The Royal Guardsmen and the World-Famous Beagle: Part 3 of 3

1968 was an election year, and Charles Schulz acknowledged this with a series of newspaper strips that featured Snoopy and a flock of “proto-Woodstocks” carrying campaign banners promoting candidates identified solely as “!!,” ”?,” “$” and many other droll symbols. Hallmark’s lenticular  “Snoopy for President” buttons became an instant hot seller, as was a plush Snoopy doll wearing a “Snoopy for President” T-shirt.

Phil Gernhard had an idea.

 

Clearly, a song titled “Snoopy for President” would gain similar attention. Gernhard, Dick Holler and Arnold Shapiro dashed off a clever tune that added a patriotic, banjo-hued flavor to the military cadence of the previous “Snoopy” efforts, along with the ubiquitous mid-point key change. The track opened with a German radio broadcast that announced the candidates: “President, United States: Kennedy, Nixon, McCarthy und Rockefeller, Schnoopy, Humphrey ... Schnoopy? Ach du Lieber meinet...” The chorus was quite catchy:

 

Some wear the sign of the elephant,

And some wear the sign of the mule;

But we’ll hold the sign of the beagle high,

And love will shine right through.

 

As summer began, however, the band suffered a defection. Barry Winslow, out of high school and lacking a college deferment that would prevent being drafted, left to “sort himself out.” The band toured as a quintet that summer. They returned to Fuller Studios to lay down the song’s instrumental elements, and Winslow added his vocal at a later date.

The single was rushed out at the end of May.

 

On June 5, Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Los Angeles Ambassador hotel, and pronounced dead the following day.

 

The June 15 issue of Cashbox tagged the single a “Pick of the Week,” bravely insisting that it “...should hit the sales impact of their three previous Snoopy ventures. Bouncing beat and cute commentary add up to breakout power.”

 

Alas.

 

Laurie Records hastily recalled the singles; a revised version — absent the initial recitation of the candidates’ names — was re-released. Unfortunately, this turn of events cut off the minimal momentum that the single achieved on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It entered at No. 89 on July 13, rose four slots the following week, then disappeared.

 

Meanwhile, Gernhard produced the companion album ... which proved to be a Royal Guardsmen endeavor in name only. The actual Royal Guardsmen were too busy touring, so Gernhard brought in studio musicians, who laid down all the backing instrumentals; Winslow later added his vocals. The result, then, is more correctly a Winslow solo album.

 

Schulz, unaware of this, sent along a cute cover illustration.

Irritated by the tepid sales of the Snoopy’s Christmas LP, Laurie Records’ Robert and Gene Schwartz insisted that the new album’s remaining tracks be well-established pop hits. As a result, Winslow soulfully warbled Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey”; charged through a trio of rockers — The Fireballs’ “Bottle of Wine,” Every Mother’s Son’s “Come on Down to My Boat” and a medley of The Box Tops’ “Cry Like a Baby” and “The Letter” — and goofed his way through inane novelty tunes “Simon Says” and “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy.” Gernhard also added an eyebrow-lifting outlier — the Irish Rovers’ “Biplane Evermore” — solely because of the title’s vague connection to Snoopy’s Sopwith Camel.

 

All of which must’ve prompted devoted Guardsmen fans to wonder, What the hell?

The Royal Guardsmen and the World-Famous Beagle: Part 2 of 3

Producer Phil Gernhard rushed The Royal Guardsmen back into Fuller Studios in January 1967, to record “The Return of the Red Baron,” which he co-wrote with brothers John Yates and James Lee McCullough. Although not quite an identical clone, this sequel had the same military cadence and delivery, and the same mid-point key change. But the “Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more” refrain gave way to a more amusing four bars that opened with “Hey, watch out, little Snoopy!” Perhaps wanting to tweak the Australian bluenoses, the last refrain concluded with:

Hey, watch out, Red Baron,

Snoopy is on your tail!

One of these days, he’s gonna make you pay,

And you’ll go straight to... 

 

...but the final word was cut off, as the refrain repeated and faded out.

 

“Return” was paired with the first album’s “Sweetmeats Slide,” and the resulting single was released in early February. It entered Billboard’s Hot 100 chart at No. 79, on February 25 ... so, for two consecutive weeks, The Royal Guardsmen had two singles and an album charting simultaneously.

 

Gernhard and the band took their time working on material to fill a second album. It was more accomplished; the band members’ performance chops clearly had improved, and Laurie Records’ execs gave Gernhard permission to bring the tracks to New York, where they were embellished with light strings, additional percussion and backing vocals.

 

But the finished product suffered from a serious identity crisis. Tasteful folk ballads — “Any Wednesday” and “I’m Not Gonna Stay” — shared space with hard rock covers of “I’m a Man” (made famous by Bo Diddly) and “Gimme Some Lovin’” (the Spencer Davis Group). Other tracks leaned toward the rising trend in acid rock, and the album also featured two instrumental tracks — “Om” and “So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star” — which were pointless filler. The latter, a recent hit by The Byrds, emerged as a last-minute “mistake” prompted by the tight production schedule; the Guardsmen never had a chance to add their vocals!

