The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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MUSIC EXPLOSION
“A LITTLE BIT OF SOUL”
(John Carter, Ken Lewis)
Laurie 3380
No. 2 July 8, 1967
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“Volcanic, eruptive, explosive, …” the publicity puds at Laurie Records spared no superlatives in their claims
for these manipulated music-making teens from Mansfield, Ohio. Per those puds, the Music Explosion were
to be the next great thing to overwhelm the fickle rock’n’roll haut monde.
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Before their destruction, they did leave humanity with “A Little Bit of Soul,” in hindsight a mini-moment in
the audio annals of vinyl popdom.
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“If there’s a beginning to this story, it was when “Tudor” [Don Adkins] and I became friends;’ said Rick
Nesta in an exclusive interview. “We were neighbors. This is Mansfield, Ohio, 1963. We became
basketball buddies; hung out together. His family was from West Virginia; Dad played guitar, but not a lot.
So, guitars were around. One day he played this riff…. It was cool. He got serious about playing. I
figured, I should, too. Before long we were playing in bands.”
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Just as the Beatles were beginning to happen, Tudor and Rick got their first act together. “The line-up keep
changing, because of the draft, but it started to get good in ’63,” said Nesta. “There was me [rhythm guitar],
Tudor [lead guitar], Jim Pfayler [keyboards] and Tim Corwin [drums], both [later] of the Ohio Express, and
Jim Gibson [bass]. We were the Kings’ English. Then, as bands go, someone gets mad at someone and they
went off to be Sir Timothy & The Royals, later the Ohio Express, and me and Tudor became the Chosen Few,
then the Music Explosion.”
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In addition to Tudor and Rick, the Explosion was Burton “Butch” Sahl, a folkie guitarist turned bass and
keyboardist, a ultra-young kid named Dave Webster (replaced after the initial “Little Bit of Soul” session by
Bob ”Avery” Tousignant), and an “old guy,” a vocalist named Bob Hallenbeck. “Bob got drafted, and we
came across this band, the Lost Children Fabulous. Their singer was Jamie Lyons, real animated,
tremendous voice, genius with working girls; a Mick Jagger. He had all the moves. We told him to ditch the
band and to join us. We played a few Stones tunes and he joined.”
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By 1966, the Explosion had a statewide following playing gritty Rolling Stone-like tunes. Andy Apperson, a
business associate of the aspiring production team of Jeff Katz and Jerry Kasenetz, spotted the act and
encouraged the guys to scrape up some money and venture to New York City for an audition.
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“We went. It was the summer of ’66; just graduated from high school. Jeff and Jerry took us to this little
rehearsal studio,” said Nesta. “Nothin’ fantastic. A rented room. Heck, we were living cheap; had two,
three hundred dollars and all of us were set to live and eat on it for two weeks. So, we had nothin’; they had
nothin’. They had us play what we knew; saying ‘Keep playing till we say, “Next.”‘ We went through 20
songs. They liked ‘The Little Black Egg’ alot; had us play it three times. The Nightcrawlers had had a local
hit with it, but we played it with more grip and a 12-string.”
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Jeff and Jerry gave them some demos to study and practice; among them ”A Little Bit of Soul.” “It was
written by these two guys in the Ivy League,” said Nesta. “It was a folk version, sung like a ‘Puff the Magic
Dragon,’ with a flat-top guitar. It was a chordy song; nothin’ special. Tudor or Burton-one of ’em-came up
with this riff. Jeff and Jerry liked it, and we cut four sides.”
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With BOBBY BLOOM present, Ritchie Cordell playing keyboards, the Explosion recorded quickly at the A-1
Sound Studio on 8th Avenue. When there were no takers on the first release, “Little Black Egg” was issued
on Katz-Kasenetz’s Attack label. The disk was a big regional hit; encouraging Kapp Records to acquire and
issue the original by the Nightcrawlers; which scored on Billboard’s Hot 100 (#85, 1967).
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”A Little Bit of Soul” was a hard sell initially. “Laurie Records issued it, but reluctantly,” said Rick Nesta.
“They didn’t figure it for a hit; but Jeff and Jerry really hustled it. It sold well locally, again, but nothing
nationally. We had this meeting at my house and Jerry said they had done all they could. He did have
some friends out in California in radio and he said ‘Well, if you guys give me the funds for a plane ticket,
I’ll go out there and give it a last shot.”‘
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The band did scrounge up the money; and the record did click first in L.A., then Phoenix. All was oh so well
in paradise; but only for what in the course of life is an instant. “Here’s the rub,” said Nesta. ‘”Beg, Borrow
and Steal’ was to be our follow-up. We’d been doing it; great song. Rare Breed had recorded it. Jeff and
Jerry wanted us to put our name on the record. They didn’t want to re-record it. We said, ‘No way. They
told us they’d give us part of the action if we’d find a band to tour with ‘Beg, Borrow.’ That’s when we
thought of Sir Timothy and that’s when they became the Ohio Express. They were really quite a good band;
but were treated really just like a touring group. They never got to record as they should have.”
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“Sunshine Games” charted marginally (#63, 1967). “It never translated well from the studio to the car
radio. It lost something. Jeff and Jerry–Super K Productions–were always pushing for us to go the bub
ble-gum route, and we wanted to be more gritty and do mystical things. Now, while we’re on the road they
wanted Jamie [ Music Explosion lead singer] to come in to put his voice on these pre-recorded tracks. When
we asked them, they’d say, ‘It’s nothing just a project: Then they’d put out whatever they wanted without the
rest of us even being involved. It was their way of doing things … it was getting away from us … it was the
beginning of the end.”
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The Explosion returned to the listings once more, but few noticed. As part of “The Super Guys,” Jeff and
Jerry’s KASENETZ-KATZ SINGING ORCHESTRAL CIRCUS, billed “the world’s first all rock orchestra”–a
composite act comprised of the Explosion, 1910 Fruitgum Band, the Ohio Express, Professor Morrison’s
Lollipop, and the Shadows of Knight; plus dancers and strobe lights–they performed at Carnegie Hall in a
two-hour “rock vaudeville” show in June of 1968. As such they hit it semi-big with “Quick Joey Small” (#25,
1968). an album and further 45s were issued, though the act’s name was changed to Kasetz-Katz Super
Cirkus when contractual problems arose between the assembled groups.
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“The last performance of Music Explosion was this high school in Akron. It was January 1969 and Avery
and I were the only guys left. Tudor was drafted; Jamie was gone. Burton quit; he didn’t like the guys that
were being brought in to fill the spaces. Jerry came up to me said, ‘We’re puttin’ a new record out–“Gimme,
Gimme, Good Lovin”‘–with you guys and callin’ it CRAZY ELEPHANT. We’re just gonna go with it and
make what we can with it; that’s that.’ That was a polite way of firing a guy.”
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