Saturday,
November 24, 2007
"The Rascals", NY
Italian-Americans 60s Rock Group, Sacrificed Careers for Social Justice
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Rascals, a top flight 1960s rock group comprised mostly of Italian-Americans
from the
The
members were .Felix Cavaliere, Drummer
Dino Danelli,
was a musical prodigy who at 15 was playing with jazz legend Lionel
Hampton. and singer-percussionist Eddie Brigati,
when they played in Joey Dee and the Starliters,
one of the first racially integrated acts in rock music. Band leader Joseph DiNicola
(
The Cost of
Freedom: The Rascals' Struggle for Change
In
1967-68, The Rascals were on top of the pop charts. So they decided to use
their power to take a stand on Civil Rights. Thats when the problems
started.
Nothing is
more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people
[African-Americans] are to be free", wrote President Thomas Jefferson in his
1821 autobiography. Yet
The Rascals, a
1960s rock group comprised mostly of Italian-Americans from the
Political
activism by rock musicians was far less accepted in the late 1960s, when The
Rascals decided to make a stand on Civil Rights. It was one thing to sing
protest songs with metaphorical lyrics about racial integration; it was quite
another thing to try and force promoters to integrate audiences and concert
bills. When The Rascals did the latter and issued what guitarist Gene Cornish
calls "an edict" that there be an African-American act on their
concert bills, they caused their career irreparable damage. Most critics point
to the bands dabbling in psychedelic music as the reason for the decline
in their popularity. But their "psychedelic phase" (which lots of
artists went though) actually came before two of their biggest hits, "A Beautiful Morning"
and "People Got to Be
Free". And while the bands involvement in politics wasnt the only reason for its fall from grace, it set the stage for one of the most dramatic
downfalls of any t op-flight rock act.
Collectors Choice
Records recently reissued the six albums The Rascals (also known as The Young
Rascals) recorded for the pioneering R&B label Atlantic Records between
1966 and 1971. Listeners usually pick up on the breezy, good time aspects
of this
Like a lot of
rock musicians who came of age in the 1960s, The Rascals grew up immersed in
the African-American R&B music of the 1950s. But unlike most white
musicians, though, they started their careers playing alongside black
musicians and did so while racial segregation was still at play in the early
1960s. Drummer Dino Danelli was a musical prodigy
who at 15 was playing with jazz legend Lionel Hampton. Felix Cavaliere, meanwhile, cut his musical teeth performing in a
mixed-race teenage band called The Stereos (the
We suffered
mightily for that, without actually knowing it in those days, explains
David Brigati, a member of the Starliters
and brother of Rascal Eddie Brigati, who replaced
David in the Starlighters when David was drafted.
We were ostracized quite a bit for being integrated. The
Some Rascals
members had dealt with prejudice themselves. Cornish grew up in
The Rascals couldnt have known it at the time, but just before
they began their campaign against discrimination on the dance floor, another
musical Italian-American who had experienced prejudice in his childhood was
waging a similar battle: Frank Sinatra. In Marlo
Thomas 2002 tome "The Right Words at the Right Time", producer
Quincy Jones writes that Sinatra "broke down (the tradition of hotel
segregation) almost single handedly. When Count Basie and I played with him at
the Sands in 1964, Frank Sinatra hired seventeen bodyguards to protect us",
writes Jones. "He called for a meeting and said If
anybody even looks at the band funny, break both their legs."
1960s Top 40 disc
jockey Joey Reynolds, who is credited with "breaking" the
Rascals first major hit, "Good Lovin",
notes that half a century ago, Italian-Americans were considered a minority
and felt a kinship with African-Americans. "Italians organized and
black people werent organized yet, but they
began to with The Black Panthers", says Reynolds, who is an
Italian-American and now hosts a syndicated overnight talk show that
originates from
By 1965, Cornish,
Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati
had quit Joey Dees band "for financial reasons"Cornish
says. Convening in a rehearsal space on Manhattans 54th Street, the trio
hooked up with Danelli (who had already played with Cavaliere) and spent their first hours together bashing out
25 songs, which Cornish says was "unheard of. I came back that night after
the rehearsal with a smile on my face that I still have to this day."
