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Harmonizing straight out of Houston, Texas is The Lavender Hour. Formed in December 1966, the group consisted of: Mike Teague – vocals/guitar, Tom Pena – bass, Steve Headley – lead guitar, Sid Templeton – guitar/keyboards and Jerry Cope – drums. Mike was the lead singer, however everyone in the group sang and sang well. In an interview I had with Mike Teague he told me “You couldn’t be in the group if you couldn’t sing.” Everyone in the group except Teague attended Waltrip High School, Mike attended Reagan. The guys in the band all came from other musical entities: Mike came from a group called the Jack Sterling Combo, Tom Pena was in the Coachmen, Sid and Steve were in The Fugitives (scanned below).
As the group practiced and practiced they felt they were ready for their first gig. It was set up for Lee High School in Baytown. The other act they were going to play with was The Red Krayola. The group was blown away by The Krayola, mainly their bass player, who seemed to break the place in two, that experience scared them to practice everyday from 3:00 until 10:00. Feeling the embarrassment of that first gig forced them to become one of the tightest groups in town. Their second gig was at the Catacombs. A friend, Charles Kinsey, who was returning from Europe, gave them an acetate copy of Stg. Peppers, before the record was dropped. This copy was rough and not edited as the final cut we all know of today, however was unlike anything the group had ever heard before. The group began trying to cover every song on the acetate. This was the material they dropped on the crowd at the Catacombs needless to say the second gig was leaps and bounds from their first.
The band was rehearsing one day in Sid’s garage when a man approached them to record a record. The man was Bob Steffek, who was lost, with dumb luck stumbled upon delicately layered harmonies. They recorded “I’m Sorry/Hang Loose,” both tunes, Steve Headley wrote and Mike helped with the lyrics. The single was recorded in May of 1967 in Andrus Studios. Frank Davis was the recording engineer, with only two microphones, two guys on one and three on the other. After the band laid down the instrumentation and changed gears to the vocals portion, a man came out of the control booth, he introduced himself as Lelan Rodger, Kenny’s brother. Not knowing who he was Mike introduced himself as “So & So’s brother,” and started laughing. As it turns out Leland liked the boys voices and wanted to sign them up, but since they had previously singed with Steffek, nothing came of it. The whole session cost them a whopping $140, ironically around today’s value of the original Steffek press. Steffek pressed 500 copies, and the guys went off to the radio stations to try to hear themselves on the waves. With many unsuccessful tries the group sat in their car, outside KNUZ, trying to decide the next radio station to hit. When dumb luck hit them again, a young lady approached the car and asked them if they were a Rock ‘n’ Roll band. They elatedly answered yes! and showed her the disc. She turned out to be the babysitter for Joe Ford, the KNUZ program director. She took the record inside and with in five minutes the guys were listening to themselves over the airwaves, it was actually played back to back. The record garnered some attention and was pickup by London Records and was pressed on its subsidiary, Huey Meaux’s (Crazy Cajun) Tribe Records. The record reached #65 on the Billboard chart. The band continued to play venues, parties and country clubs around town. Because of the age, of a few of the groups members, their parents were not keen to let their children go on tour, so they played a lot of Houston area venues: The Living/Electric Eye, Love Street, Rinky Dink etc.
Their second 45, a real scorcher, was “So Sophisticated/I’ve got A Way With Girls.” Both sides of this record were real heaters, and have been sought after for many years by garage collectors, however the first record garnered more attention in it’s day. I asked what brought about the change in sound from “I’m Sorry/Hang Loose,” to the punkier sound of “So Sophisticated.” Mike answered, “It has a Kink’s sound I guess, it just happened, we were not looking for a harder sound, it just happened to come out that way.” So Sophisticated/I’ve Got A Way With Girls, was laid down, in July 1967, on the same Steffek label, but not Tribe. The group recorded a third single on Steffek in 1969. Steve Headley left the group for a short time and was replaced by Ronnie Swonke to record this third disc, “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg/Harry’s Drive-In Church,” recorded in Doyle Jone’s Studio. As time went by and the members grew older their parents allowed them to tour some, packing in all their gear and playing the Texas circuit of Corpus Christi, Dallas and other towns in between and even scored a tour with The Box Tops. Mike and Tommy told me that they supposedly were offered to open for Hendrix, but Mike refused, not understanding the music at the time, which he greatly regrets now. They were the first group to play Astroworld, in front of a crowd of 10,000.
In late 1969 Mike, Steve (who returned), Tommy, Jerry and Sid were asked to join The Clique, pre “Splash 1,” all agreed but Mike. Mike didn’t like the bubblegum sound the Clique was taking and voiced his opinion. Mike was asked to leave the group and Steve followed him. Both went on together to do some recording at International Artists, none of which was released, mainly a project called ICE, and some backup work for Endle St. Cloud. The Clique went on to record some hits “Sugar on Sunday” and the famed cover of Hall’s and Erickson’s “Splash 1.” The group ended up broke on the road with lots of publicity, but no scratch to back it up.
I personally love this single, “I’m Sorry” is almost haunting with it’s background circular guitar riff and those voices blending together. “Hang Loose,” also a great tune, faster rhythm than the flip, opens with one of the most interesting guitar riffs I’ve heard, perfect instrumentation through out, along with five beautiful on key men belting out “You better Hang Loose, wait and see, that you’re the one for me.” I have been looking for a long time for the So Sophisticated release with no such luck yet; however will also post it when I find a copy.
I would like to thank Mike Teague for giving me the time to interview him on the phone multiple times and to Tom Pena for his time as well. I want to give a shout out to Doug Hanners for giving me a copy of his Not Fade Away zine, which these photos came from, thanks Doug. Now enjoy some Houston harmonies.
LISTEN: The Lavender Hour – I’m Sorry
LISTEN: The Lavender Hour – Hang Loose
