged in a 17 x 17 grid, with the 9 central
cubes removed and replaced with a picture of a
shrunken head. He must have had a different
kind of “head shop” in mind from the ones
where incense and rolling papers are sold!
Some of the cubes are numbered and lettered
also, and the shapes sort of flatten out toward
the edges. Apparently the swirling colors are
not supposed to form a particular shape, but
they are a lot of fun to study, comparing the
upper and lower quadrants with one another.
The album was ultimately released in the
summer of 1969 through a friend of Milan who
was an A&R manager at Epic. After his friend
left the company, the record company didn’t
seem to know how to promote the album, and
the band began to drift apart.
Shortly after the release of The Head Shop, Max
Ellen and fellow violinist Irving Spice combined
in August 1969 to form a new company called
All Spice Productions. Their first project was a
band called Giant; What’s in This Life for Me –
apparently by this band and described as a
“funk jazz rock LP” – came out on Mercury in
1970.
Additionally, All Spice Productions were behind
the release of an album called The Hunchback
of Notre Dame (Bells Were My Friends) by
Alexander Rabbit (also known as The Alexander
Rabbit). This album was praised for its diversity
and the strength of its original material,
although the sound was trending away from
psychedelia and toward progressive rock. At a
later time, when a single by this band was
released on A&M – “Malagueña” b/w “I Didn’t
Even Thank Her” (#1101) – the production
credits were for Irving Spice only at Spice
Productions, so the partnership might have
already run its course.
MILAN AS A GARAGE ROCK MECHANIC
Beginning in 1967, Milan became one of the go‐
to guys for garage rock bands seeking
songwriting and production assistance in the
recording studio. He oversaw the releases of a
host of singles by bands like The Unclaimed, The
Licorice Schtik, The Downtown Collection, and
The Doughboys. His eclectic tastes showed in
his work with an obscure girl group The
Chanters and a bubblegum pop band called Ice
Cream. Tracks by all of these groups except The
Doughboys appear on Side 2 of Hell Bent for
Leather, where Milan’s work with other
performers is featured. The two Licorice Schtik
songs are also included as bonus tracks on the
CD reissue of The Head Shop (see above).
As with many of the singles where Milan
appears as songwriter, producer or arranger,
there are questions as to whether the band was
just one more disguise, like the Leather Boy;
and I have seen some Internet sources mention
that about The Unclaimed. However, a blog
post about the neo‐psychedelic band also called
The Unclaimed (which formed in 1979)
mentions that the founder of this band, Sheldon
Shelley Ganz had heard from Peter Case
(Plimsouls, Nerves) that a good friend of his
named Gurf Morlix had been in a band called
The Unclaimed back in the 1960’s. Morlix was
from Buffalo, NY and, soon after this record was
made, became captivated by Hank Williams and
moved into country music. He worked with alt‐
country star Lucinda Williams for many years
before launching a successful solo career. In
2009, Gurf Morlix was awarded Instrumentalist
of the Year at the 8th annual Americana Music
Association Honors and Awards Show.
Artie Kornfeld, the producer of this record is a
genuine music industry heavyweight. Kornfeld
was a talented songwriter who is credited with
having written more Cash Box Top 100 songs
than anyone else. He was appointed the vice
president for rock and roll at Capitol Records
while in his early 20s. Artie Kornfeld is best
known as the music promoter among the four
men who organized the original Woodstock
festival.
Not to be confused with a group of clarinetists
called Licorice Schtick (though that is rather
unlikely), the Licorice Schtik released a single on
Dot: “The Kissin’ Game” b/w “Flowers
Flowers”. Milan did all of the honors on this
disk: He wrote and arranged both songs and
also produced the session. Since this band was
being promoted by Milan in the same time
period that the Head Shop album was being put
together, both tracks are also included on the
CD reissue of that album.
The Doughboys were from Plainsfield, New
Jersey and grew out of a band started in 1964
by Mike Caruso (bass), Richie Heyman (drums),
and Wally Kirchofer (guitar), called the Ascots.
After the addition of Mike Farina (guitar) and
Myke Scavone (lead vocals) from a rival band
called the Apollos, the band changed its name
to the Doughboys. After winning a Battle of the
Bands contest in 1966, they got a recording
contract with Bell Records and released two
singles. Milan’s song “Candy Candy” was the
“B” side of the second single “Everybody Knows
My Name” (Bell #878). In the summer of 1968,
the Doughboys became the house band for the
legendary Café Wha? in Greenwich Village.
