Sound Files #1 – Spring 2021
News you can use? Dunno, but this is the first of what will probably be a quarterly installment of a Lexingtunes newsletter where I will share some brief bios, pictures, and whatever I’m in the mood to go on about. As always… enjoy! [2021 Shawn Chambers / Lexingtunes]
A Shoguns By Any Other Name…
For many years, I had tried in vain to locate the Shoguns record on Lemco, but with no luck whatsoever. In fact, I didn’t know anyone that had ever owned it. Even at this late date the 45Cat website still shows the Shoguns Lemco release with an unknown B-side – I have since created the proper entry. The only label shot ever posted by anyone was always a still from the video of “The Look In Her Eyes” posted to youtube by bandmember Larry Ackerson back in 2015.
It seemed highly unlikely that between myself and my dogged collector friends that none of us had a copy, but a similar thing had happened with the Saxons on REM. Sometimes a band records here, but takes all the copies back to their home turf. With the Shoguns being one of the biggest bands in Northern KY in the late 60s this seemed a reasonable explanation to me as to why this record just didn’t surface locally.
Last summer my pal Lee Bryant had posted a big Lemco spread to his Instagram, which prompted someone to ask if he had the Shoguns – unsurprisingly, he did not. Nearly on the heels, Lee was thumbing through CD Central (and long time Lemco enthusiast) Steve Baron’s collection and messaged me if I knew of a 60s release on Lemco from the Pop-Korn. WTF?
Okay, Lemco has issued hundreds of things and I have cataloged at least 200 of them and certainly some of the 70s things are still surfacing but it has been at least a half dozen years or more since I had seen an unknown 60s release. The label shot he sent was the same number for the alleged Shogun release and the song title credit I instantly recognized as Pat Mayerchak from the prior Shoguns release as well as from his writing credit on the flip side of one of the Wellingtons 45s on Lemco. The whole thing was crazy. Why would an extremely well-established band with an uber cool name like the Shoguns issue a second 45 under such an odd name and where is the Shoguns single shown on Ackerson’s video?
It was time to get this sorted. Fortunately, the Shoguns have an excellent website and I dutifully filled in the Contact box asking for any info on Pop-Korn and the song clearly penned by one of the Shoguns. I was thrilled to be contacted by none other than the writer Pat Mayerchak who laid it out.
The Pop-Korn is/was the Shoguns. The story. When we put out “In My Time” in ‘66, Big Jim Schworer (my best friend) and his brother Dr. Phil paid for the session and pressing of the 45, which we took over to WSAI the top rocker station in Cincinnati to see if we could get some play. The station manager invited us back to his office, listened to the song and said we could have one play a day for a week for $100.00! I blew up as did Big Jim and we walked.
In ‘68, being fearful that WSAI would remember our hostility we agreed that we would put “The Look in Her Eyes” out under the band name the Pop-Korn. It was a really bad mistake, which I always regretted. When we released the new “Highway of Dreams” CD, Larry re-engineered the Lemco label to read the Shoguns. In the fall of ‘68, the other rocker, WUBE broke “The Look In Her Eyes” as their pick Hit of the Week, but by then the Shoguns had gotten into other things, getting married, finding permanent jobs etc.
So there was only one version of the 45 – but we now have two band names.
And you thought payola died in 1960!
Both the Shoguns Well Alright / In My Time on Schworer and their alter ego Pop-Korn Lemco cuts The Look In Her Eyes / I Can’t (Walk Away) belong in any collection. I thank Pat for his ongoing correspondence and friendship and rumor is that the boys are working up a potential future release of an old demo of “Day Tripper” complete with horns! Should be amazing and Lexingtunes will certainly keep you posted.
Shoguns Fun Facts:
The “crash” heard at the end of “Well Alright” is a hammer smashing an empty ‘refreshment’ bottle pulled from Cecil Jones’ control room desk at Lemco.
The horn section on “The Look In Her Eyes” was provided by members of Lexington’s own Formations of Soul.
The ‘drums’ on “The Look In Her Eyes” was a padded stool that drummer Larry had been fooling around with. Cecil suggested he use it in the song and the real drums were added later in the bridge of the song.
The Wellingtons’ “Don’t Leave Me” was penned by Mayerchak on a Greyhound bus from northern KY to Lexington. It was his first attempt writing for another band.
The Pop-Korn exists in two different pressings – one is an RCA press with one of the alternate Lemco ‘60s fonts with the other being the classic ‘60s font.
Amon Greer – Stanford’s Piano Jewel
During the 1950s and 60s Amon Greer embraced his role as a sort of Piano Paladin – Have 88 Keys Will Travel – and travel he did as the era’s undisputed king of the rock piano in central Kentucky.
Greer was born on March 8, 1932 in Casey County, but was raised in the Stanford area of nearby Lincoln County. A true prodigy on the keys, Greer never let his blindness stop him from pursuing a lifelong career in music.
