Til The Cows Come Home: Rock 'n' Roll Nebraska
By Bart Becker 1985
6. The Flippers to Max Gronenthal
Another musical style of the time was offered by so-called show bands, precursors of "horn rock" featuring horn players, choreography ("steps," in the vernacular) and a mix of popular tunes and soul music. Show bands, like other groups, played the radio hits but there were also songs that became teen hop hits without ever being nationally charted. "The Harlem Shuffle," the brassy signature song of the Fabulous Flippers, is the quintessential show band tune. The Flippers, a legendary Kansas group that toured incessantly on the Plains, was probably the best example of a show group, with their shiny tux jackets and brassy arrangements. The Coachmen's Rick Bell calls the Flippers the most influential band of the era and many musicians concur.
Bob Codr, later a talent booker, started another such group, the Chancellors, in 1962 in David City. Eventually the Chancellors based in Lincoln, toured extensively, won the Midwest Battle of the Bands (also called Combo Combat) at least once and cut some mildly successful records. Other popular show bands on the Plains were the Roarin' Red Dogs ("Outstanding, and they are wild!" promised their radio ads on KOMA), Spyder and the Crabbs and the Smoke Ring (nee Little Joe and the Ramrods) who got to No. 24 nationally with an uncharacteristically middle-of-the-road recording of "No Not Much."
Nationally, the three top-selling songs of 1965 were "Wooly Bully" by Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs, "I Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones. In 1966 they were the Mamas and Papas' " "California Dreamin'", "96 Tears" by ? and the Mysterians and Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?"
By the mid-60s psychedelic and horn-rock music was coming in. "It could be described as songs of love that make no sense unless given deep thought," wrote an insightful Omaha World Herald teen section correspondent. By June, 1967 and for some time thereafter (it's still a good idea, for that matter) the most popular repertoire a band could play was a mix of soul and psychedelia. The two styles had a common foundation in blues and, as guitarist Doug Rosekranz says, "Every group that came to town had better play some blues and some soul. And they'd better play it right."
There was probably not a black person within a couple of hundred miles of some of these farm kids demanding soul music. Their source was KAAY from Little Rock, a show sponsored by Stan's Record Shop that played some Motown and James Brown style soul, but specialized in Memphis soul artists. This fascination is the same as that held by white kids everywhere, it is what makes great rock 'n' roll, and this was the inspiration for white soul groups ranging from the Flippers to the Fabulous Kingbees.
The June, 1967 charts included "Groovin'" by the Young Rascals, Aretha Franklin's version of "Respect," "Somebody to Love" by the Jefferson Airplane, the Turtles' "She'd Rather Be With Me," "A Little Bit of Soul" by the Music Explosion, "Him or Me, What's It Gonna Be?" by Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Temptations' "All I Need Is You." All kinds of music existed side by side. The top-selling song of 1967 was Lulu's "To Sir With Love" and No. 5 was "Light My Fire" by the Doors. By September, 1968 the charts included "1, 2, 3 Red Light" by 1910 Fruitgum Co. and "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf. The Beatles broke the length record with "Hey Jude." On the local front, an Omaha group called the Echoes changed its name to the Fay Hogan Experiment, changed their outfits to Nehru jackets, changed their musical style to psychedelic and cashed in on the foundation built for them by Lincoln's Antelope Pavilion, a psychedelic blues band.
As the decade closed, battling racism and the Vietnam War travesty went along with the more personal fights against the petty oppressions of high school: hair cuts and dress codes. School principals and coaches had all sorts of idiotic reasons to enforce these rules, especially the ones bout long hair on boys. The hair was not all that long, of course, and the kids were casual about it, but adults were obsessed. They said it would distract other students in class when the only ones really distracted by it were the adults themselves. Society was evolving quickly on every level and music was a force of change.
The recording groups left a lasting legacy and some native Nebraskans went on to greater things, such as Omahan Buddy Miles with the Electric Flag, Randy Meisner of Mitchell with the Eagles, or Charlie Haden, the avant-garde jazz bassist who began as a kid singing with his family's famous country-western band before he caught bulbar polio during an epidemic in Omaha and could no longer hold a vocal vibrato. Plainview, a little town of a few thousand, sent two local songs to the L.A. scene of the '70s, Rocke Grace and Max Gronenthal.
Music is not easily divided up into little sections. It's a continuum, constantly evolving, reflecting new influences and shooting out little branches from the main trunk. The world of popular and folk music diagrams more like a tangled hedge than a neat stack of cartons. There is no use being naïve or romantic about contemporary music. It is both art and commerce (when it manages to be art). But fame and success should never be mistaken for talent or worth.