After the band broke up, Myke Scavone formed
Ram Jam, and the band had a major hit in 1977
with Leadbelly’s “Black Betty”. The Doughboys
reformed in 2000 and has been going strong
ever since, releasing two albums.
A mystery girl group, Milan arranged both sides
of the single and wrote “Bongo Bongo”. Several
years ago, an extensive series collecting vintage
singles called Look What I Found had included
each side of this single, on Volume 12 and
Volume 21.
I know very little about this band; I can’t even
find anything much on Strobe Records. Again,
Milan produced both sides of the single and
wrote “Sunshine”, which was included as a
bonus track on the CD reissue of The Head
Shop. A copy of the other side, “Washington
Square” was included on Look What I Found,
Volume 42.
This obscure bubblegum pop band recorded a
song by Milan about chewing gum (go figure) in
about 1968. A blog post says that the band was
from Cleveland and answers “no” to several
inquiries claiming (again) that this was really
Milan singing. For this record, Milan was
working with Peter Schekeryk Productions;
Schekeryk would shortly meet and marry
Melanie (Safka) and manage her career. Milan
and Melanie became good friends, probably
through this connection; she became perhaps
the best of the hippies recording in the 1960s.
The song was included on Volume 49 of the Lost
Jukebox series (now up to over 100 CDs).
MILAN’S PASSING
Reports vary as to the cause of Milan’s death in
1971; some sources mention brain cancer, and
others a brain tumor. Often the sources say
that this occurred while The Head Shop album
was being put together. The best information I
have found though is that Milan had a bad
accident on his beloved motorcycle in 1970 that
gave him brain damage. Milan’s condition
deteriorated over the coming months until his
untimely death on March 1, 1971, several
months shy of his 30th birthday.
OTHER SONGS WRITTEN BY MILAN
The database set up by BMI lists a total of 54
songs written by Milan; the same list comes up
in the name Rick Rodell. Most have already
been mentioned – though the titles do not
always match exactly – but there are several
songs that I have been unable to attach to a
recording. At least one, “Levaysme Amor d
Aquesto Terra” seems to be by a different
Milan. The others – probably dating from the
early part of his career, though this is only a
guess – are “Billy”, “Daughter of Uncle Sam”,
“Falling Stars”, He’s My Bobo”, “I’m Your Little
Boy”, “It’s My First Date”, “Julianna”,
“Melancolie”, “Miracle”, “Penny”, “Ruby
Begonia”, “Snake Dance”, “St. Mary’s”, “You All
I Want Is You”, and copyrighted arrangements
of two songs in the public domain,
“Greensleeves” and “He’s Got the Whole World
in His Hands”.
However, many of Milan’s songs do not appear
on this list. Just 7 of the 12 songs on the album
I Am What I Am are on the BMI list, and neither
of the songs on Milan’s first single appear. For
the Head Shop, the two songs that Milan co‐
wrote with Max Ellen (under the name Maxim),
“Prophecy” and “Listen with a Third Ear” are on
the list, as is the title song “Head Shop”, but not
“I Feel Love Comin’ On” , “Infinity” or “Heaven
Here We Come”.
COMPILATION ALBUM APPEARANCES
Greg Shaw was the first to reissue Milan’s songs
on compilation albums, when his 1983 release
Pebbles, Volume 11 included three of the
Leather Boy songs: “I’m a Leather Boy”,
“Shadows”, and “You Gotta Have Soul”. When
the Pebbles series was reissued on CD, Pebbles,
Volume 10 was the album that collected Milan
tracks; “I’m a Leather Boy” and “On the Go”
appear on this album, while the former track
also was included on the earlier Pebbles,
Volume 3 CD that was licensed to ESD. Finally,
“Shadows” appears on both of the Pebbles box
sets, Pebbles Box (LPs) and Trash Box (CDs).
Not including the songs on Hell Bent for
Leather, the “Searchin’ for Shakes” database
lists another 10 appearances of Leather Boy
songs plus “One Track Mind” on compilation
albums. In addition, “On the Go” has appeared
on one of the albums in the Wavy Gravy series.
