Soul group Magnificent Men come to age on big screen

Dave, tell us something about you.
Born in York Pa. April 5 1942. Just turned 60 (ouch!!!)

When did you first get into music?
From 4 years old on I wanted to be a singer. My older brother, Ronald inspired me. He sang show tunes. I grew up in the inner city and hung with blacks. So, soul music came to me rather easily. When I first started singing it was in school or at church, or V.F.W.s. The white pop sound of the early fifties was my first love. When I found out that Pat Boone and other white singers were stealing their hits from blacks I had to hear the original black versions of “Tutti Frutti”, “Long Tall Sally”, “Goodnight Sweetheart”, etc, I was hooked on black music. When I first heard “Come Go With Me” by Del-Vikings and “In The Still Of The Night” by Five Satins, I decided I had to have a singing group.

What about your early days?
My first group was the Possessions in1956. All white group. This didn't last long. Soon after I formed the Argons, my first mixed group. Two white guys and three blacks. We sang at school dances and such. I still sing with Buck Generette from that group. We have been singing together off and on for 45 years. Buck is my black brother. The Argons lasted until high school graduation. After that everybody kind of went in different directions. After a few years out of school I decided to form another mixed singing group, The Del-Chords aka The Dogs. The Dogs were the instrumental players in the group. We had a hit in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, “Everybody's Gotta Lose Someday”. We recorded our second 45, “I'm So Sorry”. It was never released. But the record company decided to release the instrumental back up of this record, calling it “Soul Step” by The Dogs.

How did the Magnificent Men get together?
Around this time We started doing gigs on the side with the instrumental players in a group known as the Endells. An All white band with black singers. People started to say: The white singers in the Del-Chords should join up with the white band members of the Endells. Thus an all white group that sounded black. It made sense, so, the Magnificent 7 was born. We began playing at a club call the Raven in Harrisburg, Pa. We backed up all the top R&B groups, O'Jays, Temptations, Impressions, Patti Labelle, Manhattans, etc. Our reputation started to grow nationwide as these groups traveled the U.S., they would tell everybody about this white group that sounded black. We noticed that there was about a hundred groups out there named The Magnificent 7, so, we knew we had to change our name. At the time there was a hit movie, The Magnificent Men and their flying machines, thus the name Magnificent Men was born. Capitol Records heard about us and set up an audition. They signed us in a hurry. Its never been quite clear where the Mag Men were from, was it Harriburg, Pa, was it York, Pa, or was it Philadelphia, Pa. To this day all three cities claim us as their own, and that's cool with us.

Is Bob "Puff” Angelucci, the leader of the Magnificent Men, of Italian origins? There are so many fine examples of Italian soul men (Dean Parrish, Jimmy Radcliffe, to name but a few).
In the fifties we loved black singing groups, but if they weren't black then they were Italian. The Italian Americans had a great bunch of singing groups. Dion and the Belmonts, Elegants, Mello-kings, Fascinators, Earls, Crests, etc. The Italians here in the U.S. were responsible for a great amount of wonderful Doo-wop records. Yes Bob Angelucci is a strong Italian American. What you probably didn't know was the Mag Men's third singer, Tom Pane, his real name was Tom Panabianco. So there were actually two Italians in the group. You mentioned Dean Parrish. One of our first gigs as the Mag Men was at the Peppermint Lounge in New York. On that first show we played with Dean Parrish. When I heard his voice I lost it. He was a great soul singer. I have no idea what ever happened to him.

What about your local scene in Pennsylvania? Philadelphia was an important center during the sixties.
The music scene in PA in the 60's was all about soul music. In high school my singing groups did Doo-wop. When I first heard “Gypsy Woman” by the Impressions, I realized that soul music was changing. Doo-wop was out and uptown R&B or as it is called now Northern Soul was in!!!

