Oct. 28, 1972: The Infatuations

 

No trace of these guys on the Internet, with one exception. See the Footnote: 

Oct. 28, 1972

The Infatuations ‘Are All Together as a Group’ 

Impish Reggie Rice follows the tape with his drums, whumping the bass and snapping the snare crosswise (he’s left-handed, but sets his drums up right-handed) as he fits beats into a slow satiny song like fingers into a tight glove.

The drum set takes up most of soft-spoken organist Kenny Hilliard’s parents’ modest sunporch on tree-darkened Riley Street on Buffalo’s East Side. The rest of The Infatuations are jammed in wherever they can sit, frowning or laughing at their parts.

A mellowed-out latter-day arrangement of “Dedicated to the One I Love” swirls ahead dreamily, the drumbeats loud on the tape, driving home the elaborate phrasing behind the soaring vocal harmonies.

It’s no easy job, hanging a ballad like that together. It’s risky, in fact. The hypnotic illusion is so delicate that one little slip and crash – the mood comes down and you’ve lost it.

You’d expect The Infatuations, having the voices and the inclination, could make balladeering their stock in trade, like the Chi-Lites or the Delfonics (“They’re my boys,” says lead singer Dwight Young), but for some of them it’s just too restricting.

* * *

FOR EXAMPLE, guitarist Eric Salter. He favors acid rock, jazz and blues. When the tape is over, he’ll pick up his guitar and noodle through a Beatles riff.

        He doesn’t think this part of the tape, the third set from their Sunday night show for the East Side Young Men’s Democratic Club party, is all that impressive. The second set was better, he says.

        That was what they call their freak-out set, the one where they loosen up on the good feelings they’ve worked in the first hour.

        The singers’ dancing steps are wilder, there’s a clothing change and the songs include things like the Staples Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” and Buddy Miles’ “Down By the River.”

* * *

EVEN AMONG the singers there are different preferences. Dwight likes ballads and slow songs. John LeLand is into Bill Withers and Buddy Miles. “I cannot sing a song unless I feel it,” he says. And Don Allen Jr. likes dance numbers.

        “I go out there to introduce the band,” he says, “and I’m nervous. I couldn’t go out there cold, so I go out with the tambourine and dance. It loosens me up.”

        So the group denies there’s any special influence on them. “We just do popular songs, really,” Dwight says.

        The same goes for the songs they’re recording these days at Sound & Stage Studios across town. There’s The Bar-Kays’ “I Been Tryin’” and (tentatively) The Nite-Liters’ “Get Back Buddy.”

        “What’re we gonna do with the record?” Dwight says. “We’re gonna sell it and make some moneeze.”

        One place the cash will go is toward a new PA system. The band plays loud, even on ballads, and the singers feel they have to escalate to stay even.

        As for picking out new material, the whole band has to agree on it before it’s worked up.

* * *

“HE CHOOSES the songs,” Eric says, pointing an accusing finger at loose-jointed bass guitarist Alphonso (Fleet) Rodgers. Fleet, it turns out, is the one who kills most of the suggested songs with his objections.

        The instrumentalists and the singers work out parts in separate rehearsals, then get together at Kenny’s house to put them together.

        Kenny’s, in addition to being centrally located, is the largest, safest, most comfortable practice place they could find.

        The first summer they rehearsed in the back yard and the free outdoor sessions attracted a lot of attention. “That gave us half our name and half our fame,” Reggie says.

        But it didn’t bring them a lot of jobs. Their second big splash came last Dec. 3 when they took over the African Cultural Center and threw a party. After that, people knew about The Infatuations. They started getting calls.

        Since then, they’ve played for several schools, a few fashion shows, the WBLK-FM Soul-A-Thon and the Unity Festival in September.

* * *

COMING UP is a St. Nicholas Black Youth Association dance at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Delaware Avenue next Saturday night, a tour of Buffalo high schools and their second anniversary party Dec. 2 at a place yet to be decided.

        Kenny’s mother serves as mother for the band as well. “She’s our secretary,” Dwight says.

        From the dining room, she’s watching over things, occasionally admonishing the band not to get too involved in differences of opinion.

        Actually, there’s not that much room for an opinion to get too different in this band. Someone starts carrying on too far and the others heckle him back to size.

* * *

DON ALLEN JR., arriving late because of his radio show, gets a taste of it as he starts an extended rap about WBLK and local ratings, only to be interrupted by yawns and coughs.

        Don’s articulate talents aren’t entirely lost on them, however. They don’t cough when he starts talking about working together and entertaining:

        “We may be individuals, but we’re all together as a group and if we can do it, that shows anybody else they can do it too. If people came and saw what we do and how we do it, they’d know.

        “We all gotta work together to be good in the show. As far as entertainment is concerned, people are gonna like you because of the way you are and the way you act.”

        “Hey,” says John LeLand, “I like the way you phrased that.” 

The box/sidebar: 

Basic Five Plays On 

        It was Eric Salter and Dwight Young who got The Infatuations started in June 1971. Within a couple months or so they’d gathered what’s now called their basic five.

        That includes Kenny Hilliard, 17, a Hutch Tech senior who took up organ when he joined this, his first group, after 10 years of piano; drummer Reggie Rice, 16, a Seneca Vocational junior, and Alphonso (Fleet) Rodgers, 21, an East High graduate and bass guitarist, who they lured from another band.

* * *

ERIC, 22, a guitarist and Hutch Tech graduate in his second year at Erie Community College, had known Dwight from another band. Dwight, 20, a McKinley graduate and a carpenter, sings lead (his preference is Delfonics-style ballads) with a range that stretches from tenor to bass.

        Added over the winter was Don Allen Jr., who gives his age as “put down 20,” and sings baritone and occasional lead. A Hutch Tech graduate, he’s the 4 to 8 p.m. deejay on WBLK-FM and he’s sung for 15 years, lately switching over from his original gospel style.

        John LeLand, 23, gets to pick up those high harmony parts, as well as others on down to baritone. He’s a graduate of East High and in his first year at the Co-operative College Center.

* * *

DWIGHT AND another singer, now departed, came up with the name Infatuations. “It just came up,” he says, “and we figured it would be a nice name for the group.

        “Then we looked it up and saw how it meant puppy love and illusions, which some of the songs are like. So we decided we would play it up heavy so the people wouldn’t think they were true.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: From left, front, Dwight Young and Kenny Hilliard; middle, Alphonso Rodgers, John LeLand and Eric Salter; rear, Don Allen Jr. and Reggie Rice.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: The name that popped out at me was Don Allen Jr. I saw it repeatedly over the years. That would be Donald O. Allen Jr., who was a longtime Buffalo city employee, a radio host on WBLK and emcee of the annual Pine Grill Reunion. He died in April 2020.

But wait, there’s another Donald Allen Jr. – Donald E. Allen Jr. He also was on WBLK, starting at the age of 14. His father was the station’s gospel program director. Crucial difference – Donald E. attended Hutch Tech. Donald O. didn’t. This Don Allen went on to a career in radio in Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City. He died unexpectedly at the age of 48 in 2003.