New England Music Scrapbook
Cherry Opera

Cherry Opera was based in my home state of Maine, evidently getting started around 1970. I moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, late that year; and I don't recall this band. It would appear that Cherry Opera reached its peak in the early-to-mid 1970s, releasing a single, "Lady Conductor," that achieved popularity through the region and beyond. Another single was quite successful in Maine. A subsequent Internet search turned up this: Cherry Opera, "In Love Again" b/w "Stoned" (45, Illusion 10035, n.d.). The way this data was written was a little difficult to follow; and if you could help either to verify or correct the details, we would appreciate it.

Our original source of information is a gentleman who gets his mail, at least, in the Maine town where my mother and father live--his mailbox number is about ten digits from theirs. Small world. Anyway, he has vivid memories of a Cherry Opera concert at Carter Memorial Armory in Caribou, featuring a female lead singer.

Many of the '60s Maine rock bands that I recall are at least mentioned on our Jester Holiday page; but as far as I know, these outfits had all (or almost all) broken up by around 1970. We can only place Jeff Joseph on the rock scene for certain, though I can say from personal experience that Maine was doing just fine as far as country and folk acts are concerned. Oak, I'm quite certain, was based around the University of New Hampshire then; Bill Chinnock, most likely, was still in a New Jersey band; and I haven't a clue whether the members of the Blend even knew one another this early. So we're talking about a really shadowy period for the New England Music Scrapbook's Maine contingent.

If you have information to share about Cherry Opera, please drop us an e-mail. -- Alan Lewis, 4/9/2002