Orpheus (band)

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Orpheus
Origin	Boston, Massachusetts
Years active	1967 - 1969 (Reformed: 1970 - 1972)
Genres	Folk Folk rock Pop rock Soft rock
Labels	MGM Records Bell Records
Members	Bruce Arnold Jack McKennes Eric "the Snake" Gulliksen Harry Sandler

Orpheus was a Boston-based rock band that enjoyed brief popularity in the 1960’s. Original members included guitarist/vocalists Bruce Arnold and Jack McKennes, bass guitarist Eric "the Snake" Gulliksen, and drummer Harry Sandler. Orpheus recorded three albums and four singles for MGM Records produced by musical legend Alan Lorber, including their best known hit, Can’t Find The Time.

1 History of Orpheus
2 Discography
3 Trivia
4 Orpheus Reborn
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] History of Orpheus

[edit] Beginnings

The band’s origins began in the summer of 1964 when Arnold and McKennes of Worcester, MA, formed a folk duo called The Villagers (based on their origins as a house band of a Cape Cod coffee house called the Villager.) While the pair at first performed cover songs, they began developing original material in the Fall of 1964 and Winter of 1965, and soon began playing regularly at the Carousel in Hyannis.

[edit] Formation of Orpheus

By early 1967, the Villagers had gained wider popularity, performing at venues such as the Loft, the Odyssey, the Unicorn, and the Pesky Sarpint. That summer bass guitarist Gulliksen was added and the group rehearsed as a trio until drummer Sandler, who had been playing with a surf band called The Mods, joined as the fourth member. In the Summer of 1967 the still unnamed quartet settled on the name "Orpheus" and recorded a demo tape with nine songs, including Can't Find The Time To Tell You, I'll Fly, As They All Fall and The Dream. After shopping the demo tape and receiving nine recording offers, the group eventually signed with Alan Lorber and recorded their first album, Orpheus, in the Fall of 1967.

The single Can’t Find The Time was subsequently released in January of 1968, and the group played a few small clubs in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, before making their official debut in late February of that year at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village. Shortly after, the group opened for Cream at a concert at Brandeis University. The group followed the success of their first album with the release of Ascending in 1968 and Joyful in the early spring of 1969. While together, Orpheus played on the same bill with a number of major acts of the era, including Cream, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and many others.

[edit] Breakup and reformation of Orpheus

The group disbanded in December of 1969 when McKennes and Sandler resigned. Gulliksen left in February of 1970 in protest over a lack of professionalism and an indifference to the fan base. Arnold then joined an existing band led by Stephen Martin (who had written several of the group's early songs) to form a second incarnation of Orpheus. This group recorded one album and one single on Bell Records in 1971. All of the songs on this album were written by Martin. The studio lineup included the legendary Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, who had performed similar duties on a few of the original group's recordings. This group disbanded in 1972, largely over issues similar to the first dissolution.

[edit] Discography

Orpheus (1968)
Ascending (1968)
Joyful (1969)
Orpheus 4 (1971)
The Best Of Orpheus (1995)
The Very Best Of Orpheus (2001)
The Complete Orpheus (2001)

[edit] Trivia

Van Leister and Jack Petersen of Harry Sandler's previous band, The Mods, both served as road managers for Orpheus.

[edit] Orpheus Reborn

In 2004 original members Gulliksen, McKennes, Sandler, and Martin, along with well-known Boston area musicians Bob Dunlap and Kathi Taylor, formed a new group called Orpheus Reborn. The new band, which does not include Arnold, makes a point of being very different from the original, and has no interest in either imitating or paying tribute to the earlier group. Performing new material and only a few radically changed arrangements of Orpheus' songs, its motto is "This is NOT your father's Orpheus." Orpheus Reborn has stayed in close contact with, and has the blessing of, original producer Alan Lorber.