Vanilla Fudge biography
Vanilla Fudge is an American rock band. The band's original lineup - vocalist/organist Mark Stein, bassist/vocalist Tim Bogert, lead guitarist/vocalist Vince Martell, and drummer/vocalist Carmine Appice - recorded five albums during the years 1966-69, before disbanding in 1970. The band has reunited in various configurations over the years, and is currently operating with three of its four original members. The band has been cited as "one of the few American links between psychedelia and what soon became heavy metal".
History
Stein and Bogert played in a local band called Rick Martin & The Showmen and were so impressed by the sound of The Rascals (swinging and floods of organ) that they decided to form their own band with Martell and Rick Martin's drummer, Joey Brennan. Originally calling themselves The Pigeons, they changed the name to Vanilla Fudge in 1966, after the replacement of Brennan by Appice. A recording of the Pigeons was released in Germany in 1973 under the title of 'While the World was Eating Vanilla Fudge'. The group was then "discovered" and managed by reputed Lucchese crime family member Phillip Basile, who operated several popular clubs in New York. An emerging band called Led Zeppelin was the opening act on their American tour.
They had a number of popular songs, their biggest being their hit cover of "You Keep Me Hangin' On", a slowed-down, hard rocking version of the song originally recorded by The Supremes. This version also featured Appice's energetic drumming. One follow-up to this hit, "Take Me for a Little While", had a quite different lyric message from the former.
The members of Vanilla Fudge were great admirers of The Beatles, and covered several of their songs including "Ticket to Ride", as well as "Eleanor Rigby". The self-titled debut album quotes "Strawberry Fields Forever" at the end, with the line "there's nothing to get hung about".
Their rendition of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" was featured in the 2007 film Zodiac.
On March 14, 1970, Vanilla Fudge played a farewell concert at the Phil Basille's Action House. After that, Bogert & Appice departed to form another group, Cactus (In 1972, they left Cactus and formed Beck, Bogert & Appice with guitarist Jeff Beck). Stein, left on his own, tried to keep the group going with two new players, Sal D'Nofrio (bass) and Jimmy Galluzi (drums) (both of whom had been members of a Poughkeepsie, New York group known as 'Dino & The Cavemen'). But when nothing came from this, Stein ended up forming a new group, Boomerang, instead with Galluzi.
Following the band's breakup in 1970, the band has reunited several times. In 1982, they reunited in support of the Atco Records release, Best of Vanilla Fudge. This resulted in another album of fresh material in 1984 called Mystery. Martell was not included in this initial reunion and Ron Mancuso played guitar on Mystery instead, along with Jeff Beck, who guested under the moniker "J. Toad". Two reunion tours followed in 1987/1988. with Paul Hanson on guitar. Lanny Cordola was guitarist when the band took the stage on May 14, 1988 for the Atlantic Records' 40th Anniversary Celebration. After that, the individual members went their separate ways once again to pursue other projects.
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