How many of you remember Jackie DeShannon singing Top 10 hits “What the World Needs Now is Love” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart?” Did you know she was from Batavia, Illinois?
Born Sharon Lee Myers (8/21/44), her family originally lived on a farm in Kentucky. By age six, she was already singing country tunes on a local radio station there. As her mother was originally from Aurora, the family relocated to the western suburbs, moving to Batavia in 1953. Just in eighth grade, Myers hosted her own Saturday morning radio show “Breakfast Melodies” on WMRO in Aurora. On Saturday nights she performed as a vocalist with Don Lee and his Fox Valley Boys square dance band. And made numerous guest appearances on local TV shows including Pee Wee King’s popular “Country and Western Television Show” on Chicago’s CBS-affiliate channel 2.
She attended Batavia High School for two years from 1955-57, but dropped out to pursue a musical career.
As a 16-year-old, Myers first commercial recording was on the Hammond, Indiana-based Mar-Vel label where she was billed as Sherry Lee. Owned by long-time record entrepreneur Harry Glenn, while the label served as an outlet for Myers, it was not a label that would launch a career. Glenn had an unorthodox method of promotion, “personally promoting his releases in a carnival-like manner,” it was noted in bopping.com, “loading his car up with records and traveling from town to town with his set of loudspeakers trying to persuade all those who would listen that his recordings were a must.”
For this first single, Glenn partnered Myers with country singer Shorty Ashford on “I’m Crazy Darling” with the B-side “Baby Honey” (Mar-Vel 903) being her first solo credited side as Sherry Lee, the label noting her as “Miss Country Music.” Take a listen to her first record “Baby Honey” https://youtu.be/NEiaVdjMl9U.
In her early years, the small independent record labels didn’t seem to like her real name, appearing on various releases as Sherry Lee, Jackie Dee and Sharon Lee before finally settling on the stage name she is best known as — Jackie DeShannon.
Her next single “How Wrong I Was” came out on the Gone label, this time as Jackie Dee. By now, there was enough interest in Jackie that Liberty Records sent her to Nashville where she stepped more into a rockabilly style with a tribute to Buddy Holly, titled simply “Buddy.” And while the record proved she was a rocker on par with the likes of Wanda Jackson and Brenda Lee, it was an era where female vocalists were receiving very little airplay from radio programmers.
Yet, the small independent labels still putting out singles by Jackie continued changing her name. Next, she was called Sharon Lee, releasing a single “Kissing Game” b/w “No Deposit No Return” for the Excellent label.
In 1959, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Fraternity Records called her Jackie Shannon. There, she was teamed with Rusty York and the Cajuns. As both Jackie and Rusty were originally from southern Kentucky, there was a familiar vibe to working together. The single “Just Another Lie” came out in the beginning of 1959 billed as Jackie DeShannon and the Cajuns. However, she only appeared on the A-side, the flip being the instrumental “Cajun Blues” by The Cajuns. That record then was licensed to the Sage label, and then to Dot, which released it in April of that year.
York recalled that time when Jackie was touring with his group. “Man, that girl could sing,” he said in an interview in the book We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement. “We’d travel around to these little record hops and dance programs, and she would say she wanted to be a big-name singer,” the book noting she was “still a brunette and decked out in fitted shiny gold slacks, the teenager proved a popular regional attraction.”
One more single came out under the moniker Jackie Shannon, “Lies” b/w “Trouble” on the P.J. label, a small outfit that only issued two singles, one by Jackie and one by York. That single was then licensed to Dot, and re-issued the following year on the Sand label.
After a show in Chicago, Jackie met rockabilly star Eddie Cochran who gave her some advice that changed her life. “He was very encouraging,” she recalled in Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music. “He said, “If you really want to get somewhere, you’ve got to come to California.” And that she did. The connection with Cochran also led to an introduction to his girlfriend, songwriter Sharon Sheeley. That resulted in Jackie and Sheeley forming a songwriting team penning songs for the likes of Brenda Lee, Irma Thomas and The Byrds. She would later go on to enjoy a brief songwriting partnership with Jimmy Page, as well as writing hits like “Come and Stay With Me” for Marianne Faithful, the Kim Carnes’ hit “Betty Davis Eyes” earning her a Grammy in 1982 for Song of the Year.
Connecting with the Edison International label, she finally became Jackie DeShannon. In a 2003 interview, Jackie recalled, “In the beginning when I was making records, radio stations were not playing records by girls. It was suggested I choose a name that could be a boy or a girl. So there you have it.” She became Jackie DeShannon. She recorded two singles for this label.