(A reference in a Youtube video of “On the Go”
to Songs the Oblivians Taught Us is apparently
not a real album – see below).
HELL BENT FOR LEATHER
The 2009 compilation album Hell Bent for
Leather collects the lion’s share of the songs
mentioned in this article and ostensibly came
out on a new French label called LS (which
evidently stands for Licorice Schtik). Side A –
the “Leather Boy Side” – are songs that Milan
himself released; while Side B – the “Flower
Child Side” – are by other artists where Milan
was the songwriter, producer, arranger or some
combination of the three (“Head Shop” was co‐
written with Max Ellen).
The album is evidently a bootleg and is certainly
anonymous; the credits on the album include
artwork by Shady Cadillac and layout by Leather
Lotion. It has received glowing reviews from all
quarters, though everyone seems to hate the
front cover, which shows a boy on a motorcycle
with the label for “One Track Mind”
superimposed onto the headlight. My own
opinion is that it looks a lot better on the LP
album cover than in the little pictures on a
computer screen. Someone put up a blog post
claiming that he had gotten a tattoo from the
cover artist.
COVER VERSIONS OF MILAN’S SONGS
Though Milan’s profile in the music work has
been climbing steadily for the past 25 years,
modern bands have been slow to cover his
songs. However, the Oblivians, a Memphis‐
based garage‐punk outfit that was active from
1993 to 1997 included “Motorcycle Leather
Boy” – a loose adaptation of “On the Go” – as
the opening track on Rock ‘n Roll Holiday: Live
in Atlanta. The album documenting this 1994
live show – prior to the release of their debut
album in 1995 – was released in a tiny edition of
just 300 LPs in 1996, but it was reissued on CD
in 2003. A reunion performance by the band in
2009 in Detroit featured this song and is posted
on Youtube.
Also, Larry Coryell is still recording and touring
and recently passed through Florida. His son
Murial Coryell is also a musician, and Milan’s
brother‐in‐law spoke with him recently when he
was playing a gig in Texas. He said that his
father wants to perform “I Feel Love Comin’
On” in his concerts but cannot due to copyright
and trademark problems.
YOUTUBE VIDEOS
Sixties songs have proliferated like weeds on
video outlets like Youtube over the past several
years. In a recent search, I counted four Milan
songs: “One Track Mind”, “On the Go”, “I’m a
Leather Boy”, and “Shadows”; no videos are
attached to any of these songs. However, that
is not the case for the Head Shop songs that are
available on‐line: “Head Shop”, “Heaven Here
We Come”, “Listen with the Third Ear”, and “I
Feel Love Comin’ On”. There are two videos for
“Flowers Flowers” by the Licorice Schtik, one
with vintage video and the other with a sort of
light show. Ice Cream’s “Chewin’ Gum Kid” has
an audio‐only post; and there are many
recordings of “How Many Teardrops” available,
as well as the “B” side of that single “You and I
(Have a Right to Cry)”. Though I saw several
songs by the American Beetles, the Unclaimed,
and the Doughboys, none seemed to involve
the songs that Milan was associated with.
END OF THE MYSTIQUE?
Now that more details about his life and
recordings have come out, does that mean that
there are no other surprises about Milan under
wraps? My answer would be no; I have actually
been told several other fascinating aspects of
his life and career that I have been unable to
verify to date:
Milan was reportedly trained as an attorney
– his father Rasha Rodell was also a lawyer
– and helped write the copyright law for
musicians and their works. This would be
ironic if true, since Milan and his heirs have
not yet collected the royalties on this
records.
Milan clandestinely assisted the Beatles in
writing one of their songs, “I’ll Follow the
Sun”. I would be inclined to think that the
source confused this song with “Follow the
Sun” by the World of Milan, or that they
might have meant the American Beetles,
except that some details came with this
claim: Paul McCartney said in an interview
sometime that “NY Blot” helped the Beatles
write a few of their songs; in actuality, NY
Blot was Milan.
Milan was involved in some way with
recording a song by the Grateful Dead. This
could make Milan unique in the world if he
worked with this band as well as the
Beatles.
EPILOGUE
The career of this prolific and highly versatile
recording industry professional was cut short by
his untimely death at age 29. Milan leaves
behind a legacy of astonishingly diverse
recordings, and there is little doubt that he
would have been able to navigate the musical
trends over the past several decades just as
readily.
