User:Thegraythings

'''THE GRAY THINGS

The Gray Things was a rock group that was first formed in late 1964 as The Shandels in Albany, NY. The name was chosen because the members loved Del Shannon. The group consisted of four high school friends. The original formees were Mike Olesko on keyboards, Billy Cioffi on lead guitar,Steve Colfer on drums and Ernest Burkart on vocals. The group began playing for their local middle school canteens without a bass player at first. Eventually Ernie Burkart was asked to resign with the addition of Dennis Boyagian on rhythm guitar and Jack Warrington on bass. In late 1965 the group had a chance meeting with a young Troy, NY entrepeneur Dave Rittner who agreed to take them on for management.Rittner had cultivated contacts with jocks at WTRY Radio in Troy and in particular one deejay named Lee Gray. Gray was looking for a band to play some school dances with him and the Shandels agreed the exposure would be helpful. There was little or no pay involved. After a few dances Lee Gray offered to get the group a recording contract under a condition that they change their name to The Gray Things. Although manager Dave Rittner did not believe the group would do it, the Shandels agreed to leave their name behind and take on the name The Gray Things.The move was instant publicity. Lee Gray kept his word and in September 1966 the group went to the offices of Laurie Records in New York City with five original songs. They set up their equipment in an office where producers Doug Morris and Eliott Greenberg had them play pieces of each original song. Morris and Greenberg were considered veteran producers with hits by Dion and the Belmonts and The Chiffons in their portfolios. When it was over the group went back to Albany not really knowing which song they were going to record or if they would record at all. Nearly a month passed when in mid October 1966 manager Dave Rittner received a call from Lee Gray indicating the group needed to be in New York City at Allegro Sounds Studios at 1650 Broadway to record on October 31, 1966. Taking a day off from high school, the group headed to New York. The producers chose the last song to record called "Talkin' New York". But at the session the lead singer Mike Olesko was brought over to the piano by Doug Morris and new words were written. Morris began writing on a scrap of white paper the words, "Oh Charity! I know you say you love only me, but you still want to run with the crowd, the whispers are gettin oh so loud oh don't you know, Charity begins at home". (By coincidence a show called "Sweet Charity" was running in a Broadway theatre during the same time period.) The producers were very specific on how they wanted the music played, the lead vocals and even how the backgrounds were sung. While Mike Olesko was the lead singer on the record, it was Eliott Greenberg who actually played the keyboards in the song. Guitarist Billy Cioffi's signature fuz beginning would open the tune. Only one song was finished that day, and the group packed up and went back to Albany. They wondered how a record could be released without a backside. The producrs were preparing an instrumental track called "Lovers Melody" to go on the flipside. Several weeks went by into November when "Charity" suddenly began to be played on WTRY. Keyboardist Mike Olesko was in his high school guidance counselors office when guitarist Billy Cioffi burst in saying, "They're playing it, they're playing our record". The song went into regular rotation and began climbing the WTRY charts. By December 1966 it was in the Top Ten.It had gotten reviewed by Billboard Magazine and was reportedly playing on stations across the Northeast.But the song had its nemesis in a record by a group called The Royal Guardsman called "Snoopy Versus The Red Baron" also a Laurie Release and the Gray Things were shoved to the back as the "Snoopy" song began to sell. It was December 1966 and the Christmas season. Snoopy was an easy sell during the holidays. In live performances the group began to get requests to play at more local venues and by the Spring of 1967 they were opening concerts for The Lovin Spoonful, The Byrds and the Myddle Class. Always down for the show the group plunged into the psychedelic era with light shows and projected silent movies behind them as they played. One amazing live performance by the band was on the Hank Brown TV Show from Utica, NY called "Twistarama". The group nearly blew the station transmitter off line when they started smashing their equipment on live TV. Billy Cioffi did one of the mosr amazing performances of his young career. Perhaps because Lee Gray was leaving WTRY for WHK in Cleveland or because the group was splintering, no other recordings followed "Charity". Decca Records offered a contract to record a song called "Time Stood Still" but the group passed it up. The songwriting team of Cioffi and Olesko was going through some turbulance. Bassist Jack Warringon left the group and was replaced by Bob Pertaw. Billy Cioffi left for Boston to write songs and perform. Mike Olesko left for NYC to pursue filmmaking under director Martin Scorsese at New York University and would eventually work at Columbia Rcords April/Blackwood Music Publishing house. Olesko would become distribution director for a new label called Truffle Records. Dennis Boyagian would leave for school at the University of Florida in Miami, Florida But the greatest turning point was still to come. It was a saga that not even the group members could imagine. It took their company Laurie to go out of business to bloom. In 1982 Laurie Records sputtered to a halt and closed selling all of its masters to EMI/Capitol in Britain. From there many of the songs Laurie recorded would start ending up on compilation albums in Europe. "Charity" was included in a large and expensive compilation released in 1982 in Germany called "Mindrockers" which was a 13 CD anthology of American Garage Rock. "Mindrockers" was re-released in London in 2002 in a 1 to 1,000 numbered collectors series. The history of "Charity" began again as DJ's in Europe started playing the song. Next came a CD entitled "Psychedelic Unknowns Volume 5" and most recently in 2009 "Sixties Garage Rock" was released with "Charity" included. The song has been included in hundreds of playlists of internet stations from Russia through Eastern Europe to Western Europe and to Audtralia. British DJ's clandestinely placed the song on You Tube only to have it removed. The song can be found at sites including; spinthegroove.com and tunesbag.com. Copies have been found in the US and Europe selling for as much as $100 and in America it is a collectors item. Sad to say, the group never made a dime off of any of their recordings or issues. Some members of The Gray Things are planning a reunion in Albany, NY in the spring of 2011 and a European Tour to unite with their garage band fans overseas. The legacy of the band is that high school friends stuck together and became music history.'''Links www.leegray.com,www.spinthegroove.com/2010/05/gray-things-charity.html