Ohio Express - WikiHQ

The Ohio Express is an American bubblegum pop band formed in Mansfield, Ohio, in 1967. Though marketed as a band, it would be more accurate to say that the name "Ohio Express" served as a brand name used by Jerry Kasenetz's and Jeffry Katz's Super K Productions to release the music of a number of different musicians and acts. The best known songs of Ohio Express (including their best-scoring single, "Yummy Yummy Yummy") were actually the work of an assemblage of studio musicians working in New York, including singer/songwriter Joey Levine. Other recorded "Ohio Express" work included material recorded by an early group of Joe Walsh, as well as a later single written and sung by Graham Gouldman (which was performed by the four musicians who were later known as 10cc).

A band previously known as Sir Timothy and the Royals was renamed "The Ohio Express" and hired to promote the singles by appearing at all live performances. This is the same group photographed on the record covers.

Career

Beginnings: The Rare Breed (1966–1967)

The question of who is the "real" Ohio Express is difficult to answer. The first record credited to The Ohio Express was "Beg, Borrow and Steal", a "Louie Louie" derivation which became a top 40 hit in the US and Canada in late 1967. However, exactly the same record had been issued by the Rare Breed in early 1966 on Attack Records. This failed nationally, though it did see regional chart action in New Hampshire and Utah.

The Rare Breed issued one more single in 1966 on Attack, "Come and Take a Ride in My Boat", which was a minor chart hit in the US southwest though also failed to chart nationally (the song hit No. 6 a year later for Every Mother's Son as "Come On Down to My Boat"). The Rare Breed then apparently had a dispute with Super K Productions and left the company, never to record again.

The band's recording of "Beg, Borrow & Steal" was then re-mixed and re-issued in August 1967 on Cameo Parkway Records, now credited to the Ohio Express (a name to which Super K Productions controlled all rights). The record was a No. 1 single in Columbus, Ohio, by early September and gradually became a hit across Canada and the US through the following months.

The otherwise exhaustively annotated Nuggets box set (which includes "Beg, Borrow and Steal") suggests the Rare Breed were from New York or New Jersey, but offers no other data. However, a 2003 interview and a 2009 YouTube post of a performance of "Beg, Borrow and Steal" identifies the members of the Rare Breed as John Freno (vocals, guitar), Barry Stolnick (keyboards), Joel Feigenbaum (rhythm guitar), Alexander "Bots" Narbut (vocals, bass) and Tony Cambria (drums), all originally from Brooklyn and the Bronx, New York.

Sir Timothy and the Royals take over (1967)

With no group available to promote the single by playing live dates, Super K Productions hired a Mansfield, Ohio band known as Sir Timothy & the Royals and renamed them the Ohio Express. The lineup consisted of Dale Powers (vocals, lead guitar), Doug Grassel (born Douglas Martin Grassel in Mansfield, Ohio; July 5, 1949 – September 21, 2013; rhythm guitar), Dean Kastran (bass), Jim Pfahler (born James William Pfahler in Mansfield, Ohio; August 12, 1948 – March 10, 2003; keyboards) and Tim Corwin (drums). This group toured as the Ohio Express, and their touring commitments (and Ohio home base) made it difficult for them to head into the New York-based Super K offices to record a follow-up single to "Beg, Borrow and Steal". Of the "official" group members, only Dale Powers (lead vocals) appeared on the second single credited to Ohio Express, "Try It", later covered by the Standells.

The success of the Levine-led "Yummy Yummy Yummy" set a pattern for the Ohio Express. They released four LPs and a multitude of singles for Buddah between 1968 and 1970, but the "official" group that appeared on album sleeves and at live shows contributed not a single note to their hit singles. For the year following the release of "Yummy Yummy Yummy", all Ohio Express singles were co-written and sung by Levine, with musical accompaniment by anonymous New York session musicians. Under this arrangement, in 1968 and 1969 the group scored three further top 40 hits in the US, Canada and Australia with "Down at Lulu's", "Chewy Chewy" and "Mercy".

