July 12, 2020 —– Chart #46
Hello Musical Friends,
Today we go back to 1966 and a one hit wonder band. We actually this band had a grand total of two songs that made the charts, but that’s pretty close to a one hit wonder. The Cyrkle was an American rock and roll band active in the early and mid-1960s. The group charted two Top 40 hits, “Red Rubber Ball” and “Turn-Down Day“. Today’s chart of the day is Red Rubber Ball. “Red Rubber Ball” is a pop song written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley of The Seekers and recorded by The Cyrkle, whose version reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and in South Africa and New Zealand. In Canada, the song reached No. 1. “Red Rubber Ball” is sung from the perspective of a man at the end of an unfulfilling relationship in which his significant other never gave him much attention or affection. He now looks forward to the future with a positive attitude.
According to Cyrkle guitarist Tom Dawes, Simon offered “Red Rubber Ball” to the band when they were opening for Simon and Garfunkel on tour. The song’s tracks were recorded in stereo, with the bass, lead guitar, and percussion on the right track, acoustic guitar and electric organ on left, and the vocals on both.
The band was formed by guitarists and lead singers Don Dannemann and Tom Dawes (who also played bass guitar), and Jim Maiella (the original drummer), who all met while studying at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Dannemann enlisted in the US Coast Guard in 1966. The other members were Earle Pickens on keyboards and Marty Fried on drums. They were originally a “frat rock” band called The Rhondells but were later discovered and managed by Brian Epstein, who was best known as manager of The Beatles. Epstein found out about the band when his business partner, New York attorney Nathan Weiss, heard them in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Labor Day of 1965. Epstein became their manager and renamed them, as a reference to the circular roundabout known as Centre Square, located in downtown Easton. John Lennon provided the unique spelling of their new name. They were produced by John Simon.
In the summer of 1966, they opened on 14 dates for the Beatles during their US tour. On August 28, they headed the opening acts performing prior to The Beatles at Dodger Stadium. The other artists who appeared were Bobby Hebb, The Ronettes, and The Remains. Before touring with The Beatles, the Cyrkle had a successful engagement at the Downtown Discothèque in New York City. They were also on the bill for the final Beatles concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966.
The Cyrkle is best known for their 1966 song “Red Rubber Ball,” which went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. Later in 1966, the band had one more Top 20 hit, “Turn-Down Day” (#16). After the release of their debut album, Red Rubber Ball, they recorded a second album, Neon, in late 1966, and a movie soundtrack, The Minx, in 1967. They followed that with various singles and then disbanded in late 1967.
Both Dawes and Danneman became professional jingle writers after the Cyrkle disbanded. Dawes wrote the famous “plop plop fizz fizz” jingle for ‘Alka-Seltzer’. Danneman wrote jingles for Continental Airlines and Swanson Foods. He penned the original 7Up ‘Uncola’ song. Dawes produced two albums for the band Foghat, ‘Rock & Roll’ (1973) and ‘Energized’ (1974), and co-wrote the song “‘Wild Cherry'” on the latter. Marty Fried left the music business to attend law school and graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1972. He now works as a bankruptcy attorney in suburban Detroit. Earle Pickens is a surgeon in Gainesville, Florida.
Keep rockin’,
Stan