If measured by the numbers alone, Milan could
be judged a failure. None of his own records
ever made any of the charts; and the best he
could do with songs that he wrote, arranged
and produced for others was to almost crack
the Top 40 once.
Yet there is more to the world of music than
having a hit record. Consider Deon Jackson,
who hit #11 in 1966 with a delightful R&B song
called “Love Makes the World Go ‘Round”. He
had two follow‐up singles that also made the
charts and played numerous dates in and
around Chicago during the remainder of the
1960s, but he ultimately had to take a job at an
area high school. The #1 song on the Billboard
Hot 100 during the week that “How Many
Teardrops” made #41 on Cash Box was the
Japanese‐language hit “Sukiyaki”. A copy of the
Capitol 45 of this song was available for sale on
eBay in May 2010; with four days to go before
the auction would close, the disk had received
one bid for 49¢.
The fact is, Milan had the goods, and those who
worked with him knew it, so he was able to get
up to bat again and again. Milan recorded more
than 30 songs during his career and probably
assisted in one way or another with that many
songs for other musicians. A dozen or more
major record companies had Milan’s name on
their releases at one time or another, and the
same is true of several other smaller labels.
Milan’s stature in the music industry by the end
of the decade was such that the recording
sessions for The Head Shop could be described
as “leisurely” and as using “free studio time”.
Hopefully Hell Bent for Leather can mark the
beginning of a greater appreciation for this
mysterious figure in the garage rock universe,
even though it is 40 years overdue. There are
undoubtedly other records that can be
unearthed that have Milan’s fingerprints on
them, and these can be added to the
discography that follows.
DISCOGRAPHY
Singles (As a Recording Artist)
Milan with His Orchestra: "Santa's Doin' the Twist" b/w "Swing a Little Longer"; Migon (#1962) – 1962
Milan: "Innocence" b/w "Winter Time"; End (#1123) – 1963
Milan: “I Am What I Am" b/w "Over and Over Again"; 20th Century Fox (#487) – 1964
Milan: "Runnin' Wild" b/w "Angel's Lullaby"; 20th Century Fox (#552) – 1964
The World of Milan: "Cry, Lonely Boy" b/w "Luva‐Luva"; ABC‐Paramount (#10718) – 1965
The World of Milan: "Follow the Sun" b/w "I'm Cryin' in the Rain"; Brunswick (#55292) – 1966
The World of Milan: "One Track Mind" b/w "Shades of Blue"; Brunswick (#55298) – 1966
Milan (The Leather Boy): "You Gotta Have Soul" b/w "My Prayer"; Flower (#100) – 1967
The Leather Boy: "I'm a Leather Boy" b/w "Shadows"; MGM (#K‐13724) – April 1967
The Leather Boy: "On the Go" b/w "Soulin'"; MGM (#K‐13790) – August 1967
The Leather Boy: "Jersey Thursday" b/w "Black Friday"; Parkway (#125) – 1967
Album (As a Recording Artist)
Milan: I Am What I Am; 20th Century Fox (#TFM 3149/#TFS 4149) – 1964
Singles (As a Songwriter, Producer and/or Arranger)
Lou Christie: "How Many Teardrops" b/w "You and I (Have a Right to Cry)"; Roulette (#R‐4504) – 1963
The American Beetles: "Don't Be Unkind" b/w "You Did It To Me"; Roulette (#4550) – 1964
The Chanters: "Bongo Bongo" b/w "Free as a Bird"; MGM (#K13750) – 1967
The Doughboys: "Everybody Knows My Name" b/w "Candy Candy"; Bell (#878) – 1967
The Unclaimed: "Memories of Green Eyes" b/w "Jingle Jangle"; Philips (#30430) – 1967
Ice Cream: "The Chewin' Gum Kid" b/w "Epitaph to Marie"; Capitol (#P‐2321) – 1968
The Licorice Schtik: "The Kissin' Game" b/w "Flowers Flowers"; Dot (#17131) – 1968
The Downtown Collection: "Washington Square" b/w "Sunshine"; Strobe (#351) – 1968
Album (As a Songwriter, Producer and/or Arranger)
The Head Shop: The Head Shop; Epic (#BN 26476) – 1969
Retrospective Album
Milan the Leather Boy: Hell Bent for Leather; LS (#LS‐001LP) – 2009 (vinyl only)