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| From | "Chuck Limmer" <climmer@cox.net> |
| Subject | Re: The Candymen |
| Date | Fri, 16 Apr 2004 14:06:19 -0700 |
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Tim Boykin wrote:
>>I believe that a couple of these guys were from north Alabama, and legend has it that they were Roy Orbison's backing band (the name "Candymen" taken
from Roy's awesome incredible single "Candy man"). Many musicians in my area of the 60s generation are prone to get big-eyed and opine about the Candymen's prowess as a live band - "nobody could touch 'em..." Enough people have told me the same story now that I believe it. They were apparently a truly dangerous live band.
I've got some of their stuff... I haven't had a chance to really delve deeply into it yet, but what I've heard so far is pretty interesting. There's definitely a sort of off-kilter psychedelic jug band vibe on some of this stuff, a bit of Loving Spoonful and Beatles but also with some Scott Walker baritone weirdness. I would say definitely worthy of checking out for any 60s pop fanatics.<<
Timmeh:
This is what the late Lillian Roxon had to say about the Candymen--John Adkins/guitar, Rodney Justo/lead vocals, Dean Daughtry/keyboards, Billy Gilmore/bass, and Bob Nix/drums--in her classic _Rock Encyclopedia_ (1969, Grosset & Dunlap):
"The Candymen are a southern white group who specialize in extraordinary live reproduction of complex Beatle and Beach Boy material. Their ability to duplicate *in person* the recordings of such tributes to modern engineering as 'Good Vibrations'... and 'Day In The Life'... gave them quite a following when they first appeared in New York in the summer of 1967. (Before that they had spent several years touring around the world as Roy Orbison's backup group.) In spite of their good honest country-rock sound, well larded with Alabama soul, they have yet to come up with a substantial hit. Unfortunately, the group's *original* material was not quite up to those uncanny duplications of other people's electronic wizardries."
Apparently, these guys were really something remarkable, as long as they stuck to live performances of material by Orbison, Brian Wilson, and/or Lennon & McCartney. On record, playing their own stuff, not so much.
Chuck Limmer
n.p. "God Only Knows," Jonatha Brooke, BACK IN THE CIRCUS (Speaking of great Brian Wilson covers... )
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