The Premiers were an American garage band in the 1960s, best known for their 1964 hit, "Farmer John."
The band was formed in 1962 in San Gabriel, California, by Mexican-American brothers Lawrence Perez (guitar) and John Perez (drums), and neighbors George Delgado (guitar) and Frank Zuniga, (bass). [1] They practiced in the Perez brothers' backyard, encouraged by their mother, and soon started drawing crowds to their rehearsals. They were discovered by Billy Cardenas, who managed and produced other Chicano bands in the East Los Angeles area, and won the group slots supporting artists such as Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Chris Montez.
Following The Kingsmen’s success with "Louie Louie," Cardenas suggested that the Premiers record a similar song, "Farmer John," which had been written and recorded by Don and Dewey. [1] Although claimed to have been recorded "live at the Rhythm Room in Fullerton, California," it was actually recorded in a small studio in Hollywood, with overdubbed party noises provided by girls of the Chevelles car club, who had been invited to the studio. [1] The vocals were performed by John Perez and George Delgado singing in unison.
Released on co-producer Eddie Davis’ Faro record label, and later licensed by Warner Bros. Records, the single rose to No. 19 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1964. [2] The group was then rushed into recording an album, Farmer John Live, which consisted mainly of R&B standards, again with overdubbed party noises. [1] They also toured nationally with artists such as The Crystals and Gene Pitney, and opened for such groups as The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and The Dave Clark Five.
The group recorded several more singles up to 1967, some co-produced by Larry Tamblyn of The Standells, but none were commercially successful. [1] First Zuniga, and then Lawrence Perez, were drafted, and the band split up by the end of the decade.
The Premiers' "Farmer John" was featured on the compilation album, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 , issued in 1972; according to the album's original liner notes, it was the only song from 1964 to be included on the album.
In 2001, The Premiers reformed with the Perez brothers and George Delgado from the original line-up, to play occasional concerts and record.
Los Lobos are an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. The band rose to international stardom in 1987, when their version of Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, and several other countries. Songs by Los Lobos have been recorded by Elvis Costello, Waylon Jennings, Frankie Yankovic, and Robert Plant. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2018, they were inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. They are also known for performing the theme song for Handy Manny.
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Manfred Mann were an English rock band, formed in London and active between 1962 and 1969. The group were named after their keyboardist Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The band had two different lead vocalists, Paul Jones from 1962 to 1966 and Mike d'Abo from 1966 to 1969.
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Pete "La Roca" Sims was an American jazz drummer. Born and raised in Harlem by a pianist mother and a stepfather who played trumpet, he was introduced to jazz by his uncle Kenneth Bright, a major shareholder in Circle Records and the manager of rehearsal spaces above the Lafayette Theater. Sims studied percussion at the High School of Music and Art and at the City College of New York, where he played tympani in the CCNY Orchestra. He adopted the name La Roca early in his musical career, when he played timbales for six years in Latin bands. In the 1970s, during a hiatus from jazz performance, he resumed using his original surname. When he returned to jazz in the late 1970s, he usually inserted "La Roca" into his name in quotation marks to help audiences familiar with his early work identify him. He told The New York Times in 1982 that he did so only out of necessity:
I can't deny that I once played under the name La Roca, but I have to insist that my name is Peter Sims with La Roca in brackets or in quotes. For 16 or 17 years, when I have not been playing the music, people have known me as Sims....When I was 14 or 15, I thought ["La Roca"] was clever; right now, it's an embarrassment. I thought that it would be something that people would probably remember - boy, was I ever right on that one! I can't make my conversion.
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Victor Stanley Feldman was an English jazz musician who played mainly piano, vibraphone, and percussion. He began performing professionally during childhood, eventually earning acclaim in the UK jazz scene as an adult. Feldman emigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s, where he continued working in jazz and also as a session musician with a variety of pop and rock performers.
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How Will the Wolf Survive? is the first major label album of Los Lobos, released in 1984.
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"Farmer John" is a song written by Don "Sugarcane" Harris and Dewey Terry, and first recorded by the two as the American R&B duo Don and Dewey, in 1959. Although the original version of the composition did not receive much attention, it was reinvigorated by the garage rock band the Premiers, whose raving remake of the song was released in 1964. The song's raw and partying atmosphere was immensely popular, reaching number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following the group's national success, several additional interpretations of "Farmer John" were released, making the tune a classic of garage rock.
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