Here are some cool emails I've gotten from visitors:


.Saturday 19 April 2003

Richard

Great website! There was a band called Milkwood that played at the festival as well, which is not listed. I tried to leave a messsage on your guestbook but couldn't for some reason. Here are details of the group:

Mary Lou Gauthier - vocals
Malcolm Tomlinson - guitar/vocals/flute
Louis McKelvey - guitar/vocals
Jack Geisinger - bass/vocals
Ronnie Frankel - drums

The group recorded an unreleased album for Polydor Records, produced by Jerry Ragavoy in summer 1969. The band was anglo-Canadian.

Gauthier, Frankel and Geisinger were from the Montreal scene. Gauthier and Frankel had previously played in a lounge band called Five of a Kind and worked with King Curtis I believe. Geisinger had worked with Frankel before that in the Soul Mates (and earlier still Bob & The Messengers), before joining Influence in late 1966/early 1967 with Louis McKelvey. He left that band in mid-1969 to join Milkwood when the original bass player Ronnie Blackwell left to become a Hare Krishna.

Irishman McKelvey and Englishman Tomlinson had met as members of Jeff Curtis & The Flames, the house band at the famous Ealing Club in West London in the early '60s where The Stones started out. They did a demo with Joe Meek.

Tomlinson left this band in 1964 to tour with James Deane & The London Cats before joining a band called The Noblemen in early 1966. The Noblemen were the house band at the famous Piper Club in Rome for six months and the returned to England to support visiting soul acts like Lee Dorsey, The Vibrations, Ben E King, Ike & Tina Turner. Martin Barre (later of Jethro Tull) was the sax player. In early 1967, they changed name to The Motivation. Later that year, with various personnel changes, the group changed name to The Penny Peeps and issued two singles for Liberty Records, including the excellent Model Village. In mid-1968 they changed name to Gethsemane and ploughed the blues route. The band split in December 1968 when Barre joined Jethro Tull. Tomlinson then moved to Canada with McKelvey who had returned to England in mid-1968 after leaving Influence.

McKelvey stayed with The Flames when Tomlinson joined The London Cats, but quit in summer of 1965 to travel to South Africa. There he recorded with The Upsetters and A-Cads before returning to London briefly. He then moved to Montreal in late 1966 and joined Our Generation (one single) before forming Influence with Geisinger. Did a great album in New York for ABC.

Hope that helps.

Let me know if you need more information

Nick

back

Richard Maxwell

Copyright2000/2001©Richard Maxwell