NOWHERE NEAR AN INCREDIBLE SIMULATION

all images created by SDXL Turbo AI, appropriately enough, except 'The Zombies'

Bogus Bands from the Rock Hall of Infamy
by Michael Layne Heath
(June 2025)

"Since you were here last time, you seem to have been working full-time, doing concerts all over..."
"It's a lie! There are five of me going out, just like the Drifters in the old days."
- Lou Reed and anonymous Australian journalist, 1975

Only the naivest among us would not realize that the entertainment business is helmed by folks who are not necessarily honest nor above board, much less having their artists' best interests in mind (a certain Hunter S. Thompson passage immediately comes to mind). From PT Barnum to P. Diddy: the crimes committed are endless... Jazzers from Nawlins, bluesmen from Clarksburg and Memphis, rappers from the South Bronx to Oakland getting a Cadillac, a bottle of hooch, a bag of stepped on coke and a hooker, only to discover they're paid five cents on the dollar for every million copies sold.

There were even - brace yourselves - unscrupulous promoters and managers who literally bought the name of bands and vocal groups, especially among black artists, sending hungry, desperate singers and players out on the road to any number of venues big and small... to be the group that their sometimes unsuspecting fans wanted to see and hear.

The most egregious of the latter in recent memory was one Larry Marshak, a New York talent agent; for almost three decades he made a killing by promoting nostalgia tours featuring counterfeit versions of such venerable R&B acts as the Platters, Coasters, Marvelettes - and yes, the Drifters - before finally being brought to ground by the courts in 2007.

So here, we submit to you readers the efforts of certain slimy sleazes who thought, in the days of the then traffic-jam-slow info highway (and slightly beyond), they might successfully pull off some flimflam, bait-and-switch chicanery on 'the record buying publicoid' (copyright Neil Innes).

FLEETWOOD MOCK

Pittsburgh, Pa., January 16th, 1974: the opening date of an American tour by the British rock group Fleetwood Mac. Though they had left their blues roots far behind, with numerous shifts in personnel, they were still coming up with the goods, with songs like "Spare Me A Little," 'Sentimental Lady" and "Hypnotized" firm favorites on American FM rock radio.

Local concert promoter Rich Engler was looking forward to the gig: "I'd done other Fleetwood Mac shows here, and knew (drummer) Mick Fleetwood fairly well."

His mood would soon change. "The stage door opens, and a group walks in. I figured they were the roadies, and they went into the dressing room." The supposed roadies are soon followed by Mac manager Clifford Davis; Engler asks him when the band will show up. "Davis said, 'They're here.' Well, no, they weren't."

In fact, the real Fleetwood Mac was still back in the UK, in a state of total disarray. Not only were founding members Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer long gone (from mental illness and a religious cult, respectively), but the marriage of bassist John McVie and singer Christine McVie was falling apart; it had also been discovered that guitarist Bob Weston was in the midst of an affair with Mick Fleetwood's wife.

As a result, though US tour dates had already been set, the band collectively decided to cancel the tour... yet Clifford Davis had other ideas. He proceeded to assemble a group of journeymen players around Mick Fleetwood; among them was singer Elmer Gantry, himself the frontman of a rather decent psych-pop group, Velvet Opera.

This faux Fleetwood Mac was duly sent off to fulfill the tour dates, with the idea that Fleetwood would soon join them on the road. But when he didn't turn up for the Pittsburgh gig (or indeed any subsequent dates), a last-minute substitute was deputed; word is that the opening gig went surprisingly well, as did those that immediately followed.

Arriving in New York City ten days later, topping a bill with Kiss and Silverhead, it became evident that the facade was starting to slip. Gantry had lost his voice several gigs previously, thus the group was reduced to performing an entire set of instrumental, sort-of-early-Mac-style jams.

By this time, word had gotten around about the fake Mac, most notably via a piece in Rolling Stone. In that article, actual Mac guitarist Bob Welch was quoted as saying, "It's a rip-off. The manager put together a group real fast, using the name Fleetwood Mac, before we had a chance to do anything about it." For his part, Clifford Davis retorted by insisting that "Fleetwood Mac is my band...it's always been my band."

Having been found out, after barely a dozen gigs, the rest of the tour was canceled. "For a while we believed that Mick would show," Gantry would reflect years later. "However, when he never appeared and we were...branded in the press as imposters, I felt a rage towards him that (took) decades to subside." Such feelings were probably not allayed by Fleetwood's denial, in his later memoir, that he ever knew any of the ringer players.

It took two years for all legal matters regarding the aborted tour to be properly resolved. Meanwhile, the real Fleetwood Mac managed to regroup in more ways than one, with a move to the West Coast, soon pulling into their orbit the talents of a young Northern California duo named Buckingham and Nicks.

