Originally, Vanilla Fudge was a blue-eyed soul cover band called the Electric Pigeons, who formed in Long Island, New York, in 1965. While the band did record original material, they were best-known for their loud, heavy, slowed-down arrangements of contemporary pop songs, blowing them up to epic proportions and bathing them in a trippy, distorted haze. If it's rock 'n' roll, I'm there.Vanilla Fudge were one of the few American links between psychedelia and what soon became heavy metal. Hey, it might be a little rough, we'll pull it off. "We did that a couple of times years ago. Their TCAN gig will be preceded by a concert at the Scituate Harbor Heritage Festival. They're even caught up in some of the old lifestyle. Meanwhile, he and his bandmates continue to make music from long ago still sound fresh. Martell recently finished writing his autobiography, "Psychedelic Sailor," which he said will be released some time this year. And I'm sure we'll play 'Shotgun.' That was one of the songs we did on Ed Sullivan, along with 'Hangin' On.' " "We did a tribute to Led Zeppelin a few years ago, so we'll do some of that. "We're doing the whole first album, as well as some of the later stuff," said Martell. Their vocals are still strong, their instrumental arrangements are still loud and, well, psychedelic. We tried to incorporate everything we could emotionally to put into the tunes." "We were adding as much as possible from what we heard from the vocal groups of the '50s. "We were known for our harmonies quite a bit," said Martell, proudly. Many others followed, ranging from covers of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" to Sonny and Cher's "Bang Bang" to Donovan's "Season of the Witch." At that time we were all working really creatively together and we were able to come up with the arrangement." We all got involved and started thinking of parts. So they came to me and Carmine at a rehearsal and suggested that we try it differently. With what the lyrics were talking about, the song sounded too happy. And that's what hit Mark and Timmy (about 'You Keep Me Hangin' On'). Everybody was smoking pot at the time, and we were all thinking about how happy a lot of the tunes sounded, but that they didn't correlate with the words. "Our main thing, originally, was rearranging a lot of R&B music," said Martell. She said that her nickname was Vanilla Fudge, a name that her grandfather gave her."Īnd what about "You Keep Me Hangin' On," the song that reached No. "We were bouncing names around in the office of the Action House, where we were being managed, when she walked in with an ice cream. "It came from a girl (Dede Puma) in the group the Unspoken Word," said Martell. But the company's president, Ahmet Ertugen, wasn't very fond of the band's name, and ordered that it be changed. Shelly gave us a chance to play at the Action House, the biggest club in Long Island at the time."įinkel also got honchos from record companies to come down and check out his Pigeons, and they were soon signed to Atco, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. We were playing the Choo Choo Club in Garfield, N.J., and we ran into Shelly Finkel, an agent who later became a fight promoter for Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson. "It was after we were playing for about eight months. "Vanilla Fudge came out of the Pigeons," said Martell, finally getting around to one of those questions. That band turned out to be the Pigeons, which included future Fudge members Mark Stein and Tim Bogert. "I ran into an agent who knew a band that was looking for a guitarist," he said. Post Navy he moved to Florida for a couple of years, honing his skills in different bands, then headed up to New York to check out the mid-'60s music scene. "I would sometimes go outside the gate at the naval base in Norfolk, Va., and sit in with a couple of bands after we finished the day's work," he said. It wasn't till he joined the Navy at 17, and started playing an electric guitar someone had brought on the ship, that he found what would become his true calling. "I always watched Ed Sullivan, and the Fudge played his show twice."īut way before the Fudge, Martell worked his way up to acoustic guitar and felt it was the right instrument for him. "But rock really got my attention as it was starting out in the '50s," said Martell, who is 65. The family listened to Arthur Godfrey (a darn good ukulele player) on the radio, and played Mario Lanza albums on Sundays. His mom played guitar and mandolin his dad played guitar and violin his sister played piano.
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