Ralph Scala (1964-) - Keyboards, Lead Vocals
Ron Gilbert (1964-69) - Bass, Lead Vocals
Peppy Castro (1964-) - Rhythm Guitar, Lead Vocals
Mike Esposito (1965-) - Lead Guitar
Geoff Daking (1965-) - Drums
Dennis Lapore (1964-1965) - Lead Guitar
Jon Finnegan (1964-1965) - Drums
The Blues Magoos, who started out as The Trenchcoats in The Bronx, NY, in 1964, were by 1965 denizens of the Greenwich Village scene, along with the likes of The Lovin' Spoonful, The Fugs and Mama Cass Elliott's pre-Mama's & The Papa's group The Mugwumps. At this time they were managed by Marvin Lagenoff...who supposedly had also managed Eydie Gorme earlier on...the man that had changed their moniker to The Bloos Magoos (Magoo was short for Moo Goo Gai Pan; he'd supposedly been eating this at a Chinese restaurant).
It was from there that they'd set about recording.
In October of that year, they'd signed with MGM's Verve subsidiary and recorded a double-sided single, 'So I'm Wrong And You Are Right'/'The People Had No Faces', the former penned by Rick Shorter (along with Bobby Hebb and Richie Havens one of the few black musicians involved with folk music), the latter a Scala/Castro composition. Meanwhile, in Greenwich Village, they'd met up with the two men who would become the definitive lead guitarist and drummer, Mike Esposito and Geoff Daking (who, after a rift between Scala/Castro/Gilbert and Finnegan/Lapore, a la Pete Best, promptly replaced the latter) and the management team of Bob Wyld and Art Polhemus. It was with this aggregation that they began recording in November for Mercury Records, the first effort being another double-sided single, John Loudermilk's 'Tobacco Road', backed with 'Sometimes I Think About' (a/k/a 'Willie Jean'), a traditional Negro folk ballad about a condemned man set to a blues style. Due to the over-three-minute length of the former and the subject matter (however subdued) of the latter, the single received limited airplay.
And I would guess that the actual composer of the latter was the condemned man. No one will know for sure, especially considering that until the '30s no black writers could even obtain copyrights. 'Sometimes...' was written decades before.
Then in 1966, while the group was playing at The Chessmate Club in Detroit, came the breakthrough. A DJ on station CKLW played '(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet' one afternoon and caused a Nationwide deluge!!! In a short time every station was playing it and it eventually reached ..5 in 1967. 'Nothin' Yet' was backed with an earlier version of 'Gotta Get Away', another song that appeared on their PSYCHEDELIC LOLLIPOP album, also released in '66.
Other albums followed, ELECTRIC COMIC BOOK and BASIC BLUES MAGOOS, but did not meet with the same success. The Magoos, meanwhile, were playing dates all over the country with The Who and Herman's Hermits and recorded more singles that met with the same fate. Finally, at the beginning of 1969, the original group broke up.
Then during the time of Woodstock, Bob Wyld put together a new version of The Magoos with only Castro remaining. His backup musicians were John Liello (keyboards & vibes...who also strongly resembled Scala), Roger Eaton (bass), Eric Kaz (electroharp) and Richie Dickson (drums). This aggregation, whose sound closely resembled Blood Sweat & Tears' and Santana's, recorded one album for ABC called NEVER GOIN' BACK TO GEORGIA (1969). Eaton and Dickson left shortly after and Castro, Liello, Kaz and studio musicians recorded GULF COAST BOUND (1970). Then it was the end of the Magoos until 2000.
Castro, meanwhile, has appeared in the Broadway musical HAIR and was in the groups Barnaby Bye and Balance. His son Jesse Doran Castro is currently heading his own group called CASTRO.
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