And at long last, Jackie signed a major label deal with Liberty/Imperial, enjoying a long and successful relationship with the label. Her first single “Lonely Girl” hit the U.S. charts. And her big breaks came in 1964, when she opened a U.S. tour for The Beatles and co-starred in the teen movie Surf Party.
From there her releases kept climbing up the charts, her most popular years 1965-69, with records in the Top 100 surveys through 1980.
One day Jeff Massey saw a cargo ship docked at a port on Lake Michigan. The ships name – Steepwater. It became the moniker for the band. Over the span of their 25-year career they’ve released a dozen album and you’ve heard their music on television (Friday Night Lights, NCIS, Better Call Saul, My Name is Earl), movies (Invincible, One for the Money), commercials (Nissan) and even on Chicago Cubs baseball broadcasts. Yet still, most will say, “who is Steepwater?”
While the band feels you should already know their songs, they know you really don’t. The band realizes that. Now, more than 25 years later, they continue to make their case. They’re not out to necessarily headline arenas and have their name lit up on marquees. They continue to move forward, in their words, “because we must.”
As noted on their website, “Something primal lurks in their music, but always wrestling with emotions and stories that are everyday-ready music at once strut-inducing sexy and brass knuckles honest; a sound evolved smartly through countless gigs, running the bulls wherever and wherever they’ve been welcomed since 1998.”
Guitarist Jeff Massey cut his teeth on classic rock, but then began going to blues clubs regularly and jam nights around the Chicago area. When Massey, along with bandmates bassist Tod Bowers and Joe Winters met, they formed a blues ensemble titled The Big Skinny Blues Band. The band lasted for about a year, as the keyboardist/singer left the group. The remaining trio decided that they had some good material, and wanted to continue playing.
Steepwater started out as a trio, fronted by Jeff Massey on guitar and lead vocals with Tod Bowers on bass and Joe Winters on drums. Like so many other bands, they would start out playing their own versions of classic Chicago-style electric blues playing inner city clubs such as Phyllis’ Musical Inn and the Double Door.
It wasn’t long before they started writing their own material and met singer-songwriter Michael Connelly, who collaborated with them on their debut five-song EP Goin’ Back Home. Steepwater would return the favor playing on Connelly’s project Bottles of Wine (Evangeline). Connelly would end up joining the band.
The band would be introduced to the Chicago blues community in 2000 as they opened the Chicago Blues Festival. Their popularity and notoriety would gain traction, and in 2001 would ink a recording/management/publishing deal with Funzalo Records and serve up their first full-length album Brother to the Snake as well as a live-in-the-studio project Live…Half in the Bag. In 2004, Funzalo would release their next album Dharmakaya, but a few months afterward, Connelly departed and the band’s relationship with Funzalo came to an end.
All through that period, Steepwater would return year-after-year to perform at the annual Chicago Blues Fest. By 2005 they would move up to a headlining slot. And over the next few years would be touring the country as part of various festivals aside the likes of Bad Company, ZZ Top and Govt. Mule to name a few. Becoming more worldly renowned, from 2006 onward their itinerary found them on tours of Europe as well as classic rock cruises in the Caribbean.
Steepwater truly cemented their musical stature in the industry starting in 2004 when Disney picked the track “Black Cat’s Path” from their album Dharmakaya as part of the soundtrack to the film Invincible and used in a Nissan commercial for their Titan pickup truck and “Dead Horse” from the same album used on the TV show My Name is Earl.
Additional placements of their music in film and television continued. In 2007, the television program Friday Night Lights used their song “Revelation Sunday” during a football game sequence. In 2010 the television series Deadliest Catch would include “Another Cold Letdown.” And that same year you would hear Steepwater on Chicago Cubs baseball broadcasts with “The Stars Look Good Tonight.” Other placements would follow on the CBS, CW, PBS, NBS and Discovery networks, among others.
In 2012, the track “Collision” was pulled from their 2006 album Revelation Sunday and included in the motion picture One forthe Money.
It was also the year the band would expand, adding form Healing Sixes guitarist Eric Saylors to the fold.
Steepwater would release the 12th album Shake Your Faith in 2016. Critic Dennis Cook noted how the band’s sound had matured and solidified over nearly 20 years together, calling the album, “a stomping, seductive cry that real rock ‘n’ roll is alive and well in a band with the swagger, justified confidence, and badass tunes of a modern classic, a collection with all the heart and hips of 70s Stones and serious competition to contemporaries like The Black Keys, Ben Harper, and Jack White.”