(CONSUMER ALERT: Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera's LPs are being reissued by the tried and true Anglophiles of Florida's Think Like A Key label)

SHANGRI-NOTS

In 1990, the Entertainment Tonight TV series ran a feature story that reunited the surviving members of the Shangri-Las - those 'myrmidons of melodrama' responsible for deathless classics like "Leader of The Pack" and "Give Him A Great Big Kiss," influencing everyone from The New York Dolls to scores of future girl groups.

In this feature, sisters Mary and Betty Weiss and cohort Marge Ganser sit at a table, their eyes fixed on a video monitor. They are watching the Shangri-Las, but it's not a clip of one of their appearances on '60s pop showcases like Shindig.

Instead, they are watching a video of a recent charity benefit featuring a trio of beglittered, spandex-clad ladies, all looking like they were more likely wriggling out of Pampers during the '60's, calling themselves the Shangri-Las. Adding insult to injury, one of them even introduces a song as "one of our biggest hits, our first Number One record."

Marge Ganser is livid: "Do you hear that? 'Our songs? Our records?'" "Embarrassing", Mary Weiss chimes in.

This was all the handiwork of a New York oldies show promoter named Richard Fox; legal tangles contributed to the original Shangs' breakup in 1969, including not being allowed any future use of their band name.

Years later, Fox discovered the Shangs trademark was up for grabs. "He actually called up Mary (then the owner of a Manhattan interior design firm), and asked her if she was performing anymore...because if not, he was going to trademark their name and put a group out there," says Jon Bauman, chairman of a non-profit that fights imposter bands and their managers.

Fox made good on his scheme, putting together a trio, including his wife, and sending them out on the oldies and B-list concert circuit, billed as the real deal.

The actual Shangs ended up taking Fox to court over the trademark issue. Marge Ganser: "Why should you have to (defend your name) when you are who you are? We put in the work, we did all the one-nighters, staying in lousy hotels...we're famous, and we still are." Betty Weiss: 'We're not teenagers anymore, and we don't have to take it anymore...and we're not."

Although they did get an initial cease from the court, a later judge, while sympathetic to the group, nonetheless ordered them to lease the Shangs trademark to Fox indefinitely.

As a result, Mary Weiss was not only unable to perform under that name but sworn to secrecy regarding any aspects of the case. This situation held until 2007, and Weiss' spectacular return to the building with her solo LP Dangerous Game; she proceeded to perform live intermittently until her passing in 2024.

"The Original Zombies'- Seab Meador, Dusty Hill, Frank Beard, Mark Ramsey
ZOMBIES SIGHTED IN TEXAS (AND MICHIGAN)

In 1969, about a year after the release of their album Odessey And Oracle, The Zombies scored a surprise Top 10 hit. After two previous singles from the album failed to chart, their American record label made a Hail Mary move, releasing the exquisite closing track "Time Of The Season" as a single. Miraculously, it rose to #3 on the US Billboard chart. The Zombies were again in demand, five years after their first run of such hits as "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No".

There was only one problem. The Zombies no longer existed, having broken up out of frustration in late 1967: returning to straight jobs or, in the case of keyboardist Rod Argent and singer Colin Blunstone, beginning solo careers.

Enter the dubious proprietors of Delta Promotions out of Bay City, Michigan. Through various contacts, Delta wrangled together a group of Dallas, Texas area musicians, from such local garage outfits as the Gentlemen and the American Blues. The latter group included a bass player named Dusty Hill; Hill managed to convince his drummer pal Frank Beard to join their lineup.

Delta thus dubbed this hapless lot The Zombies, first sending them out on gigs around Michigan and Wisconsin, even playing a gig in a Canadian prison. The network of clubs these Zombies played at were all too happy to be in on the scam, the local promoters splitting the profits with Delta Promotions while paying the musicians a pittance.

Even given the limited access to information back then, it's hard for the present-day music fan to fathom how obvious it was that these guys were not the genuine article, and that few fans saw through the swindle.

First of all, there were four of them, not five; promo photos of the band showed two of them wearing cowboy hats. When challenged by suspicious fans, the band's rationales and excuses were almost laughable: there was no keyboard player with them because he had been busted in Dallas the night before the gig.

Quizzed after their gig at the Whisky A Go Go in L.A., one of the guitarists claimed to be drummer Hugh Grundy, saying he had only moved from behind the kit because "the boys wanted me out front" (the interviewer also wondered why this 'Grundy' had shrunk four inches from his 5'10" height).

When questioned by a reporter for Rolling Stone looking into the scam, the owner of Delta Promotions said he put the group together after 'the singer' had been killed, resulting in two other band members quitting. He even revealed that the Texas mob was the second Zombies iteration created by Delta, the other being members of a Beach Boys-inspired harmony group hailing from Michigan.

