At the center of Redbone were brothers Pat and Lolly Vasquez. By the time “Come and Get Your Love” hit, they had been in the music business for nearly twenty years. In the late 1950s when teen idols with gravity-defying hair were dominating the charts, Pat on bass and Lolly on guitar were backing up heart throb Jimmy Clanton, who had scored a big hit with “Just a Dream”. In ’61 they decided to try to break through into the rock ‘ roll club scene on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, but thought that first a name change was in order. Their surname was very ethnic-sounding for the times, and they feared it would keep them out of the best clubs. So the Vasquez brothers of Mexican and Native-American heritage became Pat and Lolly Vegas, and they successfully played the strip for the next decade. They also became in-demand studio musicians, playing on sessions with Dr. John, Johnny Rivers, Glen Campbell, and Leon Russell.
In 1964, rock n’ roll invaded TV in a big way with the debut of Shindig on ABC. Glen Campbell and Leon Russell were in the house band, and Pat and Lolly Vegas were tapped to be regulars as well. Their specialty on the show was covers, and they turned in high-energy renditions of songs like “Do You Wanna Dance”, “La Bamba”, etc with the Shin-digger dance troupe doing the pony, the jerk, and the frug behind them.
In 1966, their buddy Leon Russell produced their debut album Pat & Lolly Vegas at The Haunted House, a 12-song collection that was 50% original compositions. The cover photo of the album is one of the great artifacts of the rock ‘roll era, showing the band playing on stage at The Haunted House, a club with a ghoulish theme located on Hollywood Boulevard. The stage was made to look like the mouth of a monster, and in the photo a go-go dancer is just this side of the demon’s teeth while the band is somewhere between tongue and tonsils. (When I ran across this album at a flea market, I nearly passed out. That find is one of the highlights of my record collecting life.) The album photo appears to be a still from the 1967 beach movie It’s a Bikini World, when the guys lip sync “Walk On” from the album. You can watch the clip at Pat Vegas’ myspace page. It’s priceless 60s kitsch- a dancer in a bikini, boots, gloves, AND what appears to be a tiara. Honestly, can it get any better than that?
Pat and Lolly had always harbored an affection for Cajun rhythms, and in the late 60s they formed The Crazy Cajun Cakewalk Band, which morphed into Redbone with the addition of Tony Bellamy on guitar and Peter DePoe on drums. Oddly enough, the two new members of the band were also of Latino and Native-American heritage, so the group decided to embrace what they all shared. They became Redbone, which was slang for half breed. They began to appear on stage and in photos wearing head bands (sometimes full headdresses), moccasins, etc. Epic Records signed them in 1970, and after a couple of minor successes, their big moment came with “Come and Get Your Love” in ’74. There’s a great clip of Redbone performing the hit on The Midnight Special TV show here (also from Pat Vegas’ myspace page).
Redbone released seven albums in total and toured the world through the 1980s, but they were never able to repeat the commercial success of “Come and Get Your Love”. Lolly Vegas suffered a stroke in the 1990s and stopped performing, but Pat was out with a band as recently as 2006. Thankfully, much of their catalog is available now, so you can find out for yourself that Redbone was a lot more than a one-hit wonder.
UPDATE: from the 3/5/10 issue of the LA Times:
Lolly Vegas, 70, the lead singer and guitarist for Redbone, a Native American rock band that had a million-selling hit in 1974 with the bouncy “Come and Get Your Love,” died in his sleep Thursday at his home in Reseda.
He had lung cancer and had been in poor health since suffering a stroke 15 years ago, said the band’s manager, Michael Stone.
Having recorded a series of early-'60s surf singles as members of The Avantis, The Sharks and under their own names (see separate entries), by mid-'60s brothers Lolly and Pat Vegas has attracted minor attention as sessions players and songwriters. Among their efforts, the duo enjoyed limited success penning "Nicki Hokey" for P.J. Proby. Playing clubs as a duo, in 1968 the brothers hooked up with guitarist Tony Bellamy and drummer Pete DePoe to form Redbone.
The AVANTIS:
Pat & Lolly Vegas (= Vasquez), Danny Hamilton, Gary Leeds (drms).
Die Vegas-Brüder waren auch bei:
THE SHARKS - Big Surf/Spookareno (Sapien 1003)
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