And the band played on. In 2019, original bass player Tod Bowers would step out, still keeping his fingers in the music business producing the “Rock n roll Stew” radio program www.mixcloud.com/tod-michael-bowers. Joe Bishop has taken over the bass role.
The music and longevity of Steepwater is best described by critic Dennis Cook, “The abiding, resounding passion inside the band is never in question. Dive into their seemingly endless catalog of song just about anywhere, and the heart and muscle pumping array inside every track are palpable and present in a most pleasing way. Their sound is like a soundtrack for arm wrestling The Devil and then drinking shots with him ‘til sunrise after you’ve pinned him down. Their songs bridge the miles between lovers, throw lines to brothers and sisters in need of some understanding and a spark that makes them shuffle, eyes closed, shaking off the day’s heavy load, ready for another round because the right sound by the right band made them feel they had enough fight left in them. That’s the kind of band you’re dealing with here, and they’ll be doing this long after all the pretty boys, package acts and pretenders have left the stage.”
As a matter of fact, they’ve been doing it all summer and will be back in the area August 24 at Bulldog Park in Crown Point, Indiana; September 15 at the Lakeview East Festival of the Arts in Chicago; and September 28 at the Ignition Music Garage in Goshen, Indiana. To keep in touch with what they’re doing check out www.steepwater.com or www.facebook.com/thesteepwaterband.
Discography
1999 Going Back Home (SWB Music)
Their debut Going Back Home was a five-song EP mixing the classic blues of Muddy Waters and Elmore James with originals “Goin’ Back Home” and “House Burnin’.”
2001 Brother to the Snake (Funzalo GELM 4091)
2001 Live….Half in the Bag (Evangeline) UK
2004 Dharmakaya (Funzaol FNZ 90001)
2006 Revelation Sunday (Diamond Day DDR 1318)
2007 Songs from the 8th Day (Diamond Day
2008 Grace and Melody (Diamond Day DDR 2585)
2010 Live at the Double Door (Diamond Day DDR 7775)
2010 The Stars Look Good Tonight (Diamond Day DDR 3723) CD single
2011 Clava (Diamond Day DDR 7126)
2013 Wake Up and Walk Away b/w Memo from Turner (Diamond Day DDR 2422) 7” single
2013 Live & Humble (Diamond Day DDR 3165)
April 20, 2013 at The Ace Bar in Chicago
2014 Diamond Days – The Best of the Steepwater Band 2006-2014 (Diamond Day )
2016 Shake Your Faith (Diamond Day DDR 8181)
2020 Turn of the Wheel (Diamond Day 7985760016896)
50 years ago guitarist/vocalist George Milspaugh, guitarist Dan Hurc, bass player Mickey Gentile and drummer Dean Aliotta got together to play at a Halloween barn party in rural Waterman, Illinois back in 1974. That was the birth of Pearl Handle. After honing their chops at colleges and in clubs for a few years, they headed to Nashville to record an album. But before it could get released, the label and studio went out of business. A few years later, to everyone in the band’s surprise, while a friend was thumbing through cassette tapes at a truck stop, what did he find? A Pearl Handle tape! How did this happen?
Emerging in the ‘70s, Pearl Handle set themselves apart from most of the other club bands who were trying to be the next rock stars with their Southern rock/outlaw country influences that proved popular. Dressed in blue jeans and cowboy boots, and George in his wide-brimmed western hat, you’d think they were from Texas, not Chicago.
Milspaugh started gigging in bands back in high school. He sowed his roots in the Kiwis, Captain Soul and Cox’s Army. Hurc and Aliotta, had already teamed in Hoona with Dean’s brother Ted. Gentile had just returned home after his college years at Southern Illinois University. Hurc, who had started out on bass, had moved over to guitar giving Pearl Handle dual guitar lead capabilities, especially important when they covered the Southern rock sounds of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
On stage, Milspaugh fronted the band. His large physical presence with a gruff appearance while swigging down some Jack Daniels reminiscent of a roadhouse rowdy, he had a personality that you would never want to get into a bar fight with him, but if you were with someone else, he would be the first to back you up. His piercing, vibrato-soaked, in your face vocals; dynamic slide guitar chops and limber, high-kicking stage antics were the driving force of the band.
After six years sharpening their stage presence opening for Journey and Van Halen and building a repertoire of original material, it was time to head into the studio and cut an album.
“We got an offer from Sunbird Records,” remembers Milspaugh in an interview with Sweet Home Music. “We sent them a demo of our songs and that’s what started the whole session.”
