The “Golden Hits Of The 60s“ 

Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After

 

LEMON PIPERS

“GREEN TAMBOURINE”

(Paul Leka, Shelley Pinz)

Buddah 23

No. 1   February 3, 1968

.

.

.

They were almost history before they made it.   Their 1967 single, “Turn Around, Take a Look”

had stiffed badly.   Had they not accepted bubble-gummy Buddah Records offer to record one

more tune–of the label’s choice–the Lemon Pipers (once known as Ivan & The Sabres) would

now be remembered by very few people.

.

Shelley Pinz got the idea for “Green Tambourine” from a newspaper article about a British

street musi­cian who would play a number of instruments while seated in front of his receptacle

of donations–a tambourine, filled with green.   Producer/writer Paul Leka­ later to work his

winning ways with STEAM, Harry Chapin, the Left Banke, and REO Speedwagon­ added the

music to Pinz’s piece, and before long, the boys at Buddah were excited about the song’s hit

poten­tial.   But first, someone had to persuade the Lemon Pipers to learn it and to get it down on

vinyl.

.

“It was a strange meeting,” Leka recalled to Fred Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number

One Hits.   “I played the song on an upright piano they had, and asked [the group] what they

thought.   They were more into psychedelic songs.   They went into the other room, and came out

and said they really didn’t like the song.   I said, ‘I don’t know if I should say this–you’re being

dropped from the label.   Bob Reno and Neil Bogart [then the president of Buddah] are

determined to record this song.   You’re gonna be dropped if you don’t record this.”‘

.

The band–all raised in Oxford, Ohio, except Britisher William Albaugh–acquiesced. Albaugh

(drums), William Bartlett (lead guitar), Ivan Browne (lead vocals, guitar), Reg G. Nave (a.k.a.

R. G. Nave, keyboards, green tambourine, fog horn, toys), and Steve Walmsley (bass) entered

the Cleveland Recording Studios, where they waxed “Green Tambourine;’ the Green

Tambourine album, and a couple of unmemo­rable sides:  “Rice Is Nice” (#46, 1968) and “Jelly

Jungle (Of Orange Marmalade)” (#51, 1968).    Jungle Mar­malade, a second and final-though

more adventurous LP, appeared in 1968.   Sales were sparse; the Pipers were perceived as

disposable bubble-gum on the basis of their lone chart-mover.

.

Guitarist Bill Bartlett would reappear years later as the leader of RAM JAM.