New England Music Scrapbook
The Lost

After his freshman year at Goddard College here in Vermont, Ted Myers spent the summer of 1964 on Martha's Vineyard. It was the first year of Beatlemania in the United States. The Rolling Stones gave their debut American concert on June 1st at the Manning Bowl in Lynn. And a little band made up of Barry Tashian, Vern Miller, and Chip Damiani had just finished a series of shows in the back room of the Rathskeller in Kenmore Square. That fall, they would add Bill Briggs to their number and become the legendary band, Barry and the Remains. In September, the Beatles gave a concert at Boston Garden.

It was a hot time to be into popular music. Albums came out by Massachusetts-based acts ranging from Freddy Cannon to Geoff Muldaur. Betty Everett's "Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" (45, Vee Jay, 1964) was a national hit. And the Rockin' Ramrods released a single of "She Lied" b/w "Girl Can't Help It" (45, Bon-Bon, 1964). 1964 was also the year of the influential Blues Project compilation (LP, Elektra, 1964). And the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had an extraordinary lineup of country-blues musicians.

1964 was a hot time, too, to be on Martha's Vineyard. The Cambridge folk scene was about at its peak at the time, and many of those musicians were summering on the Vineyard. Peter Rowan, for instance, was there hanging out with Banana and the Bunch. Ted Myers tried winging it that summer as the proprietor of a little coffeehouse on Martha's Vineyard. A very young James Taylor gave his first professional performance there.

Myers, having been surrounded by so much great music, must have been inspired when he returned to Goddard. In October he got together with Willie Alexander, Hugh Magbie, Tony Pfeiffer, and Walter Powers to form the Lost. They played at shows on campus and had their professional debut at a club called the Cave in Burlington, Vermont.

Band members left Goddard for Boston in December, and no doubt they found their way right into the midst of the rock scene that was gathering around the popular band, the Remains. Willie Alexander once told Ed Slota of Boston Rock, "They lived right up the street from us."

Then the Lost hit an early bump in their road to rock stardom, when Hugh and Tony returned to Goddard in March 1965. Not much later, Lee Mason, a friend of Myers', joined the band. The Lost found Kyle Garrahan during a trip to New York and brought him to Boston. A demo tape produced by Barry Tashian brought the Lost much of the attention needed to get a major-label contract. Willie Alexander is reported to believe that these are the best recordings the Lost ever made.

Capitol Records' director of promotion in New England, Al Coury, heard the Lost at the Rathskeller; and soon the band was signed to that label. They recorded in New York; and in October, "Maybe More Than You" b/w "Back Door Blues" (45, Capitol, 1965), their first single, was released. "Maybe More Than You" was a Northeast-regional hit, doing particularly well in the Boston area, Western Massachusetts, and Upstate New York. Oddly there was not another single released to follow up the decent success of the first. (Those of you who have read other profiles at this site: Do you begin to sense trouble?)

The Lost played often at Boston-area clubs, such as the Rathskeller, Ruth Clenott's new Where It's At, and even the Banjo Room; and they gave shows through New England and into New York State. The Lost opened for many of the rock stars of the day, notably including James Brown, Sonny and Cher, the Supremes, and Junior Walker and the All Stars. In 1966, the Lost performed with the Beach Boys on their Northeast tour.

A second Lost single, "Violet Gown" b/w "Mean Motorcycle" (45, Capitol, 1966) came out in August. This was well after the Beach Boys tour, as members of the Lost remember it; and another chance to build momentum was missed. For some reason that no one seems to remember, that single was recalled by the label. It was replaced that same month by a new recording of "Violet Gown" (b/w "No Reason Why," 45, Capitol, 1966). According to the booklet from the Lost CD, "'Violet Gown' sounds nothing at all like 'Maybe More Than You.' The band's versatility was one of its great strengths, but the lovely ballad sound of 'Violet Gown' was at odds with the bad-boy, punk image the band had cultivated in its previous release and both on and off stage."

Capitol Records did not exercise its option, and so members of the Lost found themselves without a label. They also lost their drummer but continued on, evidently until February 1967. Ironically, their last Boston engagements started a new chapter in the city's rock and roll story. The Lost headlined at the grand opening of that storied hall, the Boston Tea Party on January 20th. The next featured act, incidentally, was the Hallucinations, the old band of Stephen Jo Bladd and Peter Wolf who both served with distinction, later, in the J. Geils Band. The final performance by the Lost, not counting occasional reunions, took place at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire.

Thus began the legend of the Lost...

After the breakup of the Hallucinations, the Lost, the Remains, and the Ramrods, it would be a stretch to say that Boston had a coherent rock community. Yet in 1967, executives at MGM Records decided to promote Boston's rock scene anyway. The heck with reality! The Bosstown marketing campaign hit in the early days of 1968; and it didn't take long for it to turn into a complete fiasco. Just a year ago, John Lincoln Wright told David Wildman of the Boston Globe, "It was all over by the time we actually learned to play our instruments." Though some fine musicians got lost in the fallout as the MGM promotion failed, Wright's comment, like no other, captures the spirit of Bosstown.

For years afterwards, Boston's rock community was the subject of many jokes; and when Bostonians thought back to a happier day, the Lost was one of the bands they remembered fondly.

A few years later--certainly by 1975--a music scene was heating up in Boston's rock clubs; and it centered on none other than Willie Alexander. "Butterfly on your shoulder, how could you be bolder ... on Mass. Ave." The legend of the Lost was on the rise. Stories about the mid-'60s band made the rounds and they were mentioned often in print; but their records were extremely hard to find. That problem has since been remedied.

The Lost Tapes '65-'66 (CD, Arf! Arf!, 1999) is a wonderful compilation of the band's Capitol recordings. And once you've got your hands on a copy, it doesn't take a lot of research to learn why the band never had a hit. Twelve of the eighteen tracks listed inside the booklet's back cover are accompanied by the words, "Previously unreleased." Some of the best work of the Lost is among those recordings that none of us ever got to hear back in the 1960s. One of them, Willie Alexander's "Everybody Knows," is one of my all-time favorite records. The Lost didn't have a hit because the music-buying public didn't get to hear their records.

It's hard to figure what was going on at Capitol in those days. This is the same time when they recorded a dynamite demo by Barry and the Remains--and then failed to offer them a contract! Perhaps the extraordinary success of the Beach Boys and the Beatles allowed some of Capitol's staff to become complacent about breaking new acts.

There's a lot to like on The Lost Tapes, and I wouldn't want to be without a copy. The second version of "Violet Gown" and the vocal version of "No Reason Why" (previously unreleased) are excellent examples of mid-'60s rock and roll. Another serious attraction of this disc is the accompanying booklet. It contains more information about the Lost than the New England Music Scrapbook archive has from all other sources combined. It is the principal reference used for this band profile and would be reason enough, all by itself, to purchase The Lost Tapes.

Early Recordings: Demos, Acoustic and Live 1965-1966 (Cd, Arf! Arf!, 1996) has pleasures of its own. Though the demos have lesser sound quality than the Capitol recordings--they are, after all, demos--they generally possess a ragged-but-right appeal; and the band's energy often comes across more clearly on the demos. The tracks that work best are usually the same songs that sounded best in the Capitol versions, such as "Changes," "Everybody Knows," and "No Reason Why." Added to that are fine covers, such as "Searchin'" and "Who Do You Love."

The Lost Tapes does an excellent job of documenting what was. Early Recordings, when listened to with imagination--and it doesn't take a lot--, does equally well at giving an idea of what might have been, had the Lost been given more and better opportunities in the recording studio.

-- Alan Lewis, February 12, 2001

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