Worse yet, this new album’s second single, released in June to coincide with the LP’s debut, opened with another goofy novelty tune — “Airplane Song (My Airplane)” — paired with the weird instrumental “Om.” 

 

The first single from Return, fronted by the title song, stayed on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for seven weeks, peaking at No. 15 on March 25. The album never charted.

 

Meanwhile, the first album remained on its respective chart for an impressive 22 weeks, peaking at No. 44 on April 15. The “Airplane Song”/“Om” single charted for six weeks, peaking at No. 46 in mid-July, for its final two weeks.

 

The Royal Guardsmen and the World-Famous Beagle: Part 1 of 3

This has been the summer for long-gestating projects: first a thorough study of British artist/cartoonist Derek Chittock’s Peanuts-inspired newspaper strip, Benny, and now an even deeper dive into the meteoric rise of a garage band out of Ocala, Florida, back in the 1960s.

We speak of The Royal Guardsmen, of course, and nobody reading this blog needs to be reminded of their connection to Peanuts. Indeed, the very first 45 single purchased by blog co-author Derrick Bang was “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.” (And yes, he still has it.)

 

No doubt most of you also are aware of the two subsequent efforts, “Return of the Red Baron” and “Snoopy’s Christmas.”

 

But did you know that they were followed by two more?

 

The wildly unlikely, head-shaking saga of how all that came about is the stuff of pop music legend.

 

We start by rolling the clock back to 1964, when Lake Weir High School students Bill Balogh and Jay Mayer saw The Beatles’ film debut in director Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night. Balogh and Mayer were so inspired that — on the spot — they formed a band with mutual friend John Burdett. Mayer played guitar, Balogh played bass, and Burdett played drums ... despite never before having picked up a drum stick. Balogh’s father was a postman, so they dropped a letter and called themselves The Posmen. (It probably sounded clever at the time.) They began with the intention of becoming an accomplished local cover band, and their first performance was in May 1965.

 

A few months down the road, while setting up for a gig, somebody asked Balogh the name of his group. Suddenly embarrassed by the answer, he glanced at the front of their new VOX AC-50 amplifier, which (you’ll love this) was nicknamed the “Royal Guardsman.” He pulled the metal tag off the amplifier and stuck it to the face of the bass drum. Thus is history made...

Two months after adopting this new name, Barry Winslow — then 17 — auditioned and joined the band as lead vocalist/guitarist. He soon brought in Chris Nunley — then 19 — as supplemental vocalist; by this time, keyboardist Larry Rich also had joined. Mayer’s guitar chops weren’t progressing as rapidly as the other guys, so in March 1966 he stepped down and became the band’s manager; he was replaced by Tom Richards. Then Rich got his draft notice, opted to serve in the Navy, and was replaced by Billy Taylor. As of June 1966, the final lineup was complete: Bill Balogh, John Burdett, Chris Nunley, Tom Richards, Billy Taylor and Barry Winslow.

 

Meanwhile...

 

In 1959, while a student at the University of South Carolina, 19-year-old Phil Gernhard co-founded a record label (Cole) and production company (Briarwood). He began recording local groups and producing demos the following year, and worked with several artists; one was songwriter Dick Holler. Gernhard produced a recording session with Holler in 1962, at New Orleans’ J&M Studios. One of the songs was called “The Red Baron,” in the style of earlier historical, military-style “story song” hits such as “Battle of New Orleans” and “Sink the Bismarck.” 

 

(Holler’s lyrics, at that time, had only two verses but were identical to what we’d recognize today, without any reference to Snoopy.) 

 

Nothing came of this session, as had been the case with other Briarwood efforts. Gernhard abandoned his label and production company, moved to St. Petersburg with his new bride, and resumed law school studies at the University of Tampa.

 

A few years passed.

 

On October 10, 1965, Charles M. Schulz first put Snoopy on top of his doghouse, garbed as the World War I Flying Ace.

Gernhard hated his law school studies; he ached to return to the music biz. He began repping local bands in 1966, one of which was The Royal Guardsmen. In late spring, he brought them to Tampa’s Fuller Studios, where they recorded an emotion-laden cover of “Baby Let’s Wait,” a recent hit for The Young Rascals, along with a Winslow original titled “Leaving Me.” The resulting single, which hit stores that spring, was The Royal Guardsmen’s first release on Laurie Records, a New York-based label founded in 1958 by brothers Robert and Gene Schwartz. 

 

“Baby Let’s Wait” became a No. 1 hit in the band’s home town of Ocala, made a little noise in Tampa Bay, then went no further.

 

At home, Gernhard avidly read Peanuts in the newspaper every day, and got a particular kick out of Snoopy’s expanding fantasy adventures involving ... the Red Baron.

 

That tweaked a memory.