One of the earliest documented appearances for Greer was in 1951 behind the Highland Harmonizers in Lincoln County and soon after as a disc jockey doing a late morning show at WHIR in nearby Danville, KY in ‘52. A TV appearance on WKRC in Cincinnati in ‘53 led to a rapid-fire series of engagements as Greer won a talent show in Danville the same year, pounded the keys with the Bluegrass Play Boys in Waynesburg in ’54 and even backed Little Enis for many early gigs in Lexington.
Amon Greer’s best break came in the late 50s when he joined Bobby Martin’s Tune Twisters who operated out of the Lawrenceburg area. A very popular group, Martin also had close ties to the Cincinnati market having cut one record already for the Ruby label from Hamilton, Ohio. In 1958 Greer had the pleasure of having his original song “Jo Jo Rock & Roll” released by the band on Bel-Kay.
Having married in 1957, Greer roamed wherever there was a piano stool and continued to back country and gospel artists in the area alongside his weekend rock gigs. Certainly, he was a favorite accompanist of the Lincoln County quartet the Travelaires.
Greer ultimately relocated with his wife to Ohio and around 1964 was employed as the house entertainer at the Roman Room in Luigi’s famous Italian restaurant in Lima before shifting to Sorrento’s in Reading.
It wasn’t all cocktail lounging for Greer as he decided to record his own version of “Jo Jo Rock & Roll”, which was released on Jewel Records in 1966. This cut must have confounded people as clearly the song seemed from another time during those garage band heavy years, but amazing all the same. While Martin’s version was a clean pop sound and sax heavy, Amon clearly has Jerry Lee Lewis influences both in piano and in his stellar southern vocal delivery. Greer’s take is much wilder and certainly more in spirit with his lyrics – no surprise since it was his song!
The five-nights-a-week Sorrento gig lasted into the 1980s and it can only be imagined the thousands and thousands of people who enjoyed the musical stylings of Stanford’s own. Amon passed away in 1986 just a couple of weeks after his 54th birthday.
Bobby Fields – REM’s Rare Rocker
I was never able to scare up enough biographical information nor identify any of the musicians on his single necessary to do a nice full-feature spread on Bobby despite repeated attempts. I have not given up and hope to do that someday. In the meantime, consider this a record review accompanied by a couple rare pics of Bobby – an absolute gem of a single!
Bobby L. Benningfield is mostly remembered by those in Taylor County for his years behind the mic on WTCO as a popular deejay, but in further reaches of the world it is his lone release for Lexington’s REM Records that has kept his name living on.
Bobby was born December 16, 1938 but his early life is largely unknown. It appears his only sibling was a half brother who was nearly a teenager by the time Bobby was born. It is also uncertain when he started playing guitar so we will do a time jump straight to his mid 20s when Bobby felt the itch to record his original compositions.
Once he put his mind to cut his songs, Benningfield could have gone to a Louisville studio just as easily as coming to Lexington, but perhaps he had encountered some of the REM country bop and rockabilly-tinged sides that Bob Mooney had surely sent copies of to WTCO. Definitely in the early 60s Lexington was a far better choice to record this type of material and Benningfield’s sound fit in perfectly amongst the early REM waxings from Earl Watkins, Jimmie Lee Ballard and Tommy Baldwin.
His 1963 release under the more marquee friendly ‘Bobby Fields’ boasted the now-classic “Girl From Tennessee”, which has since been comped on Buffalo Bop’s “Rock-A-Billy Barnyard”. Benningfield is backed by the Harmony Four who seemingly had carte blanche when it came to the backing vocals. The Four’s unimitable stylings coupled with a loose rhyming scheme from Benningfield could have been a disaster, but instead executes perfectly. Benningfield sounds easy and relaxed with a confident delivery shaped by years behind the mic. The players on the session are unknown, but it is entirely possible that Bobby also tackled the lead guitar as he was known to be a proficient player. In short, “Girl From Tennessee” is just a smidge over two minutes of hillbilly heaven.
Only in his mid-20s, Benningfield was still young enough to pursue a music career. His dark wavy hair and honest features were a perfect country fit at the time, but it is unknown how much he chose to do in promotion or distribution of his record and, again, it remains a real scarcity locally.
Benningfield united with his beloved Mary Ann in 1969 and together they raised two children. Theirs was a lifelong love that ended only with his death in 2005 at age 66.
Records Remember
The Monzza’s (the extra Z made ’em extra ZESTY!) were an outfit from George Rogers Clark HS in Winchester, KY, and best remembered locally for their backup on Ron Hellard’s alter ego Pepper Swift 45 on Whirlaway. Fox and Pope later were members of Action Unlimited who released a sweet psyche-tinged 45 for Parkway. If you don’t know ’em – go dig ’em!