A seed for the bands
name was planted when Eddie Brigati showed up at a
rehearsal wearing a pair of 1920s-styled knickers picked from hundreds he had
bought on deep discount on the Bowery, Cornish says. The band wore these
knickers, along with Little Lord Fauntleroy shirts as a publicity gimmick to
cash in on the popularity of British Invasion bands. Danelli
then caught an episode of the old television show The Little Rascals"
and persuaded the others to use the name, which seemed to fit the clothes.
Cornish says this came about after the band learned
Cornishs original name for the group, Them, had been taken by Van
Morrison.
The group earned
its reputation as a hot live act in the
The groups debut record was a mid-charting, punky
number called "I Aint Gonna
Eat Out My Heart Anymore", penned by an outside writing
team and sung by Eddie Brigati. After the disc was
released, the group found the word "Young" was added to their
moniker. A group called The Harmonica Rascals had threatened to take legal
action.
We had a fit
because the word Young was contradictory to our R&B
attitude", Cornish says. "We were elitist on our minds. We knew we
played better than the other bands. We were hot. The only other band that could
play like us was "The Band " themselves. The
Band at the time were just starting to play with Bob
Dylan. Before that, they were in the same circle we were. They were a white
R&B band; we were products of that environment."
With a name that
now sounded a lot like the childrens TV show that inspired it in the first
place, The Young Rascals released their second single, Good Lovin. It was a cover version of a song by the
R&B band The Olympics who had taken it to Number 81 on the pop charts in
May 1965. The Rascals Cavaliere-sung rendition
hit Number One on the pop charts April 30, 1966, knocking The Righteous
Brothers out of the top spot. Both groups would come to be known as
blue-eyed soul, an appellation than connoted white folks who could
sing black music authentically, without the pop inflections some British groups
brought to the genre.
Like the Rolling
Stones and The Moody Blues, both of whom first made a splash in the
(R&B)
was our style", Cavaliere explains. "And I
equate it to an accent, like I have an East Coast New York accent. So when I
say something, fortunately or unfortunately, it comes out with that type of
vernacular. Thats the same thing that happened with the
music. When we did a song, even if it was an English song, it came out
like R&B even though that wasnt what we were
trying to do"
The groups
self-production sometimes made for shaky results, such as the poorly arranged "You Better Run",
an otherwise driving number that stalled at Number 20 in April 1966 (Pat Benatar arguably cut a hotter version in 1980). Conversely,
The Rascals follow-up single, "Come On Up", was
sharply performed, but not single material. But a roll call of hits then
followed: "Ive Been Lonely Too Long", "Groovin" (their second Number
One), "A Girl Like
You", -"How
Can I Be Sure" -Its
Wonderfull",-
"A Beautiful
Morning". Cavaliere and Brigati penned most of the biggest hits making them one of
the most successful writing teams of the era. Their first four albums all
charted in the Top 20. In 1968, Booker T and the MGs scored a hit with
an instrumental cover of "Groovin" bolstering the
bands R&B credibility. The Rascals broke attendance records at the
And then they
made like Brian Wilson during the Pet
Sounds era and decided to
mess with a proven formula. In
One time
some Southern reporter asked us Is it true you
dont play unless half the audience is black?" Brigati told WFMU radio host Glen Jones in 2002.
"We told him we dont play to segregated audiences. In
We wouldnt do (that) in my home and I wouldnt
bring it on stage", Brigati continued. "Our
home was open to everyone. We were taught, that there were (good) human beings
from every culture, and then there were evil people of every culture."