Meanwhile, across the pond, the real and former Zombies were understandably stunned and upset by the cheek of these imposters. In the aforementioned Rolling Stone piece, bassist Chris White claimed the Texas Zombies even had the cojones to call their UK record label and ask for a grand, "for publicity purposes."

Perhaps the nadir of the Texas Zombies was a gig in Saginaw, Michigan in June 1969, supporting Question Mark and the Mysterians. A local paper called their performance 'disappointing,' also commenting that they sounded so different from how they did in their 'She's Not There' heyday due to "a complete transition in band members...except the bass player (!!)." Question Mark didn't fare much better. Still milking the cashcow of '96 Tears', its key(board) element was missing on that night, owing to their Farfisa player having quit the day before.

Delta Promotions' luck eventually ran out. Attempting a similar scam with another local group posing as The Animals quickly fizzled; the fact that Eric Burdon 'and a bunch of bikers' showed up at a gig armed with baseball bats might have contributed to that. Likewise, Delta's further attempt to pass off a local folk-rock group as the human manifestation of The Archies resulted in the long arm of the law and Don Kirshner coming down hard.

Eventually, the Texas Zombies shook off the scam, returning to Dallas and more honest career paths. Guitarist Seb Meador would end up fronting a Stonesy combo - even promoted by Andrew Loog Oldham! - called the Werewolves, releasing two albums on RCA before his untimely passing from a brain tumor in 1980. And of course, Hill and Beard (shedding their Anglo-adjacent aliases 'D.Cruz' and 'Chris Page') would go on to become bad and nationwide with a certain Mr. Gibbons.

And finally...

FRANKIE GOES TO...HUNTSVILLE?

In the mid-'80's, aided and abetted musically by producer Trevor Horn, and philosophically by British rock journo Paul Morley (tooting the hype-ophone like no one since Kim Fowley), Liverpool's Frankie Goes To Hollywood stirred up their share of outrage and acclaim over their flash of a pop career, their unabashedly queer presentation buoyed by sure-fire dance hits like "Relax" and "Two Tribes." Frankie split acrimoniously in 1986, and by the turn of the Millennium, they were little more than a footnote and half-remembered T-shirt slogan.

So imagine the surprise for David J. Prince, a journalist for SPIN Magazine, to be informed of the existence of a 'new' Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Dispatched by SPIN to investigate, what Prince unearthed in his feature article from 2000 might be the ne plus ultra of rock band scams.

The nucleus of this 'new FGTH' was two jobbing, straight musicians from Alabama. Will Martin was a flashy black guitarist in the Ernie Isley mode; the singer called himself 'Davey Johnson,' as in brother of Holly, even though his singing style was closer to that of Bryan Adams. Joining forces with a manager whose other prestige client was a performer from the Jim Rose Circus, they proceeded to schmooze their way onto the C-list circuit of state fairs and ox roasts under the Frankie name.

They also occasionally scored more prestigious gigs at places like the Los Angeles House of Blues, even playing the annual Mr. International Leather Awards one year. Their showpiece was a 15-minute version of "Relax," with detours into bits of "Purple Haze" and Metallica's "Enter Sandman,"

Prince's article deftly peeled back the layers of this charade: Martin and 'Johnson' (real name R.D. Turner) claimed to have been uncredited session musicians on Frankie's debut Welcome To The Pleasuredome, having been in England as Army brats with their families stationed there. Horn and other actual players, of course, denied this.

Prince also recounts Turner-as-Davey claiming he 'would do anything for Holly,' in between chatting up a diner waitress in a thick Southern drawl, and saying he wanted 'their next record' to be on rapper Master P's No Limit label.

For his part, when interviewed by Prince, Holly Johnson was rightfully peeved if amused by it all, saying "Isn't it funny that they chose to be a [offensive gay slur] band from the '80s?" More seriously, Holly added, "What Frankie fan who knew anything about [us] could ever believe in a million years that we would play steak houses and country fairs? It's so small fry, and so unstylish."

Sadly, the only recourse for anyone directly involved with the real Frankie would have been to take the imposters to court. But, as co-frontman Paul Rutherford told Prince, the band members were unfortunately too splintered off, with too much bad blood among them, to do so.

Prince's skepticism would eventually wear the fake Frankie members down, Martin going so far as to stomp his hetero boot and threaten Prince physically. But the damage was done, and Prince's expose would draw the curtain on the fake Frankie.

No doubt Turner and Martin are back in Alabama these days: mainstays of the local bar band circuit who, if requested, will deign to play their "Relax" medley from time to time.