They would head to Nashville. Working with producer Nelson Larkin of Sunbird Records, and famed country studio engineer Ron “Snake” Reynolds, they were armed with a set of originals along with a couple of songs offered up by their producer. The tracks were cut, mostly one-take sessions. They didn’t get finished before the band had to head back on the road.
“We were told we would return to finish everything in a couple weeks,” according to Milspaugh. But then, “We never heard from the studio after we returned to Chicago,” only to find out Sunbird went out of business and the band was not able to recover the tapes.
“We never heard another thing about those recordings until three or four years later. A friend of mine had called and he had just returned from a trip to Nashville. He told me he was in a record store checking out cassettes in the bargain bin, and he saw the Pearl Handle ‘Brylen’ tape.”
No one in the band had any idea. Apparently, Brylen Records, a small independent Nashville label, had gained access to the Sunbird tapes and released a seven-song album Pearl Handle (Brylen 4420) in 1982 (That “bootlegged” album now fetches $60+ in collector circles).
The trail for the Pearl Handle band seemed to end there. Disappointed after the loss of their record, and the band worn down from the years on the road, it was time to take a break.
Milspaugh would just take a break, working jobs as a bouncer and bartender at Lincoln Avenue bars. Gentile and Hurc continued on as the rhythm section for Dirt’s Raiders, a post-Boyzz band formed by their frontman ‘Dirty’ Dan Buck. They would get a demo deal offer from Atlantic Records, but that deal would also fizzle out.
None of those were full-time jobs. Mickey Gentile had taken a day job with Warner-Elektra-Atlantic where he would hold down a marketing position. Ironically, Sunbird studio producer Nelson Larkin had been named President of WEA Nashville in charge of the Atlantic Records’ country catalog. Gentile bumped into him at a company convention and inquired about the Pearl Handle tapes. No resolved was reached in that conversation, but mysteriously a while later, the original Pearl Handle tapes were delivered to Gentile’s doorstep.
Gentile sat on those tapes, not really knowing what to do with them. Then another part of Pearl Handle’s past came to light. Pre-Pearl Handle Milspaugh had been in Cox’s Army. They had released a single in 1971 on the local Chaparral label. In recent years, that record has been fetching upwards of $100 in record collector circles.
That caught the attention of Riding Easy Records, a boutique label that specializes in the reissuance of retro material. Interested in Pearl Handle, Gentile and Hurc pulled the tapes out and had them remastered. While the “bootleg” Brylen album contained seven songs, the Riding Easy release includes all 12 songs the band recorded. The purpose of releasing the album now is for the preservation of the legacy of Pearl Handle as well as to pay an homage to Milspaugh who passed away in November. The album is now available via various streaming outlets https://ridingeasy.ffm.to/pearlhandle with physical copies (CDs/LPs) due sometime this summer.
Father Robert Owen became known as “The Night Pastor,” revered for his support “to the musicians, bartenders, waiters, waitresses, singers, dancers and other who work or play in the Rush Street-Old Town areas of Chicago during the late evenings hours,” in the mid-‘60s. A piano player himself, Father Owen understood the many problems of the night people who did much of their work while the rest of the world played or slept.
Established in 1964 as part of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Father Owen established himself to serve the Lord, preaching into the night ministering those “Night People.”
The Night Pastor program began because of Owen’s love of jazz: his friendships and collaborations with many of the musicians who played along Chicago’s Rush Street led him to suggest the idea. “When we stopped playing, the musicians would start telling me their troubles,” he told a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1965. “I began to see there was a real need for a ministry to the night people.”
His office at 30 E. Oak was in the Rush Street area above a hamburger stand at Rush and Oak, said to have been well trafficked by those seeking counsel long past business hours. The Dekalb Daily Chronicle noted, “Chicago Night Pastor Believes God Doesn’t Go to Bed at 10.” Wearing his clerical collar, Owen walked along dark sidewalks and dipped into bars to minister to people late into the night.
Just as important to the Chicago music scene, “Father Owen will fight rather than surrender to the idea that Chicago-style jazz is dead,” band leader Dave Remington wrote on the liner notes to the album The Night Pastor and Seven Friends Play Chicago Jazz. The album served a twofold purpose. One, as a fundraiser to support his work. And two, to highlight the sound of Chicago-style Dixieland jazz.
For the album, the seven friends were a who’s who of the Chicago jazz scene in the mid-‘60s led by trombonist Dave Remington along with Norman Murphy (trumpet), Andy Johnson (piano), Johnny Porrazzo (guitar, banjo), Joe Levinson (fiddle) Jerry Fuller (clarinet, saxophone) and Bob Cousins (drums) serving up a rambunctious, uptempo Dixieland jazz.
