Photo by Philip Gotlop – © Rollercoaster Records. March 1, 1958, Buddy Holly at the Trocadero Theatre, London

Shortly after Buddy Holly’s death in 1959, Bruce became acquainted with the then 25-year old Jo Harper, who managed Nor Va Jak Music and Dundee Music, the New York publishing company offices at 60 West 57th Street near Carnegie Hall of Holly’s manager, Norman Petty.   While previously at Coral Records where she was secretary to the president Murray Deutsch, depicted in the movie “The Buddy Holly Story”, Jo had introduced Holly to Maria Elena Santiago who became Buddy’s wife.  Later, Jo had also become Holly’s de facto secretary.  Bruce was a great Buddy Holly fan and enjoyed all the lore known to Jo, who in turn took an interest in his youthful music career.  (The full Jo Harper story was published in the September 2009 issue of England’s Now Dig This magazine in an article by Bruce entitled “Searching for Buddy Holly and Finding His Secretary”.)

Photo Credit: Estate of Georgiana Hagen, 1957 Outside of the Howard Theater, Washington, D.C. Left to right: Jo Harper, Joe B. Mauldin, Buddy Holly, Vi Petty, Jerry Allison, Georgiana Hagen, and Niki Sullivan

In 1963, it was Jo who introduced The Bravados to The Echoes, who had a big hit with “Baby Blue” and some further success with Ersel Hickey’s “Bluebirds Over the Mountain”.  They, in turn, had launched into record producing in addition to continuing with their own releases. As to these, they engaged Bruce to be the bass player on their songs recorded at 1697 Broadway in a studio above the Ed Sullivan Theater where The Beatles famously debuted on television a year later: “Hey Good Lookin’ “, “Give Me Your Love”, “The More You Hurt Me”, on East Coast Records, and “Girl In The Window”.  As to producing The Bravados, under their direction at a studio in Brooklyn (and with some of their overdubbing) the boys recorded a cover of The Lafayette’s “Life Too Short” (Mark Wallace on vocals) and “The Waddle”, revised as “The Monkey Waddle”, given the then current popularity of the dance The Monkey.  That version of the band was composed of Bruce and Gary on guitars, Jeff Reckseit back on bass, Aaron Prestup on drums and as noted, Mark Wallace on vocals. They were told that Nat Cole’s KC Records would release the recordings although inexplicably it never came to pass.

Ed Sullivan Theater, New York, NY

In 1965 with Mongo Booth on vocals and Jeff Newman on drums, joining Bruce and Gary on guitar, Jeff Reckseit on bass, they went to the Empire Broadcasting Studios in Manhattan to record a new version of “The Waddle” and “I Wanna Do It” (both by then Cornell party anthems) an original song written by Bruce – “The Memory of Your Lovin’”- at 613 East State Street in Ithaca (not far from 343 State Street where a few years before Cornellian Peter Yarrow wrote “Puff the Magic Dragon“), and a Mary Wells’ tune, “Bye Bye Baby”. (Given studio costs, most of these were done in one take.) These recordings in hand, the guys knocked on doors at 1619 Broadway, the famous Brill Building in Manhattan’s Time Square, but, despite some nibbles, nothing eventuated.

The 1966 Bravados, yet more polished and with Larry Laufer substituted on the then au courant Farfisa organ, as well as Gene Coggshall now on bass with Jeff Newman continuing on drums, Bruce Bergman remaining on guitar, went that August to the National Recording Studios at 730 Fifth Avenue in New York to record an updated version of “The Memory of Your Lovin’” and two originals penned by Larry Laufer and Bruce Bergman, “I Said-A-Hey” and “Tears Must Fall”.

LIVE AT CORNELL

How elusive to return to one’s youth, to college days, to recapture the precise sound and feel of dancing for hours on end – at a joyous, frenetic fraternity party. But that is accomplished here through the revelation of a tape essentially hidden for some fifty-one years. The Bravados for all the live selections are Mongo Booth, vocals, Bruce Bergman, guitar (and occasional backup vocals), John DeWitt, bass, and Joe Mooney, drums.

The clubs in Ithaca in the sixties were terrific places to imbibe, dance and listen to top bands. These were havens for Cornell and Ithaca college students – townies too. But playing there was an adjunct to the extensive fraternity party scene in which The Bravado’s participated with such relish during their four-year college tenure.

In the course of the ’64 – ’65 school year they played at least twice at Lambda Chi Alpha, tape recordings made of each performance. Insufficient attention, though, was given to placement of the microphone, so for one gig, it was near the bass, guitar and vocals then relegated more to the background. For the other appearance the mic position was reversed, de-emphasizing the bass.

Nonetheless, this exciting example of the Ithaca sound is preserved. What precisely that is remains elusive to define, but it was exemplified by a sharp drive with crisp treble on guitar, abetted by wide use of Fender guitars and amps, solid bass and some drum emphasis on the floor tom. Musically, Ithaca was both insular and worldly at the same time – isolated as an enclave in a rural county, incestuous, as an abundance of musicians serially played in various bands from time to time, spreading their skills and sensitivities, cultivated by interacting with the many well known outside groups that flooded Cornell on the frequent major weekends. This was melded with being astute enough to adopt styles and sounds heard on black radio stations.

When this release was being contemplated in 2016, the breadth of Bravados’ studio material was limited and so inquiry was made as to the availability of anything else. Fortunately, the tape of the two jobs had been given to bass player John DeWitt. Years ago, he put it on a cassette and gave it to guitarist Bruce Bergman – so he knew it existed – but the fidelity of that version was unusable.

Felicitously, the original tape survived fifty-one years in decent shape, allowing DeWitt to download it directly through a computer to a disk, which was then shipped to England so engineering wizards John Beecher and Chris Hopkins of Rollercoaster Records could conjure up their sonic legerdemain. The welcome result is that selections from those once lost animated performances have been revived to remind what those precious moments sounded like – the energy and the joy of a Cornell fraternity party circa ’64 -’65 reclaimed: The Bravados live at Lambda Chi Alpha.

Full versions of all the studio recordings in superior quality, together with live performances from a sweet sixteen in March 1963, from the Blossom Lounge in the summer of 1963 and from a Cornell fraternity party circa  ’64-’65 will be available on the Bravados’ forthcoming retrospective CD, “I Want To Do It” on Rollercoaster Records RCCD 6035.