One of many children of the Stones to emerge in 1966, The Shadows of Knight blasted out of the suburbs of Chicago via radios across the nation with their cover of Them's "Gloria." Though Them and Van Morrison's original version actually did scrape into the Billboard charts in the summer of 1965, it was just a bit too risque to gain much traction with wary radio programmers. Early the following year, in stepped these Midwesterners to ride to the Top Ten with a slightly lyrically-cleansed version.
The Shadows' 45 was the first single for a brand new label: Dunwich. It was formed by jazz pianist Eddie Higgins, along with Bill Traut and George Badonsky. The trio had collaborated on at least one earlier single that went nowhere, but struck gold with the punks from Arlington Heights. After the single began to take off, Atco picked up the label's distribution, on a somewhat pick-and-choose basis as it turned out.
Probably partly because Atco/Atlantic didn't give all their releases national distribution, Dunwich turned out to be a very short-lived concern as a stand-alone label, lasting only from "Gloria" until part-way through 1967, when the partners split. Traut continued the company with new partners as Dunwich Productions, and into the early '70s it placed recordings with various other labels. With his Wooden Nickel label, Traut also eventually helped launch the career of Styx.
For fans of Midwest garage rock, Dunwich is likely a favorite label. They were in the right place at the right time, had an infusion of "Gloria" cash, and put that back into well-produced 45s of some really good, and often surprisingly aggressive-sounding Chicago-area bands. (Being businessmen, they hedged their bets with some country and jazz records as well.) Some of those old Dunwich 45s will just about make your speakers smoke if you turn them up loud.
Despite all the great 45s the label issued, the Shadows of Knight were pretty much it sales-wise at Dunwich, even through they never really had another big hit outside Chicago. The follow-up single, a stompy cover of "Oh Yeah" that followed a "Gloria"-esque pattern, stalled barely inside the Top 40. A Gloria album emerged (catalog number 666, natch), consisting mostly of solid, Stones-y blues and R&B covers ... but also, promisingly, a couple truly great originals, the moody "Dark Side" and the semi-berserk "Light Bulb Blues."
For their third single, the band pulled out all the stops, getting a bit more creative with their covers by finding an even more obscure Irish beat group to nick from. The Wheels' "Bad Little Woman" had inexplicably been issued as "The Wheel-A-Ways" in the States, to approximately zero response. So in stepped the intrepid Midwesterners once again. The Shadows' version may not be as manic, but it amps up the menace and is as great as the original in its own way.
Better, though, is the flip "Gospel Zone," credited to drummer Tom Schiffour. A stew of riffing guitar, tambourine, a bunch of nonsense yelped by lead singer Jim Sohns ("You got to love me ... in the churchyard/in the kitchen, in the sink"?!?), and the best echoed hand-claps ever courtesy of Chicago's Universal Recording, it is perhaps the group's finest moment on record. Even in 1966, when frenzied garage records could become chart movers, this magnificent single limped only to Billboard No. 91 in September.
Undaunted, Dunwich ponied up for a second LP, Back Door Men, released in October. Along with both sides of the "Bad Little Woman" single leading off the album, there are some R&B covers, a couple instrumentals, a sort of inept New Colony Six-esque weird folk-rocker ("Three for Love"), a crack at the inescapable "Hey Joe," and an unexpected cover of The Astronauts ("Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day," also resurrected around the same time by The Monkees). Essentially, they throw so many things at the wall that the album is kind of a mess, but it provides a perfect time capsule of the era.
It's also worth noting that, unlike many '60s garage albums, Back Door Men actually sounds pretty damn good in stereo. It's not as powerful as the mono mix, but it's not far off -- and the stereo mix is very nicely balanced as well. That's a good thing, since that's what's been primarily available for years via Sundazed.
Still undaunted, the Shadows closed 1966 by creating one of the first heavy metal records -- a song written by a trio of Brill Building songwriters including Carole Bayer Sager. In retrospect, it's actually somewhat amazing that the incredibly harsh, loud and lyrically suspect "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" made the Billboard charts at all. If the group had never recorded again, it would be an incredible epitaph to a whirlwind career. Of course, that's not the story.
There were a couple more Dunwich singles in 1967, including the excellent "Someone Like Me," an attempt to American Breed-ize the group. They broke up, but the following year Sohns found some new Knights and moved the circus to the Kasenetz-Katz bubblegum empire, hitting again with the silly-but-transcendent "Shake" -- a record still guaranteed to make even the most staid hipster shake his PBR on the dance floor. The group has existed off-and-on ever since in various forms, in more recent times including former Blue Angel bassist Lee Brovitz.
For those who don't want to pony up for a slightly-expensive-and-hard-to-find original Back Door Men LP, the Sundazed disc is an excellent alternative. It is a tad bass-shy when compared directly to the '60s pressing, but that's traded for a bit more crisp-sounding sonics overall. It also gets bonus points for including the post-album "Willie Jean" and "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" A-sides ... and, for the fact that Sundazed has now kept this in print for about 15 years longer than the original LP's run. (Dunwich 667, 1966/Sundazed 5035, 1998)
