Kooky garage dance number. Cool organ.
This San Francisco group was organized, in part, by Sly Stone of Sly & The Family Stone fame. In fact, this group was originally called Sly & the Mojo Men. This song was a minor nationwide hit in late 1965, but the group's follow-up ("Sit Down, I Think I Love You") did much better.
The Mojo Men - Dance With Me
6 comments:
3/1/11
RobGems.ca wrote:
The Mojo Men were formed by Jim Alaimo (no relation to Chuck "Every Day I Have to Cry" Alaimo)under the supervison of Sly Stone, who was then the top producer at Autumn Records, formed by San Fransisco DJ Tom Donahue. One of the first recordings the Mojos did for Autumn was a cover of an Rolling Stones song "Off The Hook" (1965), which got stuck as the B-side of Their "Mama's Little Baby" single, This record charted locally in San Fransisco, & prompted them a tour with other Autumn artists, such as The Beau Brummels, The Vejtables, Bobby Freemsn, & the Great Society with early Grace Slick (2 years away from joining the Jefferson Airplane).The end of Autumn Records came in 1966, when Donahue decided to change directions in the music business by switching from AM-inspired singles on the radio to FM-inspired LP's & help promote the emerging Acid Rock culture along with the underground radio programming. Donahue sold the contracts of The Beau Brummels & the Mojo Men to Warner/Reprise Records, where the Mojos would have their only Top 40 moment by teaming up with Van Dyke Parks (arranger) with Lenny Warnoker & Ted Templeman (Producers).Stephen Stills provided the song "Sit Down, I Think I Love You, a song Stills unsuccessfully tried to sell to Screen Gems/Columbia music publishing company for The Monkees to record, and coincidentally tried out a failed audition to join the Monkees himself. Undaunted by the rejections, Stills then formed The Buffalo Fish, quickly re-christened the Buffalo Springfield, and originally recorded "Sit Down" in 1966 for their first album on Atco Records. The Mojos quickly covered the song after that.The Mojos disbanded in 1968 after two more flop discs for Reprise Records.
thanks!
3/1/11
RobGems.ca wrote:
A correction to the earlier post: It was Steve Alaimo that recorded "Every Day I Have To Cry" for Checker Records in 1962. Chuck Alaimo was a big band saxophonist from the 1950's who hit the Top 50 in 1958 with a Rock & Roll version of the Big Band standard "Leapfrog" on MGM Records. Neither artist are related to Jim Alaimo.
Great blog
Correction again. Steve and Jim Alaimo were cousins. Jim and Paul Curcio were in the Valiants in Florida, then moved to San Francisco and became the Mojo Men. The Valiants backed up Steve Alaimo.
awesome! thanks!
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