Musicians with Ohio connections

If there are any older SWO posters here, does anyone remember The Madhatters Band from Dayton? When I was a kid some of them used to come to my best friends yearly family reunion, though I’ve never heard them play.
 
I just heard that Johnny Paycheck's son is now recording. I knew young Jon pretty well 18 years ago when he was in the Ohio National Guard. He went on to active duty Army and is now retired and living in Virginia. At the time I knew him he was pretty hostile to his father's legacy and the music industry. He apparently has gotten over that is now performing. I look forward to seeing him perform.

 
Richie Furay, born in Yellow Springs, Ohio may not be a familiar name to many of the younger members on Yappi, but
his influence on the genre of Country Rock is noteworthy. As a founder of the legendary band Buffalo Springfield, along with
Neil Young and Stephen Stills, for what it's worth, (vintage rockers will understand this pun), basically Buffalo Springfield can be
credited with creating Country Rock. For the record Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer were the other two original members.

Jim Fielder, Doug Hastings and Jim Messina joined the band later. Buffalo Springfield only stayed together for a very brief time but the core of the group later emerged into Poco, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the duo of Loggins and Messina.
The forming members of Buffalo Springfield had played as the house band at the famed Whiskey-a-GoGo and toured with the Byrds before releasing their first album in 1967, and by 1968 they had disbanded. So influential was this initial album that it resulted in Buffalo Springfield being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1997. I believe Tom Petty inducted them. An amazing honor considering the group never had an album make the Top 40 chart and only one single make the Top 40 with an entry reaching # 7. Not listing the title of the single, but I did provide a clue in this post. lol.

The influence of Ohio native Richie Furay to Country Rock was continued after Buffalo Springfield when he co-founded Poco with Jim Messina and future Eagle, Randy Meisner and later another future Eagle, Timothy B. Schmit. Richie Furay eventually got into Christian Rock and became a minister in Colorado. By this time The Eagles took Country Rock into new heights. At one time it was thought that Poco would become the big stars in this field, but it was not to be.

As a side note, no one has mentioned the group Brewer and Shipley, one hit wonders and were playing about the same time as some of the groups listed above. This duo took the song " One Toke Over The Line" all the way to # 10 in March of 1971.
Tom Shipley was born in Mineral Ridge, Ohio.
 
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Howard Hewitt Buchtel High School Akron was a member of the group Shalamar (with Jody Whatley) before embarking on a successful solo career. He was also briefly married to actress Nia Peeples




James Ingram East High School Akron



Philip Ingram (brother of James) and Eddie Fluellen of Akron, and Jody Sims of Steubenville combined with 2 men from Grand Rapids MI including Tommy Debarge (older brother to the siblings that started the group Debarge) formed the group Switch


 
Robert 'Kool ' Bell and his brother Ronald Bell- co founders of Kool and the Gang. Although the group as a whole claim New Jersey, the Bells were born in Youngstown
 
Cincinnati:

Marty Balin of Jefferson Starship
Philippe' Whinn of the Spinners
Peter Frampton lived here for a while
 
Richie Furay, born in Yellow Springs, Ohio may not be a familiar name to many of the younger members on Yappi, but
his influence on the genre of Country Rock is noteworthy. As a founder of the legendary band Buffalo Springfield, along with
Neil Young and Stephen Stills, for what it's worth, (vintage rockers will understand this pun), basically Buffalo Springfield can be
credited with creating Country Rock. For the record Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer were the other two original members.

Jim Fielder, Doug Hastings and Jim Messina joined the band later. Buffalo Springfield only stayed together for a very brief time but the core of the group later emerged into Poco, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the duo of Loggins and Messina.
The forming members of Buffalo Springfield had played as the house band at the famed Whiskey-a-GoGo and toured with the Byrds before releasing their first album in 1967, and by 1968 they had disbanded. So influential was this initial album that it resulted in Buffalo Springfield being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1997. I believe Tom Petty inducted them. An amazing honor considering the group never had an album make the Top 40 chart and only one single make the Top 40 with an entry reaching # 7. Not listing the title of the single, but I did provide a clue in this post. lol.

The influence of Ohio native Richie Furay to Country Rock was continued after Buffalo Springfield when he co-founded Poco with Jim Messina and future Eagle, Randy Meisner and later another future Eagle, Timothy B. Schmit. Richie Furay eventually got into Christian Rock and became a minister in Colorado. By this time The Eagles took Country Rock into new heights. At one time it was thought that Poco would become the big stars in this field, but it was not to be.

As a side note, no one has mentioned the group Brewer and Shipley, one hit wonders and were playing about the same time as some of the groups listed above. This duo took the song " One Toke Over The Line" all the way to # 10 in March of 1971.
Tom Shipley was born in Mineral Ridge, Ohio.


