The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
BARRY MC GUIRE
EVE OF DESTRUCTION
(Philip F. Sloan, Steve Barri)
Dunhill 4009
No. 1 September 25, 1965
.
.
.
As songwriters for Lou Adler’s Trousdale Music, P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri had cranked out piles of
surfin’ songs (and what Sloan would later refer to as “formula stuff”) for Jan & Dean, the Rip Chords,
and their own pseudo-groups–the Fantastic Baggies, the Life-guards, the Rally Packs, the Street
Cleaners, The Rincon Surfside Band, and Willie & The Wheels. All that changed in 1965, when Adler,
hoping to influence Sloan’s writing, handed him an early Bob Dylan album.
“After I heard that LP, I started writing by myself again,” Sloan recalled in an exclusive interview. “The
first songs that I wrote outside the partnership [with Barril, I wrote in one night–‘Eve Of Destruction,’
‘Take Me For What I’m Worth,’ ‘The Sins Of The Family,’ and ‘This Morning.’
“I went up [to Trousdale Music] and played them ‘Eve Of Destruction’ and the rest and they didn’t like
the songs. They thought they were awful–you know, ‘that’s not hit material, forget it.’ Then one
afternoon, Barry McGuire came to see them for material. He was a big star at the time. They played
him all the hip things of the day that they had, Sloan-Barri formula stuff. I was sittin’ alone in the
corner, watchin’ the business go down. [McGuire] came over, saw this depressed young kid playing
guitar by himself, and said, ‘What’s the matter? You got any songs to play me?’ I played ‘Eve Of
Destruction,’ and boom! ‘That’s the one,’ he said. He hugged me and said, ‘You’re what I’ve been
looking for.”‘
Barry McGuire was born in Oklahoma on October 15, 1935. He first came to promenence as a minor
actor in the TV series “Route 66” and with Barry Kane, as Barry & Barry, recorded an album and single
for the tiny Horizon label, but it was McGuire’s role in the formation of Randy Sparks’ New Christy
Minstrels that brought the gravel-throated folkie his first notice. Barry wrote and sang lead on “Green,
Green” (#14, 1963), the group’s biggest hit. The same year, the Kingston Trio successfully recorded
Barry’s “Greenback Dollar” (#21, 1963). By 1965, Barry was ready to strike out on his own, and “Eve Of
Destruction” would be his first solo single.
Adler had Sloan and Barri tape McGuire’s rough vocal over the instrumental backing track, for Barry to
use as a guide in creating the final version. But one radio station got hold of the unfinished record and
began playing it; when “Eve Of Destruction” was released, it was the rough mix that Sloan and Barri
had slapped together late at night.
According to Sloan, a number of radio stations banned the disk. “The record company had never seen
anything like it. They were actually happy. When every major market refused to play it, that’s when
the label decided to really push it. I hear some DJ in Ohio or somewhere in the Midwest played ‘Eve Of
Destruction’ every hour on the hour. It was number one there in, like, no time. That’s what broke it
nationally.”
“Eve” became such a major hit that Ray Gilmore, rock singer/songwriter Johnny Madara and Danny &
the Juniors’ Dave White quickly recorded and charted as THE SPOKESMEN with a response record,
“Dawn Of Constrcution.”
Barry’s Eve of Destruction LP (1965) sold well, though only two of his subsequent singles–“Child Of
Our Times” (#72, 1965) and “Cloudy Summer Afternoon (Raindrops)” (#62, 1966)–ever made the
listings. McGuire made a few movie appearances, joined the Broadway production of Hair, introduced
the Mamas And Papas to Dunhill Records (they returned the favor by dropping his name in their hit
“Creeque Alley”) and toured for awhile with a spiritual group called The Agape Force. For awhile in
the early ’70s, Barry was 1/2 of a duo with Eric “Dr” Hord, a Mamas and Papas’ sideman. Their
delightful album Barry McGuire And The Doctor boomded…and Barry walked away from secular
music. He has for years been a born-again Christian living in Waco, Texas, and recording gospel music
sporadically for specialty labels like Myrrh and Word.
Phil “Faith” Sloan–with and without Steve Barri–(b. Phillip Gary Sloan, 1944, New York City) went on
to create/co-create an enormous number of hit songs for Herman’s Hermits, Jan & Dean, the Turtles,
Johnny Rivers, and the Grass Roots. Before a reclusive phase in the mid-’70s-plus, P. F. recorded his
own versions of “Eve Of Destruction,” “This Is What I Was Made For,” and some of his other tunes.
These appeared as now-collectible singles, and on four hard-to-find albums (Songs of our Time, 12
More Times, Measure of Pleasure, and Raised on Records).