In some of your tracks ("I Could Be So Happy" and "Peace Of Mind" for example) I feel something of The Impressions and the uptown style of a ballader like Walter Jackson. Do you agree?
My first great love of the new R&B was, of course, Curtis Mayfield and Carl Davis. The Mag Men were not inspired by Motown, we wanted to sound like Billy Butler, Walter Jackson, Gene Chandler, Major Lance, Artistics, etc. As a matter of fact “Peace Of Mind” was written for Walter Jackson. If I could have had my way, we would have recorded in Chicago at Universal studios right away (We did finally have Carl Davis produce us in the late sixties). “ Peace Of Mind ” was our first single recorded in New York. We as well as Capitol records were completely blown away when “ Peace Of Mind ” hit the soul charts.

Why did you decide to play R&B, a music strictly associated with the black community? I guess in the 60s there were still racial prejudices. Did you ever have problems with this?
Most black radio stations thought we were black. Some black disc jockeys broke the record in pieces and sent it back to Capitol!

One thing I wanted to ask you straight away. You said you lived in the inner city and so were in touch with the black community. Can you tell me something of the political situation black people lived in the 70s? I mean, with the Black Panther party being fought back and black people affirming themselves in the USA, socially, artistically. You have lived this period in first person.
I tell this story alot. I was never aware of the hatred white America had for the black race. To me they were just people of a different color. On one occasion after a gig, the Del-Chords stopped to get a bite to eat. My black group members said: We can't go in that restaurant. It was in Maryland. Just over the famous Mason-Dixon line. I couldn't believe they wouldn't go into that restaurant. I had to get their food to go. I was mortified by the ignorance of white America. It certainly did not make me proud to be an American. I do know this: Black music in it's many forms is the only true music that is solely American in it's roots. All the other music came from Europe. Even country music came from Ireland and Switzerland. I always believed that the black audience's we played for could feel the non-hatred coming from us on stage. I think that's why they accepted us as a true soul group. After all we were actually giving the black race a tribute for giving us such great music. Race relations in the 1960's here in the U.S. is a dark period in the history of America. Blacks and whites came together to fight racism and the Vietnam war. I think this was the beginning of a better America for all races. Unfortunately some things just never change. Some people just simply hate anything that is different. This will always be. The Mag Men were simply accepted as another good band who happened to do songs by black entertainers. The black entertainers never looked at us as white, they just looked at us as a good singing group. After all, most of the black singing groups of the fifties and sixties tried to be like the Four Freshman or the Hi-Los, both white groups. When you would ask the black groups who they admired, almost always they would say the Four Freshman. Northern soul is a testament to the wonderful music left for the whole world to enjoy forever. That can't be a bad thing. I'm proud to have left my foot print in time and in soul music. I couldn't have done it without The Dells, The Spaniels, Flamingos, Four Tops, Temptations, O'jays, etc. Everything I did, I learned from them.

How did you sign with a major label like Capitol Records?
We did have a chance to sign with OKeh and Motown records but our manager talked us into going with Capitol because it was a big pop record company with the Beatles and Beach Boys. Unfortunately Capitol didn't have a clue how to promote us. White radio stations said we sounded too black, black radio stations wouldn't play us because we were white, even though we sounded black. Lucky for us some black disc jockeys didn't care what color we were. “Peace of Mind” went to number one on the soul charts and this was the first time a white record went to number one since the days of Buddy Holly.

You worked with the famous Horace Ott and Sonny Saunders orchestra. Tell us something about them.
Our manager hooked us up with Horace Ott and he did wonderful arrangements on our original and cover songs. We are still in touch with Horace even now. I fell in love with Sonny Sanders' rhythm charts, “Higher And Higher”, “I’m Gonna Miss You” etc. I demanded Capitol get Sonny to work with us. We had a great working relationship. I once asked Sonny if I could come by his hotel room and watch him arrange one of my songs. When I got there he was sitting with one little light on and a bottle of wine. He was writing arrangements with a pitch pipe. It all was coming out of his imagination. It was so cool watching him.

