![]() ![]() “He had that flowing combination of ‘big ears’ and technology savvy that's hard to find. John Simon and The Cyrkle headed into Studio B at Columbia to work with Roy Halee. He said sure, as if it were pocket change!” I screwed up my courage and went to ask my scary, imposing boss - gruff Bill Gallagher - if I could have $5,000 to cut it. He played a demo of ‘Red Rubber Ball,’ which I thought was okay. He said he was ‘an associate of Brian Epstein’ and that every other producer in the place had turned him down. “I had been a ‘trainee’ at Columbia,” says John Simon, “and had just been moved to the pop department as an associate producer and assigned a few acts that the experienced producers didn't see as profitable when Nat Weiss walked into my 10-by-10 windowless cubicle. Meanwhile, John Simon (no relation) was making his way up the ladder at Columbia Records. ![]() At some point during the tour, Paul Simon played Dawes a demo he'd made of “Red Rubber Ball,” a song he'd written with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers. ![]() Dawes, meanwhile, had been spotted playing bass in a New York club by Barry Kornfeld, who was putting together a touring band to support Simon & Garfunkel, whose Sounds of Silence was at the top of the charts. The Vietnam War was raging, and Dannemann decided to spend six months in the Coast Guard Reserves rather than risk getting drafted. Eventually spotted by Nat Weiss, a New York attorney who had a partnership with Beatles manager Brian Epstein, the group was rechristened The Cyrkle by either Epstein or, as legend has it, John Lennon. ![]() The group quickly moved from being the most in-demand party band on campus to playing clubs along the East Coast. While students at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., Dawes, who sang the upper part on “Red Rubber Ball,” and Dannemann, who handled the equally weighted lower part, formed a band called The Rhondells with Fried and Pickens. Along with drummer Marty Fried and keyboardist Earl Pickens, they were The Cyrkle, a group that recorded a pair of hits in 1966 - “Red Rubber Ball” and “Turn-Down Day” - and spent a season in the sun with The Beatles. Back in 1966, young musicians like Tom Dawes and Don Dannemann had a lot of influences from which to draw. Blues masters tossed jagged contrapuntal lines into a densely textured pop symphony. Folk singers wouldn't throw in the towel. ![]()
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