Jump to content

Dino, Desi, and Billy for RC Cola


Recommended Posts

The band appears in this RC Cola ad shot at the Hollywood Bowl.

 

Shelly, you always find -- and share (thank you!) -- the coolest stuff!! 

Begs the question now did the trio ever actually play the revered Hollywood Bowl?? Needs to do me some research on this group since I was around back then but really don't remember much about them (i.e. how long they lasted, etc.) nor would I probably recognize their hit (hits?) if I now heard it(them)! :blink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Came across this from Billy...

 

We played at local neighborhood parties and made $20 a show. I remember thinking - how do we split this equally? Our rehearsals began at Lucille Ball's outside playroom and eventually moved to Dean Martin's large den, that had a small riser for a stage. Over time, we got better and better as musicians and singers. Jeanne Martin (Dean's wife) picked up the phone one day, called Frank Sinatra and told him that he had to hear us play - she thought we were really good. We auditioned for Mr. Sinatra as he and Dean listened to us perform a few songs in the bar area of the Martin home - perfect, right ? There they sat - old blue eyes and old red eyes! After the audition, Mr. Sinatra walked over and asked if we would like a contract on his label, Reprise. Of course, we gladly accepted his kind and generous offer.

 

We were shocked to learn that we wouldn't be playing on our first recording session but would have professional studio musicians record the tracks instead of us. This hurt our feelings, as we thought we were good enough to record for ourselves but didn't realize how things worked in the LA recording scene even though, apparently, it was commonplace, as we know today. I remember that Jerry Cole played guitar on our first two sides but I don't recall who the other musicians were. On subsequent recordings it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Wrecking Crew played on our sessions though, over time, Dino, Desi and I recorded and were incorporated more and more onto our tracks.

 

I don't think most people know that the first song we released was a dud, sold nothing and went nowhere ("Since You Broke My Heart" / "We Know"). I wanted us to record "Since You Broke My Heart" after I heard it on a Searchers' LP. I didn't realize at the time that it was written by the Everly Brothers - no wonder I liked it so much. The B side, "We Know," was pitched to us as having been "turned down by the Beatles," so we eagerly agreed to record it, since anything that even came close to being a Beatles' song was good enough for us. Even though we performed "Since You Broke My Heart" on the Hollywood Palace TV Show on November 28, 1964 (Tony Martin hosted and the broadcast was in black & white), it got little airplay.

 

In 1965 (I was 14 years old), our Producer and A&R man, Jimmy Bowen, brought in a young country gentleman named Lee Hazlewood to try his hand at producing us and it yielded our first and biggest hit, "I'm a Fool" / "So Many Ways". If I'm not mistaken, it went Top 20. Earl Palmer played drums and James Burton played guitar on "I'm a Fool". If I had to guess, I believe that Ray Pohlman played bass, though it *might* have been Carol Kaye -- sorry for the lapse in memory. But give me a break - after all, it's been 45 years !@#$%

 

It opened the doors for us to tour with the Beach Boys, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs, and many tours of our own in both the US and Canada. Over the next 4 years we recorded four albums for Reprise and had six songs that charted on the Billboard / Cash Box Hot 100.

 

As a result of the success of "I'm a Fool", we appeared in countless articles and pictorials in Gloria Stavers' 16 Magazine, Tiger Beat, etc., and did all the relevant television shows of the day including Shindig, Shivaree, Hullabaloo, Sam Riddle's 9th Street West, the Lloyd Thaxton show, Where the Action Is, the Joey Bishop show, the Mike Douglas show, the Dean Martin show and Sammy Davis Jr.'s Thanksgiving Day Special for kids. We even made appearances on the Hollywood Squares and the Dating Game. But the TV appearance that was the most important and memorable was the Ed Sullivan show. It was the first color broadcast of the Ed Sullivan show and we did it at the CBS studios on Beverly Blvd. / Fairfax in LA - not in the studio in NY, so it was historical on several levels. We were also in the Matt Helm (Dean Martin) spy spoof flick "Murderer's Row" wherein we performed Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart's composition of "If You're Thinkin' What I'm Thinkin'" - one of our charted hits.

 

Billy Hinsche

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Didn't this group make an appearance on "Wingding"?  

 

It's a little odd that DD&B hit it big the same year TLS was heavy with guest stars (4th season), so why didn't they guest on Desi's Mom's show?  

Lucy Carmichael eyeing Desi, Jr: "He reminds me of someone I used to know."  (yeah....Billy Simmons, son of Audrey from Danfield).

Pop Record exec Barney Miller rushed them into the studio to get out a cover of "Bessie the Heifer" before Mr. Morton of the Morton Record Company could release the Wayne Newton original. 

I'd wager that they guested on Dean Martin's show.  Does anyone know?

In this commercial they look much more mature than their "I'm a Fool" album cover where Desi has yet to shed his pre-puberty pudge.   Perhaps this commercial was in the waning days of their career as a group.  Wouldn't it have been funny if it ran during the break in "Lucy and the Lost Star"?

I didn't remember Dino was such a looker.   Like Desi, he had a little, but noteworthy acting career.  They both could have gone a lot farther but I would guess, probably lacked the drive.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...