THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,467) Jack Bedient & the Chessmen – “Glimmer Sunshine”
Reno and Vegas lounge/showband “recorded some killer garage rock singles along the way” (Holly Thorpe, https://thecometmagazine.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/b-sides-issue2/), especially this A-side, “outstanding, fast-paced garage rock with . . . fine guitar . . . featuring throughout including a very strong fuzz break, and a powerful, passionate vocal” (bayard, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/jack-bedient-and-the-chessman/glimmer-sunshine-where-did-she-go/) “with a fat rocking Pacific Northwest sound”. (Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives (2nd Ed.)) “Not surprisingly, it’s “not like anything else the band ever recorded and is now their most sought-after release”. (Chris Bishop, https://garagehangover.com/jack-bedient-and-the-chessmen/) Imagine if Sinatra had done the same!
Jack Bedient and the Chessmen were “a long-running Northwest frat-lounge-pop band of the tuxedo dancehall variety” (Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives (2nd Ed.)), “a headliner in Reno and Las Vegas showrooms”. (http://pnwbands.com/chessmen.html) Holly Thorpe or Dustin Hays (not clear who is the author) tell us the band’s story:
Jack attended Gonzaga University in Spokane, performing in the university’s Men’s Quartet and Men’s Glee Club. The following year, Jack was forced to drop out and move back to Wenatchee[, Washington] after his girlfriend found out she was pregnant. Back in town, Bedient and a fellow Wenatchee High School Class of ‘55 alumni began writing songs together. Alvin Griggs hadn’t been friends with Jack in high school, but the pair bonded over music when they reconnected. Griggs wasn’t much of a musician at the time and didn’t know much about song writing, but he had a knack for writing lyrics. By the end of 1960, Jack had recorded two songs of their creation. Demo versions of “Mystic One” and “Questions” were recorded in a small studio in Seattle . . . . By May 20, 1961 . . . Los Angeles based ERA Records released a statement in Cash Box Magazine that they had just signed Jack, a “new singer from the Northwest, with first sides skedded for early release.” . . . By July of that year “Mystic One” and “Questions” were released as a single on ERA. The recording had been redone and now featured string arrangements, a lead guitar, and female backup singers. The label boasted in Billboard Magazine that they had signed Jack for a five-year contract and an LP release would soon follow his debut single. At the time of the record’s release, lyricist Griggs had been drafted into the Army and was stationed in Colorado. . . . By December 1961 Bedient had formed Jack Bedient and the Chessmen, with a few members from [the] recently disbanded rock group The Furys. “Mystic One” got minimal play across the country and his 5-year contract with ERA was never fulfilled. . . .
Arguably the highest point in the group’s career was signing with Columbia Records in 1967. . . . [T]he group released four singles on the label before breaking their contract and parting ways the following year. After putting out two more singles and a full-length album, the group disbanded in 1970. Bedient briefly re-appeared in the Reno scene in the mid-’70s with his new group The Royale Brothers.
https://thecometmagazine.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/b-sides-issue2/
Chessman Walter Hanna recalls:
I was the 1st and I think only organist for Jack Bedient and the Chessmen, added just before their first venture into the world of Nevada casino lounge and then headliner room bookings. . . . I was “discovered” by the Chessmen playing in a pizza parlor in Redwood City, California on their night off – they had a gig down the road at a classy night club. I played organ and an early Wurlitzer electric piano with friends from 1st year of college. We were the house band for a couple of pitchers of free beer and pizzas plus $15 per man a night playing surf music and whatever else was on the Top-40 radio, Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Ray Charles etc. This was around “spring break” 64-65 when I dropped out of Belmont Community College and split from friends and pizza gig to grab a lucrative job offer and regular gigs with Jack and the Chessmen, $300 a week to start – big money in those days and the end of my former every-day life. In Reno, some months after the first gig at the Golden Hotel, now Harrah’s, we started getting airplay on recently recorded 45’s and over about a year had 4 # 1 Top-40 hits. The line at the casino hotel was so long to get in for our shows, the tail of the line was near the start, going around the whole city block. It really was a mind-blower for hicks like us. In between some Nevada bookings we went to Sacramento to play a couple of weeks at one of the popular local nightclubs, following Question Mark and the Mysterians, with one of our 45’s at # 16 on the local radio. I stayed with the band until sometime in ’68. Bookings were getting worse. In Nevada the [band] had plagiarized several very popular lounge acts’ comedy bits and came up with some of their own which were pretty funny. This worked like a charm in Nevada, but everywhere else, dance music was wanted; later bookings into some dinner music type clubs didn’t work out, but it was getting hard for the bands manager . . . to keep full-time gig’s coming.
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