Blue Ash founding members Jim Kendzor, center, and Frank Secich stand with Darla Bartolin, widow of guitarist Bill Bartolin, at Fat Hippy Records of Brookfield, where you can buy the new album of mostly unreleased Blue Ash material.
About a year ago, Peppermint Records of Youngstown was ready to issue an album of Blue Ash tunes recorded in Peppermint’s studio.
Then came the bolt from the blue.
“Anthony (LaMarca) and Dean (Anshutz), they’re working for Peppermint now, they found the track tapes of the first three songs we ever did,” said Frank Secich, bassist and co-songwriter for the local power pop band that put out two major-label recordings in the 1970s.
The musicians and producers wanted to include that material on the new album. It took a year to secure the rights to the tapes – Drexel University, Philadelphia, owns them – remix them and reconfigure the album. It’s out now, called “Dinner At Mr. Billy’s,” and available in LP and CD form at Fat Hippy Records in Brookfield and from online sources. It also can be streamed.
Most of the songs feature the “classic” Blue Ash lineup of Secich; guitarist Bill Bartolin of Brookfield, who was Secich’s writing partner; lead singer Jim Kendzor; and drummer Dave Evans.
“He’d (Bill Bartolin) be ecstatic about all this,” said Bartolin’s widow, Darla, who still lives in Masury. Bartolin died Oct. 3, 2009.
The LP version of “Dinner at Mr. Billy’s” – an album title Bartolin suggested years ago based on a restaurant in Pittsburgh – contains two of the lost tracks, “We’ll Live Tomorrow” – a rare song in that Bartolin and Secich did not not write it – and “I’ve Been Rolled.” They were recorded at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia in 1970 for Bob Mack, a disc jockey known for holding teen dances in Pittsburgh and elsewhere in western Pennsylvania, including Sharon.
“We were 18, 19 years old,” Secich said of when Blue Ash recorded at Sigma.
Even though it was the band’s first recording opportunity, the musicians were not nervous, Secich said.
“We were already seasoned veterans by that time,” he said. “We’d already played a couple hundred gigs.”
Soul singer Wilson Pickett of “Mustang Sally” and “In the Midnight Hour” fame was recording next door. He stopped over to see what Blue Ash was up to.
“He goes, ‘You guys aren’t bad – for white boys,’” Secich said.
“He (Pickett) was cool,” Secich said. “We couldn’t believe he walked in.”
Mack, who discovered Tommy James and the Shondells, tried to shop the tapes to Roulette Records. Blue Ash later signed with Mercury Records, which put out the album “No More No Less.”
The other songs were recorded at Peppermint or its predecessor, United Audio, between 1970 and 1979. None of them had been released before except for “Jazel Jane,” which was included on a previous rarities compilation, “Around Again,” from Not Lame Records in 2004, and was heard in the Netflix series “Daisy Jones and the Six.” A later version of “I’ve Been Rolled” was on the band’s second album, “Front Page News,” which was released by a Columbia Records affiliate, Playboy Records. Kendzor wrote “It’s Alright by Me.”
Secich said he’s impressed with the quality of the recordings and especially the vocals and said the album contains them as they were originally taped, with no later additions or subtractions.
“We couldn’t believe it when we heard this stuff,” he said. “Our vocals sound great. There was no Autotune or anything, just going in there” and singing.
Peppermint has been putting out material by Left End, Glass Harp, LAW and other local bands, and plans to dive back into the Blue Ash tapes to release several more albums, Secich said. Noting that Peppermint allowed Blue Ash two free days of recording a month for years, there is plenty of untapped music to choose from.
“There’s 260 recordings there,” he said, adding that he’s still looking for the tapes of recording sessions done elsewhere.
Fat Hippy, 7188 Warren Sharon Road, will hold a record signing for Blue Ash at noon April 11.
