Career
The Ram Jam Band were formed around 1964 and evolved out of a group called Les Blues who were formed to rival an English group with a Black American singer called Milton And The Continentals. Before taking on Geno Washington, they had been backing a British Blues singer by the name of Errol Dixon. Their first single featuring Dixon, "Shake, Shake, Senora" / "Akinla" released on Columbia had sunk without a trace.
Geno Washington was a U.S. airman stationed in East Anglia who became well known for his impromptu performances in London nightclubs. In 1965, guitarist Pete Gage needed a singer front his new band and replace the previous singer Errol Dixon, and asked Washington to join. When Washington was discharged from the U.S. Air force, he became the band's frontman.
They had two of the biggest selling UK albums of the 1960s, both of which were live albums. Their most commercially successful album, Hand Clappin, Foot Stompin, Funky-Butt ... Live! was in the UK Albums Chart for 38 weeks in 1966, and was only out-sold by The Sound of Music and Bridge Over Troubled Water. The other album was Hipster Flipsters Finger Poppin' Daddies. They had some moderate hit singles released by the Pye label: "Water", "Hi Hi Hazel", "Que Sera Sera" and "Michael (The Lover)".
They managed to build up a strong following with the crowds and due to their touring and engergetic performances. Like their Pye label mates and rivals, Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, they became popular with the mod scene.
The band broke up in the autumn of 1969 and the band members went their own ways while Geno Washington continued as a solo artist before returning to the United States. Keyboard player Geoffrey K. Pullum became an academic linguist, and is today a professor at the University of Edinburgh and a well-known linguistics blogger at the Language Log and Lingua Franca websites.
Washington temporarily reformed the band between February and June 1971 with new band members Dave Watts (organ), Mo Foster (bass), Mike Jopp (guitar) and Grant Serpell (drums)
The band's name came from the Ram Jam Inn, an old coaching inn on the A1 (Great North Road) at Stretton, near Oakham, Rutland.
Read more about this topic: Geno Washington & The Ram Jam Band
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