June 26, 1971: The Pin-Kooshins -- a year later

 

A return visit with Barbara St. Clair and the Pin-Kooshins and what a difference a year made. See footnote down below: 

June 26, 1971

Pin-Kooshins Press On With a Hit 

The hanging chairs in front of The Yellow Monkey at Main and Transit swing with a vengeance as The Pin-Kooshins, possessors of the only home-grown hit in Buffalo so far this year, sit and talk about it and what it’s done for them.

“We all feel it was just a mistake,” says drummer Ron Zalewski. “It was too light. It wasn’t our style.”

“Local group, local studio, local record,” says guitarist John (Mo) Mahoney, who wrote the song.

* * *

LAST JANUARY, when WKBW, WYSL and WNIA picked up on “Share Your Love” with its sweet harmonies and light cocktail-jazz rhythm, there were those who compared it to Karo Syrup.

But it also had that marvelously insidious Top 40 catchiness, the kind that left your head humming the song no matter what you thought about it.

As a result, it hit No. 3 on WYSL, No. 8 on KB, got listed in Billboard as a local breakout, lasted 13 weeks on the Buffalo charts and sold 6,000 copies, not quite enough to make Mercury Records want to push it nationwide.

“Actually,” says bass guitarist Carmen Castiglione, “the first record did everything we expected. It gave us a lot of publicity and we’re working six nights a week. Everybody thinks we’re millionaires.”

“The truth is we’re paying the bills off that we borrowed when we were playing only one a week,” Ron Zalewski puts in.

* * *

ALTHOUGH they were fairly prominent before, the record made them one of the city’s most sought-after groups. In addition to club dates, there were appearances on City Hall steps for the March on Hunger, an ALSAC benefit and the Variety Club Telethon, where vocalist Barbara St. Clair sang a duet with Della Reese.

“It was the biggest thrill of my life,” she says. “We were standing behind a curtain and she just grabbed us all and brought us out there.”

Booking agent Fred Saia right now has them finishing a week in Burlington, Vt. Next are two weeks in Providence, R.I., and a week in Boston, then back home.

* * *

“WE’VE GOTTEN past the point where working six or seven nights is something,” Carmen notes. “We’ve been on the go since January.”

“I need a vacation,” Mo exclaims. “What we’d like is to work four nights a week. For the same money.”

“We’d like to do concerts and one-night things, but around Buffalo the people don’t want to see us do it,” says Ron Zalewski. “Once you get tagged as a dance-club group, it’s hard to break out of the mold.”

Organist Ronnie Davis, swinging quietly in the corner chair, thinks otherwise: “We don’t have anything to complain about. We’re right where we belong. We have less hassles than we used to have and we’re at the top of the whole thing. We’re where a lot a groups would like to be, actually.”

* * *

“THIS organization is pretty well-known for complainin’,” Carmen says. “There’s so much aggravation you have to put up with. There’s no use sittin’ around complainin’ about it. You do what you gotta do.”

“You expect things to happen faster than they do,” Barb says. “Then when they promise you something and it doesn’t happen, you get let down.”

“You gotta complain,” Mo contends. “If you don’t complain, you’re not human. You’re not going to get anywhere.”

“The only thing we’re complainin’ about is we’re waiting for something that never happens,” Barb observes. “We want to do our own material. We want to get to the point where we can show people what WE can do.”

* * *

“WE WENT and heard The Grease Band at The Mug the other night,” Carmen says. “They did two one-hour sets, original music. Now that’s what we’d like to do.

“Because of something in the contract, there was no PA for them and they were singing through these little columns. So we called up our equipment managers, Randy Teitzel and Vinny Gallo, and they brought our A-1 speakers over.”

“But here and most of the other rock clubs,” Barb says, “all you have to do is bam-bam. I don’t think the kids really enjoy it.”

“This is the truth,” Mo adds. “We were playin’ here and I see my best friend from high school after three sets and he says: ‘Hey, I haven’t seen ya in a long time, where are you workin’?’ He didn’t know I was on stage.”

“It’s all white boots, hot pants and suntan lotion,” Ron Zalewski says. “We’ve even written a song about it.”