I disagree that Buffalo Springfield invented Country Rock. It goes much further back than them.
 
I disagree that Buffalo Springfield invented Country Rock. It goes much further back than them.
They seem to be in the discussion. The term (according to wiki) isn't referring to cross-over artists, which of course go back to the creation of rock. It's refering to:
Country rock is a genre of music which fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal styles, and additional instrumentation

Might be where a person places their semantics?
Country influences can be heard on rock records through the 1960s, including the Beatles' 1964 recordings "I'll Cry Instead", "Baby's in Black", "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", and their 1965 recording "I've Just Seen A Face", the Byrds' 1965 cover version of Porter Wagoner's "Satisfied Mind", or the Rolling Stones "High and Dry" (1966), as well as Buffalo Springfield's "Go and Say Goodbye" (1966) and "Kind Woman" (1968)
 
I disagree that Buffalo Springfield invented Country Rock. It goes much further back than them.
Steel Valley FB:

I have no problem with you taking exception with my post regarding the influence of Buffalo Springfield in creating the genre of Country Rock. It is simply my opinion, which differs from yours. Of course, a case can be made on any music category on exactly when that category originated and what the roots were in creating that genre.

In retrospect I probably could have chosen a better word than Buffalo Springfield "created" Country Rock. I think the term
"ground breaker" would have been a better choice. You mention that Country Rock goes much further back than them.
My opinion was based on books I have read over the years. Here is a sampling below :

Rock Of Ages - author Geoffrey Stokes
" Buffalo Springfield was anything but a one hit wonder. Hugely influential even after their demise, they were probably the
first band to burst from Folk Rock to Country Rock, paving the way for the Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers"

"Buffalo Springfield most obviously in Richie Furay's songs, most tellingly in Neil Young's was perhaps the first committed
rock band to essay a country sound."


The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll
" During it's brief and stormy lifetime the Buffalo Springfield broke ground for what became Country Rock"

Personally, I would also include The Byrds, Poco, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and even consideration for Rick Nelson (don't laugh, check out some of musicians who played in his Stone Canyon Band). Rick Nelson, the teen idol from the 50's and 60's was playing music at the same time as the other bands listed and very similar in his music at that time, plus he was LA based just like all of the bands listed in this post. This group , and yes, there are others who could be considered, set the table for the most successful Country Rock band, both musically and commercially, The Eagles who eventually ruled this genre.

Steel Valley FB: I'm curious to what other groups you were considering on your list as potential
candidates. To keep things in perspective the criteria for a typical choice should be Southern California based
and actively performing in the general time frame of the late 60's or very early 70's. That seems to be the consensus of when the term Country Rock was first coined.

JB
 
Country Rock? It depends on how you define it. Rock 'n' Roll is the child of Country music and the Blues. Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, obviously the Everly Brothers all had Country music in their DNA. What happened in the late 60's was a reaction to the excesses of Acid and Psychodelic Rock. Bands were going back and doing more bare bones music and they revived the use of instruments which had been seen as Country instruments in their music. The Blues had always used Banjos and harmonicas in its music. Blues based bands like CCR and the Stones revived the Delta Blues in many of their songs.

Something new did happen with The Band, Pure Prairie League, the Eagles, and others, but, it was only "new" in the way they embraced and reintroduced "Country Rock".
 
Steel Valley FB:

I have no problem with you taking exception with my post regarding the influence of Buffalo Springfield in creating the genre of Country Rock. It is simply my opinion, which differs from yours. Of course, a case can be made on any music category on exactly when that category originated and what the roots were in creating that genre.

In retrospect I probably could have chosen a better word than Buffalo Springfield "created" Country Rock. I think the term
"ground breaker" would have been a better choice. You mention that Country Rock goes much further back than them.
My opinion was based on books I have read over the years. Here is a sampling below :

Rock Of Ages - author Geoffrey Stokes
" Buffalo Springfield was anything but a one hit wonder. Hugely influential even after their demise, they were probably the
first band to burst from Folk Rock to Country Rock, paving the way for the Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers"

"Buffalo Springfield most obviously in Richie Furay's songs, most tellingly in Neil Young's was perhaps the first committed
rock band to essay a country sound."


The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll
" During it's brief and stormy lifetime the Buffalo Springfield broke ground for what became Country Rock"

Personally, I would also include The Byrds, Poco, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and even consideration for Rick Nelson (don't laugh, check out some of musicians who played in his Stone Canyon Band). Rick Nelson, the teen idol from the 50's and 60's was playing music at the same time as the other bands listed and very similar in his music at that time, plus he was LA based just like all of the bands listed in this post. This group , and yes, there are others who could be considered, set the table for the most successful Country Rock band, both musically and commercially, The Eagles who eventually ruled this genre.