Overt politics
entered the bands music with their 1968 single "People Got to Be Free",
written by Cavaliere and Brigati
as a response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The record
proved to be their biggest hit, topping the charts for five weeks in the summer
of 1968. According to Cavaliere,
Meanwhile back on
the concert front, The Rascals had played a gig with an R&B group called
the Young-Holt Trio, which would go on to have a hit with the
instrumental "Soulful
Strut" as Young-Holt Unlimited. Cavaliere
says the Trio spoke to him after the concert, voiced appreciation for being on
The Rascals bill and added that they "dont get a chance to play for
white people". Cavaliere says: "It dawned
on me, Why not really try and contribute to this Civil Rights situation
by having a white and black act wherever we go? You know, I was so naove. Little did I know what I was saying was gonna be very disruptive to the prejudicial state of the
Both Cavaliere and Cornish separately say that when the band
talked about this policy, the controversy it sparked was similar to when Beatle
John Lennon made his infamous "were bigger than Jesus" remark.
"It caused a lot of difficulty", Cavaliere
remembers. "Of course, being as stubborn as I am, that made it worse. It
hurt us in a lot of ways in terms of revenue. But youve
got to draw a line in the sand and say this is where were coming from.
There were some real exciting times down in the South."
What the group
also couldnt have anticipated was that shortly
after audiences were allowed to integrate racially in concert halls (or perhaps
because of integration?), black and white listeners began to listen to music
that was split more along racial lines. Rock audiences favored guitars while black
audiences moved into funk and disco. By 1979, some white rockers had become
so hostile to disco that a mass burning of disco records drew an estimated
90,000 people to
When the Clash
and Rolling Stones had black opening acts in 1981, those artists were booed.
Who were the offending black acts? They were, respectively, Grandmaster Flash
and the Furious Five and Prince. The Rascals played blue-eyed soul, not
heavy rock, and when they aligned themselves with R&B concert audiences;
they unwittingly alienated some of their rock base. This drifting apart
would come to haunt the band when they attempted to move into the then-new
genre of "album rock" in 1969.
On June 5, 1968,
just as "People Got to
Be Free" was climbing the charts, Senator Robert F.
Kennedy was assassinated. The tragedy hit Cavaliere
hard. Heavily involved in leftist politics at the time, he had several friends
involved with the campaign who witnessed the shooting. The event inspired the
bands much anticipated follow up single to People Got to Be
Free, "A Ray of
Hope", released in Nov. 1968. The song was written for the
youngest Kennedy brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, who they considered a beacon
of hope in one of
A Ray of
Hope" is arguably The Rascals most deeply
moving single.
It begins with an Impressions-inspired horn line that sounds like a call to
arms, then moves into a chorus that makes good on the introductory fanfare:
"As long as there is a ray of hope/Lord, I dont mind going out and
doing my work" . On the verses, Cavaliere sings about putting an end to "hate and
lies" and praying for "a day when all men are free". The message
is as overt as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", which was tagged
onto the songs coda out of sincerity, not silliness Cavaliere
points out. A lot of work clearly went into the politically charged, artfully
wrought effort. In the 1960s bands lived and died by their last single, so
when "A Ray of Hope reached only Number 24, trouble began to brew.
Thus began The Rascals fall from grace.
Did "A Ray
of Hope" die on the charts because The
Rascals had gone too far with politics? Or did its musical complexity throw off
casual listeners? Were disc jockeys now cool on the band because they were
upsetting promoters and singing about racial injustice? Cornish says "we stopped making hit records". But bands
dont make "hit" records, its disc jockeys, record company
promo people, and listeners that do. Witness the commercial
"failure" of The Beach Boys Pet Sounds. Cavaliere
says it was the politics.
We stood in
support of Robert Kennedy and we were really trying to get him elected", Cavaliere explains, talking about the song. "When (the
assassination) happened, I was committed to what was going on. I actually
thought we could make a difference. I thought, Look were a rock and
roll band, weve got a certain amount of clout
and we might as well tell the audience what we think. I really thought
that this is what God intended us to do. Kind of like
spread the word."
Cornish notes
that the rock audience was changing at that time, and cites the bands
failure to play the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock (which would not
happen until months later) as one reason their audience abandoned them.
