Apostles Update and an Important Message...

The Apostles Greetings all. As I was going through my mail this morning, I got a message from a cat named Joe Pipitone, who just happened to be the drummer for the Apostles (who I blogged about here last week), who also sent along the pictures above. Here'sJoe's message: "Larry, I was so surprised to see you found the recording “Six Pack” of the Apostles. I was the drummer in the band. I’ve attached a couple of pics of the group at that time. As you can see we were an all white soul band. The guitar player’s name you were referring to in the recording was Rich Rudolph. Gary Scott was the keyboardist, arranger, and wrote the music. We were heavily influenced by the R&B during that era, and we thought the Meters were really funky! The band had its beginning here in St. Louis, MO back in 1967, and played mostly clubs and school dances. We had two different black male lead vocalists…Marcel Strong and Billy Elam. We recorded 2 singles at Oliver Sain’s studio. We were recruited to come to New York by a guy named Bob Yuri who worked for Universal. He was in St. Louis at the time and caught our act and was very impressed. He also was the manager of a girl singing group called the Glories and he wanted us to back them up in NY. We spent 3 months during there during the summer of 1969, just prior to Woodstock. We played the club circuit in NY and also were the back up band for Chuck Berry in concert, along with the James Cotton Blues Band, and Ten Years After at Flushing Meadow state park. The band broke up in 1970 and we all went on to play in different groups in the St. Louis and throughout the Midwest. Most of us were all pretty young. I was only 17 at the time. Thanks for the great memories! Joe " Thank you, Joe! God bless the interwebs and all that sail on here, for without the instant connections made by even a cursory Google search, a once anonymous (at least to me) band like the Apostles is suddenly brought to life by one of its members. The tune can be heard by scrolling down the page a bit. And now for a public service announcement... This Wednesday I will be going in for some surgery, that will likely have me indisposed and unable to update the Funky16Corners blog for at least a week - possibly longer. I just want those of you that stop by on a regular basis to know that I appreciate the patronage, and that I will be back as soon as physical discomfort allows. If you're new here, there's a ton of great stuff in the archives, and you can always stop by the Funky16Corners web zine and read some of the longer form articles until I crawl from my sick bed. See you soon. Larry