The Ohio Express today

A new touring version of The Ohio Express was convened in the 1980s. Today, a line-up led by original drummer Tim Corwin on lead vocals, John Baker (Lead guitar), Stan Rust (Bass), Bill Hutchman (Drums), Jeff Burgess (Keyboard) and Warren Sawyer (Rhythm guitar and Keyboards) tours the oldies circuit.

On July 23, 1988, the original touring quintet of Powers, Kastran, Grassel, Pfahler and Corwin reunited for a "20 Year Reunion Concert" at the Renaissance Theater in their Mansfield hometown.

Two of the original touring group members have died: keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter Jim Pfahler died on March 10, 2003, at age 54, and rhythm guitarist Doug Grassel died of lung fibrosis on September 21, 2013, at age 64.

Bassist Dean Kastran became a member of The Cyrkle beginning in June 2021. He also plays bass and sings in the Eggerton-Kastran Group (a.k.a., EKG), an acoustic duo with vocalist/guitarist Denny Eggerton, and the five-piece band the Caffiends, both based in Mansfield, Ohio. Dale Powers is now a Christian music evangelist based in Mansfield, Ohio, and founded his own record label as well as website for his ministry. Dean Kastran plays bass in the Race Ministries Band and recorded tracks with Dale on his album of original songs titled "The Journey Within!".

Discography

Studio albums

{| class="wikitable"

! Year

! Album

! style="width:45px;"|US 200

! style="width:35px;"| AUS

! style="width:35px;"| CAN

! style="width:35px;"| UK

|1967

|"Beg, Borrow and Steal" b/w "Maybe" (Non-album track)

|Cameo 483

|rowspan="2"|Beg, Borrow and Steal

|A-side is the same exact recording as by The Rare Breed (Attack 1401)

|rowspan="4"|1968

|"Try It" b/w "Soul Struttin'"

|Cameo 2001

|A-side is a version of The Standells' "banned" version

|"Yummy Yummy Yummy" b/w "Zig Zag" (Non-album track)

|Buddah 38

|rowspan="2"|Ohio Express

|B-side is the instrumental backing of 1910 Fruitgum Co.'s "(Poor Old) Mr. Jensen" recorded backwards, a common practice of producers Kasenetz & Katz to discourage double-sided hits

|"Down at Lulu's" b/w "She's Not Comin' Home"

|Buddah 56

|"Chewy Chewy" b/w "Firebird"

|Buddah 70

|rowspan="1"|Chewy, Chewy

|rowspan="5"|1969

|"Sweeter Than Sugar" b/w "Bitter Lemon" (Non-album track)

|Buddah 92

|rowspan="2"|Mercy

|B-side is the A-side recorded backwards

|"Mercy" b/w "Roll It Up" (Non-album track)

|Buddah 102

|"Pinch Me (Baby, Convince Me)" b/w "Peanuts" (from Mercy)

|Buddah 117

|rowspan="3"|The Very Best of the Ohio Express

|A-side lead vocal by Buddy Bengert

|"Sausalito (Is the Place to Go)" b/w "Make Love Not War" (Non-album track)

|Buddah 129

|A-side performed by the members of 10cc, 3 years before they adopted that name. Lead vocal by Graham Gouldman. B-side is the same exact recording as "Road Runner" by The Music Explosion (Laurie 3429, 1968)

|"Cowboy Convention" b/w "The Race (That Took Place)" (Non-album track)

|Buddah 147

|rowspan="2"|1970

|"Love Equals Love" b/w "Peanuts" (from Mercy)

|Buddah 160

|rowspan="3"|Non-album tracks

|"Hot Dog" b/w "Ooh La La"

|Super K 14

|1973

|"Wham Bam" b/w "Slow and Steady"

|Buddah 386

|Shown as Ohio Ltd.

| colspan="9" style="text-align:center; font-size:9pt;"|

References

Other sources

Pages B1 and B2, Sandusky Register Newspaper, November 10, 1979