Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane | |
|---|---|
 McFarlane in 2015 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Elaine McFarlane |
| Born | June 19, 1942 |
| Genres | Pop, folk |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Years active | 1966–present |
Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (born June 19, 1942) is an American singer best known for fronting the vocal group Spanky and Our Gang in the late 1960s. She was nicknamed "The Queen of Sunshine Pop". [1]
In 1959, McFarlane arrived in Chicago from Bloomington, Illinois. She started performing with such jazz greats as Lil Hardin Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Little Brother Montgomery, working the jazz clubs. She soon got involved with the burgeoning folk crowd and formed a trio with Roger McGuinn and Guy Guilbert called the Old Town Trio, playing the local bars and coffee houses for a summer. In 1962, she joined the New Wine Singers. Fellow singer Arnie Lanza nicknamed her Spanky because of the similarity of her last name, McFarlane, to the last name of child actor George McFarland who played Spanky in the Our Gang Comedies. The nickname stuck. The New Wine Singers performed folk songs the first half of their set, then dropped the guitars and banjo, picked up a trombone, coronet, drums, and piano, and closed the set with Dixieland jazz. They made their only folk LP on Vee-Jay Records titled: "The New Wine Singers at the Chicago Opera House." Then McFarlane joined a jazz-based singing group called the Jamie Lyn Trio, touring the country and working the Playboy Club circuit. In Chicago, 1965, she formed Spanky and Our Gang with Nigel Pickering and Oz Bach, with fellow New Wine Singers musician Malcolm Hale joining later. After a couple of weeks' rehearsal, they debuted as the opening act at Mother Blues nightclub.
The band had major hits with "Sunday Will Never Be the Same", "Lazy Day", "Sunday Mornin'," and "Like to Get to Know You". McFarlane resisted being labeled a bubblegum pop artist:
“It wasn’t a label I wanted or particularly aspired to. I do see how a song like ‘Lazy Day’ could be considered bubblegum, so then I came up with songs like ‘Like to Get to Know You’ and ‘Give a Damn’ which could not be considered bubblegum in any way, shape, or form.” [1]
On October 31, 1968, the group's lead guitarist Malcolm Hale died in his sleep in the third floor apartment of the same building where Chicago's famed Earl of Old Town folk bar resided, leading the band to disband in early 1969. Thereafter, McFarlane and her husband, road manager Charly Galvin, prepared an album called Spanky's Greatest Hits." [2]
McFarlane had later success as a solo artist. She became a member of The New Mamas & the Papas, singing Cass Elliot's vocal parts. [3] She also began an acting career, playing a barmaid in the 1975 film Moonrunners and appearing as Bloody Mary in the Ferndale Repertory Theatre's production of South Pacific . [4] She reinstated Spanky and Our Gang in the 2000s, playing with musicians who had played with Steely Dan, Bobbie Gentry, and others.
"We just adore each other and it shows. It’s not like I’m trying to make a new career for myself, I just want to have fun and be with my pals." [1]
George Robert Philips McFarland was an American actor most famous for starring as a child as Spanky in the Our Gang series of short-subject comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The Our Gang shorts were later syndicated to television as The Little Rascals.
Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and blues pianist and singer.
John Edmund Andrew Phillips was an American folk rock musician. He was the leader of the vocal group the Mamas & the Papas and remains frequently referred to as Papa John Phillips. In addition to writing the majority of the group's compositions, he also wrote "San Francisco " in 1967 for former Journeymen bandmate Scott McKenzie, as well as the oft-covered "Me and My Uncle", which was a favorite in the repertoire of the Grateful Dead. Phillips was one of the chief organizers of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
Spanky McFarland (1928–1993) was an American actor, member of Our Gang.
Sunshine pop is a subgenre of pop music that originated in Southern California in the mid-1960s. Rooted in easy listening and advertising jingles, sunshine pop acts combined nostalgic or anxious moods with "an appreciation for the beauty of the world". The category largely consists of lesser-known artists who imitated more popular groups such as the Mamas & the Papas and the 5th Dimension. While the Beach Boys are noted as prominent influences, the band's music was rarely representative of the genre.
Spanky and Our Gang was an American 1960s sunshine pop band led by Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane. The band derives its name from Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies of the 1930s, because of the similarity of McFarlane's surname with that of George McFarland (Spanky). The group was known for its vocal harmonies and had major hits in the US and Canada in 1967–1968 with "Sunday Will Never Be the Same," "Lazy Day," "Sunday Mornin'," and "Like to Get to Know You."
Spanky McFarland (1928–1993) was an American child actor in the Our Gang comedies.
Our Gang is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by film producer Hal Roach, also the producer of the Laurel and Hardy films, Our Gang shorts were produced from 1922 to 1944, spanning the silent film and early sound film periods of American cinema. Our Gang is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way; Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children, rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series also broke new ground by portraying white and black children interacting as equals during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation in the United States.
The Purple Hearts were an Australian R&B, rock group, formed in Brisbane as the Impacts in 1964. The band included lead vocalist Mick Hadley, lead guitarist Barry Lyde, rhythm guitarists Paul Steffen (1964–65) and Fred Pickard (1965-66), bassist Bob Dames, and drummers Adrian "Red" Redmond (1964–66) and Tony Cahill (1966-67). The group issued an extended play, The Sound of the Purple Hearts (1966), and several singles, including "Long-legged Baby" (1965) and "Early in the Morning" (1966). They disbanded early in 1967.
Margo Guryan was an American singer-songwriter. As a songwriter, her work was first recorded in 1958, although it was for her 1960s song "Sunday Mornin'", a hit for both Spanky and Our Gang and Oliver, that she is perhaps best known. Her songs have also been recorded by Cass Elliot, Glen Campbell and Astrud Gilberto, among others.
Stuart Martin Scharf was an American composer, guitarist, and record producer.
Louella "Spanky" Wilson is an American soul, funk and jazz vocalist, who has performed internationally and recorded several albums since the late 1960s.
Alan Gary Zekley was an American West Coast record producer and songwriter associated with 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s bands and songs in the bubblegum, rock and roll, sunshine pop, and surf genres.
Our Gang Follies of 1938 is a 1937 American musical short subject, the 161st short subject entry in Hal Roach's Our Gang series. Directed by Gordon Douglas as a sequel to 1935's Our Gang Follies of 1936, the two-reel short was released to theaters on December 18, 1937, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Our Gang Follies of 1936 is a 1935 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Gus Meins. Produced by Hal Roach and released to theaters by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it was the 140th Our Gang short to be released and the first of several musical entries in the series.
Spanky and Our Gang is the debut album by Spanky and Our Gang, released on August 1, 1967. The album was released by Mercury Records and included three songs that were released as singles. These were "Sunday Will Never Be the Same", their biggest hit, which reached number Number 9 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1967, "Making Every Minute Count", which reached Number 31, and "Lazy Day", reaching Number 14.
Spanky & Our Gang Live is the fifth album by American 1960s folk-rock band Spanky and Our Gang.
Like to Get to Know You is the second studio album by Spanky and Our Gang, released in 1968. It is the first of their albums to exhibit their signature sound, partially owing to it being produced by two different people than their debut album.
Nigel Pickering was an American folk rock musician, who co-founded and was a songwriter for Spanky And Our Gang.
Paul Michael "Oz" Bach was an American folk musician and bassist for the 1960s group Spanky and Our Gang.