* * *

A STOP at The Yellow Monkey that Saturday night explains it all. There must be 1,000 single guys and girls in there, packed shoulder to shoulder, but most of them three miles apart. The stage is barely visible.

It may be “bar music,” but that doesn’t keep the group from sounding tight and well-balanced as they close the first set with “Groove Me,” “Make Your Love Grow” and a little Spanish thing Mo picked up from his guitar teacher, ex-Raven John Weitz.

When they start again, it’s with the song Scepter Records is set to release next week – Ronnie Davis’ “Milk and Molasses” – and it feels as down-home as its title.

Next Barb does a righteous Carole King “I Feel the Earth Move.” She out front more these days and the group is better for it.

Next Mo sings a neat Elton John “Love Song,” an energetic “We Can Work It Out” and a long, long version of Raven’s “Howlin’,” with Barb and Mo switching off phrases and vocals and some Ronnie Davis harmonica.

For closers, “Comfort,” another Ronnie Davis song, the one the group wanted to release last January even though “Share Your Love” was just starting to move.

* * *

IT’S A slower, jazzy Bacharach-Carpenters kind of thing and everyone feels that this one will do it for them. All the recording needs is 14 strings and producer Jerry Meyers says he’ll have to go to New York City to get them. Somewhere in the middle, the words go:

“Don’t be afraid of the music …

It’s just a song I’ve been workin’ up for years,

I hope it sets your mind at ease.”

Near the front, a group of girls are in the hanging chairs now. They swing carefully – they don’t want to bump someone – and they don’t seem to be hearing the music at all.

* * *

This is the last of the current series on local musical groups by Dale Anderson. He is on leave from The News until fall.

* * *

The box/sidebar:

Still Progressing Musically

Pertinent and impertinent information about The Pin-Kooshins:

Barbara St. Clair, “between 20 and 30,” vocals, East High School graduate, single.

John (Mo) Mahoney, 24, guitar and vocals, South Park High, married, a daughter.

Carmen Castiglione, 22, bass guitar and backup vocals, North Tonawanda High, married, a son.

Ronnie Davis, 21, organ and harmonica, Bishop Fallon High, attended UB, single.

Ron Zalewski, 24, drums, Kensington High, attended Buffalo State, single.

A year ago, the group was on what Carmen calls “a downhill slant” which bottomed when organist Don (Jake) Jakubowski quit to join The Road.

That’s when they changed booking agents and picked up Ronnie Davis, a veteran of The Lonely Souls and Skull Street Train who used to sit in with Mo and Ron occasionally.

“Since Ronnie joined the group,” Barb says, “we’ve progressed a lot more musically, ‘cause he knows a lot more than rinky-dink. If there’s been any uplifting in the group, it’s been Ron Davis.”

The only setbacks in the past year came last fall, when their PA was stolen and the replacement didn’t work, and during the winter, when Mercury Records turned back their plans to change the group name.

“We were calling ourselves Daybreak Union,” Ron Zalewski says, “but Mercury said no because our old name is already established. Everybody knows us as The Pin-Kooshins.”

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Keyboardist Ronnie Davis became my downstairs neighbor on Auburn Avenue later on in the 1970s. These days he’s better known as LeeRon Zydeco, leader of a terrific Cajun band, LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tamales. If you see that he’s playing somewhere, go check him out. In the meantime, you can find him at leeron.com.

No surprise that Ron is a Buffalo Music Hall of Famer. So is guitarist John (Mo) Mahoney, more familiarly known as John Culliton Mahoney. He demonstrated his singing and songwriting talents as the first artist signed to Record Theater mogul Lenny Silver’s Amherst Records label in the 1970s and later as a nightclub owner.

* * * * *

POSTSCRIPT: So after this article, my lady Laura and I hopped aboard a Honda 450 motorcycle and left town on a 10-week cross-country ride, a post-“Easy Rider” adventure tracing the Lewis and Clark trail from St. Louis to the shores of the Pacific, camping along the way. I kept a diary of the trip in reporters’ notebooks, which are somewhere up in the attic, awaiting rediscovery. Took photos, too. One of these days …