Greg
Beck ~ Guitar
Mike
Leary ~ Drums
Steve
Lervold ~ Organ
Jim
Manolides ~ Bass, Vocals
Jim
Peterson ~ Saxophone
Jim Peterson
A brief history of
James
Henry And The Olympics
By Jimmy Manolides
January 2011
Published in The
Louie Report
Attention to the Article Provided to
PNWBands.com
by Jimmy Manolides
Accompanying the genesis of most rock and roll bands is an interesting story of circumstance. This particular one contains a set of convergences that have proved to be a blessing to me in more ways than one.As you may know, the Pypo Club was the idea and creation of a well-known Seaside “matriarch” named Oney Camberg (who incidentally was at the 1999 reunion at the age of 90 along with Pat Mason, who was also celebrating his 90th birthday (EDITOR’s NOTE: You can learn about Pat Mason by clicking HERE), as well as paying tribute to Steve Johnson, the high school football coach. They felt it would be good if the kids had a place to meet, dance and have a soda to “keep them off the streets” as it were. The venue for this little dance hall was the American Legion Hall, which occupied a portion of the second story of the Turnaround Building, that also housed the indoor heated salt water natatorium, a division of Vern’s Arcade and R & L’s Malt Shop. This took place in the summer of 1962. As fate would allow, on Labor Day weekend of that year, the Wailers were playing a dance at the skating rink, which was on Broadway (the gut) two blocks from the beach.
More fate would allow that I decided to go to Seaside that weekend, as my mom and dad had fallen to the pleadings of my little sister and her best friend for a return visit to end up the summer. It seems they had both fallen, as teenagers do, for a couple of the lifeguards and wanted a chance to see them again before school started. Well, a spectacular weekend of weather was forecast and Mom and Dad said “ok.“
I drove down by myself on Saturday (as I recall). When I arrived late in the afternoon, I observed a great deal of revelry around town, and also that my friends the Wailers were playing a dance at the roller rink. (I understand that this is all a bit of digression from my story, nevertheless.) The dance began far too early in the evening, and while attendance was building, there was trouble on the street. Well sir, the police made the fatal decision to call the dance off, released a couple hundred or more teens out to where the trouble was, and the tradition of labor day rioting was born.
On the following afternoon, the Wailers were asked to play a free concert from the roof of the turnaround building, on the porch of the Pypo Club/ American Legion Hall, ostensibly in part as an apology for cancelling their dance the previous night, and to quiet down the kids, who had more trouble brewing for a second night in a row. Didn’t work. No sir.
Anyway, like I say, this is a digression. But as the story goes on . . . My sister and the head lifeguard actually struck up a relationship (of significance to this very day). Well, the following summer (1963) I decided to spend in Seaside with my future brother in law. I had just graduated from the U. of W. and was between bands having finished up a kind of temporary engagement as bass player for The Dynamics while Peter Borg was on a sort of “leave of absence” from the band. Now it come to pass that the turnaround building had been razed over the winter, and the Pypo Club, were it to continue, would need find a new venue. I was there and volunteered to assist in it’s design and creation. There was in fact a location that was secured and we had it ready to open by mid July. I of course was placed in charge of getting bands to play, and the first was “The Counts“.
Guess what. The drummer (Mike Leary) and organ player (Steve Lervold) liked the beach so much they quit the band on the spot and never looked back. Now here I am with these two guys and all we need is a guitar player to become the house band. Well, I had only booked out about three weeks ahead, so when that was done, we borrowed this guitar player and that (one of which was Larry Coryell) until we found Greg Beck, and that is how James Henry and the Olympics was born.
The following summer we decided to go for season II. Well Greg said he would only do it if we brought along his friend and tenor sax player, Jim Peterson. Done! And it was that band that recorded a number of cuts for Jerden records, which included “My Girl Sloopy” and “Here I Stand.”
Now some thirty five years later, (1999) i get a call from one of the Beach Gremmies (that would be John Thonnes) asking me if i could reunite James Henry . . . To play for a big multi class re-union at the Seaside Elks to sort of celebrate both Oney and Pat Mason turning 90. Well, I had a band at the time with Greg Beck as the guitar player, called “The Hardly Everly Brothers” so we got ahold of the tenor player, had a practice or two, and that is the story of how we were there at the Pypo Club reunion.
Jim added this update:When I say “that band”, I mean the five that included myself on Fender bass, Greg Beck on guitar, Jim Peterson on tenor sax, Steve Lervold on Hammond organ and Mike Leary on drums. Neither of the last two were at the Seaside reunion, I moved from bass to piano, drums were played by Joel Sanders, and bass by Ray Hartman. So it was the first five of this paragraph that played on the seven or more songs recorded at Kearney Barton‘s studio and sold to Jerry Dennon (for free, probably). The one release on Jerden was “My Girl Sloopy” (the original title) and “Here I Stand”. “Sticky” was later released by Alex Palao on Ace Records on an album (CD) called Riot City.
Jimmy Manolides, January 2011