Still, he agrees the bands fortunes declined because "we got carried
away with the politics". As an example, he mentions that long before
protests against
If the lack of
acceptance of "A Ray of
Hope" threw the bands confidence, the near-total
failure of the next single, the would-be Civil Rights anthem "Heaven" , in February 1969, sent
panic throughout The Rascals camp. Around the same time, their
ambitious double album Freedom
Suite,
became their lowest-charting LP effort to date, hitting only Number 17
(although, to be fair, two-disc albums usually chart lower than single ones and
this one contained an instrumental second disc).
Heaven" was the first single
since "Come on Up"
written by Cavaliere alone, and its sole authorship
credit signaled there were problems afoot. David Brigati
says his brother and Cavaliere stopped writing
together because Eddies lyrics were rejected. Cavaliere
says both Brigatis "stopped showing up for work" Cornish says the pair had disagreements about
"getting work done on time". Cornish explains that the bands
failing stock possessed Cavaliere to take control of
things in much the same way as
In taking
control, though, Cavaliere the keyboardist
alienated the other band members. "Felix was busting his ass to try
and keep the level up", Cornish says. "The ship was sinking and I
think thats what started Felix trying to control it. The more he tried it,
the more it wasnt working. All of a sudden
people were pulling back." Eddie Brigati has
said he didnt feel invited into the artistic
process at that point, a feeling confirmed by David Brigati.
The unyielding spirit of the group is what allowed them to fight against
injustice in the outside world. But when the outside world proved hostile to
their progressive ideas, the group members
intractable natures proved a liability when used against each other.
Cavalieres bid to recast the
group as an album rock act was the strained 1969 album "See" LP became
the bands first not to make the Top 40. Eddie Brigatis
rock-oriented voice gave the band its last Top 40 hit in the gospel-flavored
"Carry Me Back". Brigati quit in 1970, the
day the band signed a new contract with Columbia Records. Ironically, it was
the high-pitched, wailing vocal style he used on "Carry Me Back" that would
become in vogue in the 1970s. Cornish left during the making of the first
Brigati reunited with Cavaliere on a track from the latters 1980 solo album Castles in the Air,
but they became estranged again because of a dispute over royalties. The
four original Rascals played together for the only time since their dissolution
when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Brigati says hes accumulated "years of
recordings" and is looking for an outlet through which to release them. He
rarely performs. Cornish and Danelli tour with an
edition of the band called The New Rascals. Cavaliere
tours with his own group called Felix Cavalieres Rascals. Danelli didnt return phone calls for
this interview. Eddie Brigati spoke casually to this
writer but was busy caring for an ailing parent and unable to give a full
interview.
Cavaliere admits The Rascals
take on race relations was rooted in idealism. These days, it seems almost a
prerequisite for pop stars to take up some cause or other. But as the Dixie
Chicks learned, speaking out against the status quo can still have unintended
negative consequences. Even as big an artist as John Lennon saw his solo career
flounder because audiences in the pre-Bono era werent
used to outspoken artists. These days, mixed-race audiences (as theyre
called now) are second nature to pop audiences raised on MTV. While the
music channel clearly had its flaws, its largely responsible for
bringing black music to white listeners when it started programming rap and
R&B videos in the mid 1980s. The Rascals push to integrate audiences
probably now seems like a quaint notion to the legions of white kids raised on
rap music, or, for that matter, such mixed-race acts as The Black Eyed Peas or
TV on the Radio.
Four decades
on, Cavaliere says his political views havent
changed at all. Cornish says he believes what The
Rascals stood for was not only important, it was far more significant than what
other acts at the time were doing.
This whole
Summer of Love (40th anniversary) thing is full of shit. Please quote me on
that", Cornish states emphatically. "All anyone talks about is LSD
and all that. But there were important things going on.
More than that
bullshit Summer of Love thing was our attitude towards Civil Rights. We were
doing positive things".
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