What about the recording sessions, I mean, how did you feel with the technology that quickly moved onwards, and what was your attitude in the studio? Did you rehearse a lot or recordings came from long live sessions, and which was the producer's role, could you just work in a team or you had no word in his works?
I remember the first Capitol recording session. Horace Ott and Sonny Sanders had already arranged most of the songs on our first album. You might have noticed most of our original songs were written by myself and Buddy King. We didn't know what to expect at that first session. I gave Horace and Sonny an idea of what I wanted to hear. “Peace Of Mind” was the first song we recorded. Most recording sessions are done with the orchestra recording the track first, then the vocals were added after word. That's the way Carl Davis did it. But at our Capitol sessions we all recorded together, orchestra and vocals at the same time. We're talking 30 musicians. Buddy, me, and Tom were in the vocal booth. When we started “Peace Of Mind” for the first take, soon as me and Buddy heard Horace's beautiful string in the intro, we damn near fell over. It was so exciting hearing our own songs with those beautiful arrangements. Most of the time our producers were in charge. Obviously if there was something we didn't care for, we would open our mouths. Not that it would have made any difference, producers were, simply put, THE BOSS!!! On that first session, the first time I heard Sonny Sanders' arrangement to “Keep On Climbing” I was blown away. Sonny seemed to know exactly what I wanted in an arrangement, so I never had to question his work. Horace on the other hand, tended to over arrange. Too much pretty strings sometimes. But, I never would even assume to question Horace. Interesting to note that both Horace and Sonny grew up singing in groups, so they had their shit together. They knew how to compliment our vocals with their arrangements. I have to say recording was my all time favorite thing to do. I could have spent my entire career just making records. We had different producers at different times in our careers. But, Sonny Sanders was our arranger most of the time. Working in the studio with Carl Davis and Billy Butler was the thrill of all thrills. Everybody Carl produced came to our recording sessions in Chicago. Otis Leavill would be bringing us coffee and food. Eugene Record would be in the studio laying out the sheet music for the musicians. I remember after our first Chicago session, these three guys walked up to me and said, very excitingly, we just signed with Carl Davis. I said, what's your names, they said, were the Chi-lites. Pretty cool huh? Those Chicago sessions were the best days of my career. At Capitol they assigned us a producer, his name was Marvin Holtzman. When you are young you don't question any chance to record. If we had it to do over, we would have by-passed Marvin in a New York minute. I can't tell you what a thrill it is to write a song and then hear what Sonny or Horace did with it.

