The Cyrkle

The Cyrkle was a short-lived American rock and roll band active in the mid-1960s. The group charted two Top 40 hits, "Red Rubber Ball," and "Turn-Down Day". They still receive significant airplay on oldies radio stations across the United States.

Career

The band was formed by guitarists and lead singers Don Dannemann and Tom Dawes (the latter of whom also played bass guitar), who met while studying at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Dannemann enlisted in the US Coast Guard in 1966. The other members were Earle Pickens on keyboards and Marty Fried on drums. They were originally a "frat rock" band called The Rhondells but were later discovered and managed by Brian Epstein, who was best known as manager of The Beatles. Epstein found out about this band when his business partner, New York attorney Nathan Weiss, heard them in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Labor Day of 1965. Epstein became their manager and renamed them.^[1] John Lennon provided the unique spelling of their new name, which is a reference to the circular roundabout known as Centre Square, located in downtown Easton. They were produced by John Simon.

In the summer of 1966, they opened on fourteen dates for the Beatles during their U.S. tour. On August 28, they headed the opening acts performing prior to The Beatles at Dodger Stadium. The other artists who appeared were Bobby Hebb, The Ronettes, and The Remains.^[2] Before touring with The Beatles, The Cyrkle had a successful engagement at the Downtown Discothèque in New York City.^[3] They were also on the bill for the final Beatles concert at Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966.

The Cyrkle is best known for their 1966 song "Red Rubber Ball," which went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[4] It was co-written by Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel and Bruce Woodley of The Seekers. It was released on the Columbia record label. The band had one more Top 20 hit, "Turn-Down Day", later in 1966. After the release of their debut album, Red Rubber Ball, they recorded a second album, Neon, in late 1966, and a movie soundtrack, The Minx, in 1967. They followed that with various singles and then disbanded in late 1967.

Both Dawes and Danneman became professional jingle writers after The Cyrkle disbanded. Dawes later wrote the famous "plop plop fizz fizz" jingle for Alka-Seltzer.^[5] Danneman wrote jingles for Continental Airlines and Swanson Foods. He penned the original 7Up Uncola song.^[6] Dawes produced two albums for the band Foghat, Rock & Roll (1973) and Energized (1974), also co-writing the song "Wild Cherry" on the latter.^[7] Marty Fried left the music business to attend law school and graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit in 1972, and now works as a bankruptcy attorney in suburban Detroit. Earle Pickens is a surgeon in Gainesville, Florida.

Discography

Singles

Reissue single

• 1966 – "Red Rubber Ball"/"Turn-Down Day" – Columbia Hall Of Fame 33103

Original albums

Compact disc re-issues

• 2001 – Red Rubber Ball – Sundazed SC 11108
• 2001 – Neon – Sundazed 11109

Both reissues feature the original album tracks plus outtakes, demos, and non-LP singles tracks.

Members

• Tom Dawes – (born July 25, 1944, Albany, New York – died October 13, 2007, New York, New York) – lead vocals, lead guitar, bass
• Don Dannemann – (born May 9, 1944, Brooklyn, New York) – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
• Marty Fried – (born Martin Fried, 1944, Wayside, New Jersey) – drums, vocals – (as of March 2015, a bankruptcy lawyer in Southfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit)^[8]
• Earle Pickens – keyboards (first album) – (1969 to present, a general surgeon in Gainesville, Florida)
• Michael Losekamp – keyboards, vocals (second album); (retired engineer for AT&T and an active musician in Columbus, Ohio, with The Gas Pump Jockeys^[9] and White Rabbit in Dayton, Ohio^[10])

References

External links

• The Cyrkle at Classicbands.com