The Secret Origin of The Cryan’ Shames,
as told by lead guitarist James Fairs!

You asked for a history of the early Shames ... well, let’s see ... I can only give you my recollections of events, which may or may not resemble a version that would correspond with historical reality. This is MY history of the Shames:
I was born with a guitar in my hand ... no, wait, I’m off to a bad start here ... really. I was, it seemed to me (but evidently no one else) a pretty typical high school student. I played on the basketball team and basically didn’t really know what I wanted to do. One night I went with a friend down into Chicago (considered a bold and dangerous thing to do at that time) to see a blues guitarist ... and my reaction surprised me. I didn’t think, “I can learn to do that”; I thought “I KNOW HOW to do that ... I should get a guitar.” I convinced my folks to get me a ‘cheapy,’ and for 30 insane days I practiced and dreamed guitar. I literally slept with the instrument, and woke up to it ... only to start right up where I’d left off. After 30 days, I had learned enough to play lead guitar for 18 songs, which I figured was enough to start a band. I rounded up a few friends who could almost play, and formed The Roosters.

Now I know you’re rolling on the floor, laughing at how insanely dumb this all sounds, and I don’t blame you. But try to picture this: There was no color TV, no cable, no computers, no Internet, no MTV ... in fact, there were only three TV stations (then, later, four when PBS started). There were dinosaurs and volcanoes ... oh, sorry, there I go again. But, at any rate, when a band played, it was a foregone conclusion that a large crowd of kids with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do would show up to watch, dance and wonder what to do with their lives ... but by this point, I knew what I was doing.

The Roosters won a ‘battle of the bands’ ... each musician was issued a shield, a sword ... oh, sorry. Needless to say, the band immediately broke up, but my reputation as a gladiator had been established. The Roosters had been a Downers Grove-based band and word reached us (by pterodactyl) that a band in far off Hinsdale called The Travelers was looking for new members; my friend and drummer Dennis Conroy and I drove over for a ‘look-see.’

Music (and life as we had known it) was, at this time, changing rapidly. The Beatles and many other British bands came on the scene with an appreciation of American blues, which suited me just fine. Bands were playing their own music, and incorporating any and all sounds that might work. It was almost an unstated understanding that, given this milieu, some of these experiments would fail, and that failures were to be tolerated.

After I took over the Travelers ... uh, sorry ... I mean after the band played a few gigs, I started writing songs. We mostly played R&B songs like “Hitch Hike” by Marvin Gaye, or blues like “Around And Around” by Chuck Berry, but we also tried some harmony vocals.
From time to time, as we played, I would look up and notice there was a guy on stage wearing a hook, playing the tambourine, dancing, readin’ Mad magazine ... well strike that last bit ... eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I asked our lead singer ‘Toad’ who this guy was. He answered, “The Hooke.” After about ten gigs, one of the stranger band meetings (in a long history of VERY strange meetings) occurred.

The meeting was called to determine whether ‘The Hooke’ was in the band. I pointed out that he was on stage every night, so he must be in the band. Somebody said, “Oh, yeah.” The next issue was, “Well, does he get paid?” Somebody else said, “Oh, yeah.” I weep for this nation.

One night, while playing a gig in Palatine, a promoter named Bob Monaco heard us perform a song by The Beatles called “If I Needed Someone,” which utilized three-part harmonies. None of us could sing, but I found that if each of the six of us attempted to sing, and doubled up on the three parts, we could fool a lot of people.

Evidently, we fooled Bob Monaco, because he flipped over the song, and over the fact that the song had not yet been released in the States. We booked a studio called International Recording Company and recorded the song, which Bob Monaco promptly took to a friend of his named Jim Golden. Jim owned a label called Destination Records and a publishing company called Destination Music, and he loved what he heard in the sound of our harmonies on that demo. Understandably, but unfortunately for us, George Harrison, the writer of the tune, would not release it for publication in the States until the Beatles released their version.

So we were a band with a record label, but no song to sing. We began looking for material, and one hot tip came from our rhythm guitarist, Gerry Stone. He said that a band called The Riddles played a song called “Sugar And Spice,” and felt that it was a sure hit. Over that weekend, we saw as many bands as we could, and finally got out to Bensenville to hear the Riddles. As soon as they began “Sugar And Spice,” the dance floor packed. I looked at Gerry and said “Do you know how to dance?” ... (well, I was just curious) ... no, actually, I said “That’s it, let’s record it!”

We booked a studio owned and operated by a fine engineer named Stu Black, and Jim Golden offered to produce the record. But we needed a ‘b’ side to accompany the ‘hit’ side (“Sugar And Spice”). The night before the session, ‘Toad’ got me going on about writing a song that sounded deep, but was actually complete gibberish. If you’ve read this far, you know that I was just the man for the job. Through tears of laughter, I wrote “Ben Franklin’s Almanac.” Some sample lyrics:

‘... Here or gone/nothing done
Nothing saved/frozen sun’

Gimme a break. (Unbelievably, I’ve seen serious discussions of the meaning of this song on the Internet. I now weep for cyberspace.)

But we had our ‘b’ side. At this juncture, the members of the Cryan’ Shames were: Tom Doody (‘Toad’) ... lead vocal, David Purple (‘Grape’) ... bass and background vocals, Dennis Conroy ... drums, Gerry Stone (‘Stonehenge’) ... rhythm guitar and background vocals, Jimmy Pilster (‘J.C. Hooke’) ... percussion and background vocals, and James (me) ... guitar and whatever else. We cut both songs in a day ... Stu Black & Jim Golden did a fine job recording it.

Jim Golden did an even better job marketing the song, and it was a hit ... but I almost didn’t notice ... I’d seen the inside of a recording studio, and my life and mind were changed forever.