TALISMEN, The [II]

Homebase: Wenatchee, WA
Stats: 1963...
Misc Notes:
SEE ALSO:
1.) DEBBIE & GAYLIS

THE TALISMEN
by Dustin Hays

The rock band that would become the Talismen was formed in August, 1963 in the basement of bassist R. Bruce Smith's  parents' Wenatchee home. Besides Smith the combo consisted of Rick Cooper [guitar], Loren Bolinger [tenor sax] and Joe Britt [drums]. Fred Robbins [electric piano] was added shortly thereafter. In order to capitalize on the popularity of the Blazers - a late-1962 / mid-'63 band in which Smith (bass) and Bolinger (guitar) had played together - the name adopted for the new group was the New Blazers. On stage the Blazers had  sported gold blazers. The New Blazers would wear dark brown blazers accentuated by either a black ascot or mock turtleneck sweater. (This second blazer would continue to be worn by the Jaguars and the Talismen.)

The New Blazers performed in the Wenatchee area and up the Okanogan River Valley until around Thanksgiving, 1963 when Smith was asked to step aside because Cooper's parents wanted he and his guitarist brother, Jack, to play together, again. Earlier the brothers had played guitars in the Avengers, a group which also included Smith on bass and Robbins on piano. Perhaps, more importantly, Jack Cooper  had acquired his drivers' license and a car, so - with Robbins also driving - Smith's father would no longer be needed to transport the group and their equipment. With that in mind Smith - knowing his father enjoyed the band-related activities, and being a high school senior with Masonic responsibilities on the horizon - exited The New Blazers.

After Smith's departure the New Blazers became the Jaguars, but by the end of February, 1964 that name had been dropped in favor of The Talismen. Amongst other definitions, a talisman is a charm or amulet. There is no dictionary word "talismen." While the Talismen moniker has been attributed to pianist Robbins -  who departed the group within a week of its adoption - former New Blazers' bassist Smith recalls that quite some time earlier, another local piano player, Gary Lutz, had either thought up or heard of the word Talisman - which he considered to be a "neat" name for a band.

With the onset of the Beatles craze in 1964 The Talismen began employing male and female vocalists, rotating through several  before landing John Wood in 1965. Rick Cooper left the group about that same time being replaced by Leon Jeffery with Bolinger ditching the saxophone and returning to guitar. Already "veterans" of the local teen dance scene, The Talismen initially landed a recording opportunity in '66 to do the instrumental backing for two East Wenatchee Grant school fifth grade girls, Debbie Carmichael and Gaylis Linville. For providing the backing, The Talismen could put a recording under their own name on one side of the proposed 45 rpm disc.

Recorded on May 22nd, 1966, at Spokane's Sound Recording Company (SRC), the Talismen backed the pre-teen duo, Debbie & Gaylis, on "I'm So Lonely." Bearing a strong musical resemblance to "Soldier Boy" - a 1962 rhythm-and-blues hit by the Shirelles (Sceptor #1228) -  the tune's lyrics feature the girls singing about lost love and the sorrow that follows. Talismen guitarist Jack Cooper only remembers performing with the girls once in Waterville, WA. Released on Wenatchee's Julian Records label, the A-side of J-105  was a Talismen composition titled "She Was Good." That tune  shares  a similar cadence with "Louie, Louie" a Richard Berry song re-arranged and recorded by Tacoma's Rockin' Robin Roberts and The Wailers ( Etiquette #1), but made a hit (Jerden #712 / Wand #143) by the Kingsmen from Portland, Oregon.

Funded solely by Don Bernier, owner of Julian Records and program director / DJ at radio station KMEL (AM 1340) in Wenatchee, only a small number of the  Talismen / Debbie & Gaylis discs were pressed. Released the week of June 20, 1966, the record quickly sold out locally as it climbed the KMEL Top-40 chart. In August "She Was Good"  was featured at #19 on Richland's KALE (960 AM) Young American Top 40 Survey.

Just months after releasing their first record, the Talismen returned to SRC  to  record  "I'll Take A Walk" and "I Know A Girl." 1966 closed with release of the two tracks on Julian Records (J-108). Over the past fifty-plus years since its release, "She Was Good" has been reissued on a variety of other labels including well-known "garage rock" compilations such as 1986's Highs In The Mid-Sixties Vol. 14  in the U.S.and Germany's Teenage Shutdown series. Additionally, it has been "covered" by Finland's Flaming Sideburns, Norway's the Dogs and, in January, 2016, by the ten-piece Washington, D.C. punk group, Go Mod Go!. [Text adapted from an article by Dustin Hays which first appeared in Wenatchee's The Comet  May, 2018.]

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