Steel Valley FB: I'm curious to what other groups you were considering on your list as potential
candidates. To keep things in perspective the criteria for a typical choice should be Southern California based
and actively performing in the general time frame of the late 60's or very early 70's. That seems to be the consensus of when the term Country Rock was first coined.

JB


Just as rock ‘n’ roll existed long before Alan freed coined the term, country rock existed long before Buffalo Springfield.

The five main original artists at Sun Records (Presley, Perkins, Lewis, Cash, Orbison) and Sam Phillips were combining rock with country in the mid 50’s and around the same time Chuck Berry brought a recording of the Bob Wills Western Swing song Ida Red to Chess Records and reworked it into a song named Maybeline. Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson were also all mixing country and rock in the 50’s. Rockabilly is literally a combination of rock and country music.

If anything, the music created in Southern CA in the late 60’s and early 70’s should have been called Country Rock 2.0 and could just have easily been called Southern California Rock or Laurel Canyon Rock, but it was more aptly Folk Rock, IMO, but the music media called it Country Rock because of the addition of bluegrass instruments, which all the bands you named added in big part because of the influence of the Dillards who had already taken Bluegrass mainstream in California. Buffalo Springfield’s drummer Dewey Martin was let go from the Dillards and joined Springfield on the recommendation of one of the Dillard brothers. To say Buffalo Springfield invented Country Rock isn’t even a stretch; it’s simply not the truth; regardless of what their music was retrospectively labeled.
 
Just as rock ‘n’ roll existed long before Alan freed coined the term, country rock existed long before Buffalo Springfield.

The five main original artists at Sun Records (Presley, Perkins, Lewis, Cash, Orbison) and Sam Phillips were combining rock with country in the mid 50’s and around the same time Chuck Berry brought a recording of the Bob Wills Western Swing song Ida Red to Chess Records and reworked it into a song named Maybeline. Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson were also all mixing country and rock in the 50’s. Rockabilly is literally a combination of rock and country music.

If anything, the music created in Southern CA in the late 60’s and early 70’s should have been called Country Rock 2.0 and could just have easily been called Southern California Rock or Laurel Canyon Rock, but it was more aptly Folk Rock, IMO, but the music media called it Country Rock because of the addition of bluegrass instruments, which all the bands you named added in big part because of the influence of the Dillards who had already taken Bluegrass mainstream in California. Buffalo Springfield’s drummer Dewey Martin was let go from the Dillards and joined Springfield on the recommendation of one of the Dillard brothers. To say Buffalo Springfield invented Country Rock isn’t even a stretch; it’s simply not the truth; regardless of what their music was retrospectively labeled.
Steel Valley FB:

I never said that Buffalo Springfield "invented" Country Rock. In my original post I said that the group " created" Country Rock but in my second post on this subject I posted, that " the term Ground Breaker would have been a better choice." Yes, I know I'm nitpicking between invent and create.

You say that the music of the late 60's and early 70's should have been called Country Rock 2.0 and could have easily been called Southern California Rock or Laural Canyon Rock but was more aptly Folk Rock. I agree that much of Country Rock emerged from the Folk Rock scene. However, the fact remains that a genre of music sprung out of the late 60's and early 70's in the Southern California area that widely became known as simply Country Rock within the music industry. I get it that you prefer to call that music Country Rock 2.0 and that is your choice to do so.


JB
 
Steel Valley FB:

I never said that Buffalo Springfield "invented" Country Rock. In my original post I said that the group " created" Country Rock but in my second post on this subject I posted, that " the term Ground Breaker would have been a better choice." Yes, I know I'm nitpicking between invent and create.

You say that the music of the late 60's and early 70's should have been called Country Rock 2.0 and could have easily been called Southern California Rock or Laural Canyon Rock but was more aptly Folk Rock. I agree that much of Country Rock emerged from the Folk Rock scene. However, the fact remains that a genre of music sprung out of the late 60's and early 70's in the Southern California area that widely became known as simply Country Rock within the music industry. I get it that you prefer to call that music Country Rock 2.0 and that is your choice to do so.


JB

Please explain how Buffalo Springfield‘s Country Rock music can be groundbreaking if it had already been done before Buffalo Springfield.

For example, the Beatles song “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” from 1964 is in the Country Rock genre.





Heck, the Everly Brothers are listed in Wiki as being in the Country Rock genre from their songs in the late 50’s. The first paragraph reads:

The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everlyand Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, and pop,[1] becoming pioneers of country rock.[2]

Aren’t “pioneers” usually ahead of “groundbreakers”? ;)

 
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