We Five

We Five were a quintet led by singer/guitarist/banjoist Mike Stewart, who also arranged a lot of the group’s music; Pete Fullerton (bass, vocals), Beverly Bivens (business lead vocals), Bob Jones (six- and 12-string electrical guitars, vocals), and Jerry Burgan (vocals, classical guitar) had been the other people. They were shaped in LA in 1965, and had been made by Frank Werber, the Kingston Trio’s supervisor, no real surprise since Mike Stewart was the sibling of Kingston Trio member John Stewart. Their first sound, as symbolized by their first record, stood midway between your music of the brand new Christy Minstrels as well as the Byrds. These were as susceptible to perform show music as folk amounts, although limited because they had been to five people, they didn’t possess quite exactly the same outsized preparations on materials like “THE BEST Issues” (through the Sound of Music), Bernstein and Sondheim’s “Tonight” (from Western world Side Tale), and George Gershwin’s “I ACQUIRED A lot o’ Nothin'” (from Porgy and Bess). Stewart also had written a good body of originals, and between them the group and Werber got a knack for locating outside tracks. The group’s mixture of acoustic guitars and high harmonies got a wonderfully glowing, ethereal quality, vaguely like the Seekers and anticipating Spanky & Our Gang as well as the Mamas & the Papas (have a look at their edition of “Solid Your Fate towards the Blowing wind”), although they lacked the obviously described personalities and picture of the second option. They also experienced the good fortune to get on a track compiled by Sylvia Fricker, of Ian & Sylvia, using their North Journey album, known as “YOU HAD BEEN on My Brain.” The track, released on A&M Information, became a monster strike through the 1965-1966 folk-rock growth. Bivens, specifically, shone well upon this record, having a big tone of voice slightly similar to Judy Henske, rather than like a lot of the feminine folkies from the period. On other tunes, she could appear to be a Joan Baez, and somewhere else like Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane. Their edition of “YOU HAD BEEN on My Brain” was later on included in Crispian St. Peters, an aspiring English singing celebrity, whose own solitary eventually became a big success in Britain and a smaller one in the us. Sadly, the group became barely greater than a one-hit question, without an sufficient follow-up. They charted once again in 1966 with “Let’s GATHER,” but that one only scraped the very best 40 before disappearing, despite being truly a fair edition of the tune, like the edition by the initial Jefferson Aircraft. Their second record, Make Someone Content, demonstrated the group attempting to get a harder, bluesier audio, but manufacturer Werber got far less passion for the task, and by enough time it finally arrived, the group got split. Mike Stewart arranged another edition of We Five, as well as the reconstituted group survived before end from the 1960s, slicing a new record, Catch the Blowing wind, with covers from the Donovan tune, George Harrison’s “Right here Comes sunlight,” Gordon Lightfoot’s “MORNING HOURS Rain,” along with other modern compositions (including a John Stewart track), for Vault. By that point, nevertheless, there wasn’t very much interest within their make of music. At numerous occasions We Five possess reappeared in a few edition, playing the oldies circuit, with fresh players substituting for absent originals, but their real history finished in 1967. Mike Stewart and Bob Jones later on created a short-lived group known as Western, and Stewart consequently used his sibling John, along with Kenny Rankin, amongst others, while Pete Fullerton drifted in and from the business through the past due ’60s and early ’70s.