Two years later, the group would return to the studio to further support Father Owen’s ministry with Music to Lure Pigeons By.
His work was documented in a book titled Night Pastor (Greywood Publishing) by Brian Shaw published in 1968.
Father Owen continued his work up until his passing in 1970, having suffered a stroke at the age of 46. His work was continued by others into the mid-‘70s.
Discography
1965 The Night Pastor and Seven Friends – Play Chicago Jazz (Claremont 7098/7099)
1967 The Night Pastor – Music to Lure Pigeons By (Claremont 672)
Ray Manzarek has been proclaimed to be the “architect of The Doors’ intoxicating sound.” Teamed with the iconic frontman Jim Morrison, guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore; The Doors were certainly one of the quintessential rock bands of the late 60s. For Manzarek, it all began in Chicago. Manzarek was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, attending Everett Elementary School (3419 S. Bell) and St. Rita High School (63rd and Claremont). The famed keyboardist initially struggled with piano lessons until he began studying with dance band leader Bruno Michelotti. “He taught me virtually everything I know,” Manzarek said in an interview. “Boogie-woogie is what hooked me. That rolling snake beat in the left hand. That repetitive mantra of hip-swaying rhythm.” The lessons, along with the blues he heard on Chicago’s south side, laid the foundation for Manzarek’s hypnotic Doors’ arrangements. His education continued at DePaul University where he played piano in the Beta Pi Mu Combo, a fraternity jazz band; graduating from the university in 1960. After a brief stint in the military, Manzarek headed west, enrolling in UCLA studying cinematography. There, he formed the band Rick and the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, the group releasing three singles on the Posae and Aura labels in 1965. And it was there he met Jim Morrison. That proved be the launching point for what became The Doors. Sadly, Jim Morrison died in 1971. From there, Manzarek and Krieger tried to continue, releasing a couple albums with little fanfare. Post-Doors’ era, Manzarek stepped out with a couple solo albums in the mid-70s, formed Nite City releasing two albums in 1977-78, and recorded a rock adaptation of Carmina Burana in 1983. Moving forward from the mid-80s, Manzarek did various projects and sessions with the likes of Iggy Pop, Echo and the Bunnymen, poets Michael McClure and Michael C. Ford, did a series of spoken word albums Tornado Souvenirs, produced the punk band X, and worked with San Francisco guitarist Roy Rogers. He also published his memoir Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors (Berkley) in 1998 and co-wrote and directed the film Love Her Madly in 2000. In the early 2000s, Manzarek moved to the Napa County, California area where he was often seen sitting in with local bands. In 2013, he was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer. He traveled to Germany for experimental treatment but succumbed to the disease while hospitalized there at the age of 74. (by Paul Spurgaitis)
WLS. WLUP. WCKG. WJMK. WZZN. WLS-FM, WGN. There doesn’t seem to be any major Chicago radio station that John Records Landecker (3/28/47) hasn’t worked at. Best known for his trademark saying “Records truly is my middle name,” on air his popularity soared with his personality and unique show segments including “Boogie Check” and “Americana Panorama.”
Landecker grew up in Michigan, beginning his radio career while still in high school. His path took him through a number of stations, finally landing in Chicago in 1972 as the evening jock on WLS. As the station format changed, Landecker departed for a brief stint in Toronto before being brought back by rock station WLUP (97.9) in 1983. Chicago stations were migrating from format-to-format in the 80s, causing Landecker to move to Top-40 WAGO/WCKG (105.9) in 1985, returning to WLS in 1986. He remained there until the station switched to an all-talk format in 1989.
1993-2003 saw Landecker at oldies station WJMK (104.3) working the morning drive where he received numerous national radio awards for “Best Morning Show.” Then over to “true oldies” WZZN (94.7) for the afternoon shift, followed by a period back on WLS (890 AM) co-hosting a news talk show. From 2007-2012 he was host of “Into the Seventies,” a syndicated weekend radio program from TKO Radio Networks.
In 2012, Landecker returned to WLS-FM (94.7) which had moved to an oldies format where he remained until he retired in 2015. But five years in retirement seemed enough for Landecker and in 2020 he returned to Chicago radio joining WGN where he can still be heard in the 7-10 p.m. slot Monday through Thursday evenings.
Landecker has been elected to the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2017 and the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2020. This year, he is being honored with his induction into the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66 Hall of Fame. If you want to read more of his radio journey,
Landecker tells his story in his autobiography Records Truly Is His Middle Name (Eckhartz Press). And, by the way, Records truly is his middle name as his mother’s maiden name was Marjorie Victoria Records.