I am always amazed by the fact that if you have a look at pictures from the sixties, black & white doesn't really give you the idea of how colorful life was back then. Can you tell us something by people you met then, club you went to, artists you were acquainted with?
A story worth mentioning is our experiences playing what was called "The Chittlin' Circuit". Playing for all black audiences was a thrill. During a bad time in race relations in the U.S., we were never threatened or harmed in any way by blacks. The first time we were booked to play the Uptown theatre in Philly, they didn't know we were white. When we showed up to play, the stage manager said, you aren't playing here, I said oh yes we are, our names are on the marquee. He called Georgie Woods, the hottest DJ in Philly, to tell him that seven whites guys were there to unload their instruments. Georgie came in a hurry and said if you wanna play here you can, but he would not be responsible for the audience throwing shit at us. We immediately tore the house up, standing ovations and five encores. Boy were they surprised and so was I. The word spread as the trade papers printed stories about the seven white boys blowing the top R&B groups off the stage. We of course, didn't blow anybody off the stage. We just simply shocked the audience as well as the other performers on the show. We started that gig second on the bill, just above Brenda Holloway. Also on that show were The Mad Lads, Smoky and The Miracles, Billy Stewart, and Intruders. By the third day they moved us up to be between Billy Stewart and Smokey. This move proved to be tragic for Smoky. After we got standing ovations and encores, the crowd was beginning to leave right in the middle of Smokey's show. After the word spread, the Apollo in Harlem signed us. To this day we are the only white group to ever headline the Apollo. The first time we played the Apollo, Tommy Hunt was the star of the show. He got sick for the Saturday midnight show and could not go on. James Brown just happened to stop in to say hello to everybody, and the owner of the Apollo asked James if he would fill in for Tommy Hunt and do the midnight show. If you know anything about the Apollo, you know that the Saturday Midnight show was the toughest audience the business. James Brown said he would do the show if the house band knew his songs. They didn't, but we knew practically everything James ever recorded. So we backed James up for the Midnight Show, and it was fantastic. James could not believe how our vocals backed him up as well as our band. We became life long friends with James after that. We eventually played with almost every black star or stars of that 60's period. I remember in 1962 a local disc jockey friend of mine said he could book a show featuring: The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and The Supremes, he said the he could get the whole show for $500.00. I, of course had heard of all three acts, but I knew none had a big hit yet. He said he wanted The Del-chords on the show as well. I'll never forget walking into the afternoon rehearsal and hearing the Temps in person. They did not do any of their records for the show. They did all covers of R&B hits. After the show we spent all night long together. It was a special evening all around. Our drummer hit on Diana Ross (really he did). One of our singers went to breakfast with Marvin Gaye. And I went to the hotel with Eddie Kendricks, Melvin and Paul Williams. OH WHAT A NIGHT!!! This started again, a life long friendship with the Temps. They invited us out to Detroit, so we of course went. We stayed at Melvin's house. He introduced us, over the next three days, to the Contours, Micky Stevenson, Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier. Eddie was saying that they may never have a hit. I said, yes you will, I see something special in this group. Of course, the rest is history. I still miss the Temps who have passed away. At this time in their careers David Ruffin had not joined the group yet. Al Bryant was the fifth member. When “Peace Of Mind” went to number one in Detroit, the Temps were as happy as we were to see it happen. One time the Del-chords went to see the Temps in Philly and they let us come backstage. We really wanted to meet Billy Butler and the Chanters. We got to know Billy really well. He too, invited us to come out to Chicago. And we did. He took us to Carl Davis's house and we listened to demos of songs written by Curtis Mayfield and Billy. We auditioned for Carl Davis right there in his living room. Carl set us up for a demo session in New York. We blew it and showed up late for the session. This fuck-up actually was the reason myself and Buddy King left the Del-Chords to form the Mag Men. We didn't realize that a few years later Carl Davis would produce us. “Babe, I’m Crazy ‘Bout You” was written by Billy Butler, and he sings background on the single. Also Produced by Carl Davis was “Forever Together” (which was the b side of “ Babe, I’m Crazy ‘Bout You ”) and one other cut from our third album, “Nobody Treats Me The Way You Do”, written by Marvin Smith (The Artistics and solo).

Dave, name your favorite Soul Groups or Artists.
Here's how my favorite soul artists stand: 50's - The Dells, 60's - O'Jays, 70's – Earth Wind And Fire. My all-time favorite R&B is still the OKeh records Chicago sound. I never get tired of Curtis and CARL DAVIS's work.

Are you still collecting soul music?
I still buy and collect 50's and 60's R&B. I recently started to buy from Kevin Roberts and John Manship.

How do you feel there are collectors all over the world searching for original Magnificent Men records?
I am ecstatic that the Mag Men are so popular still, in Europe and Asia.

What are you doing now, are you still in the music business?
After I left the Mag Men in 1970, I went to work for RCA records as a promotion man. I was with RCA for 10 years. In the early eighties it wasn't fun anymore promoting records. I say it was the beginning of the end of record companies as we know them. We still do two concerts a year and sell out. It seems the longer time goes by the more popular The Magnificent Men get. Our Collectibles CD continues to sell very well.

What do you think about contemporary soul?
I don't listen or care much for contemporary music of any kind. I am however very into the European electronic music scene. Mostly the German electronics. And of course I still listen to my old soul jams. Since most of the 45's I own are now available on CD, I'm buying a load of these re-issues.

--------------------------------------------------------------------