By Mofolorunso Adekunle Enigbokan
Prior to 1964, Ogbomoso Grammar School (OGS) was a musical desert! Metaphorically, OGS’ musical scene represented the dusty days of March with the 1963/1967 set bringing the refreshing showers of April which would end those dusty days, setting free the sap that coursed the tree of music, inducing the lusciousness of the green leaves of music and unleashing the sweet aroma of the beautiful flowers of music. The drought was ending; the plastic, dull, pale music days were being shown the door. Exiting OGS were the dark clouds that made us blind, we could see clearly now, we could see all the obstacles in our way, we were going to hop over them; it was going to be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day ahead (Thank you, Johnny Nash!).
No serious, global, authentic review of the year 1963 is complete, or even acceptable, without the mention of (1) the “I have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963 by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. as the Civil Rights Movement was raging in the United States; (2) the assassination of the young, visionary, vivacious and vibrant President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in Dallas, Texas on November 22nd, 1963; (3) the admission of the 1963/1967 set to OGS in January, 1963; and (4) the explosion of a variety of creative, adventurous, tastefully composed music worldwide.
The social atmosphere in 1963 was filled with sensuous, heart-warming, delightful songs like “Another Saturday Night’, ‘Having a Party’, ‘Twisting the Night Away’ and ‘Bring It On Home To Me’ — all songs that were recorded by the soulful, gentle, mild-mannered singer, Sam Cooke. No less than half of the 1963/1967 set knew the lyrics of those Sam Cooke songs by heart. In fact, reciting those lyrics was a way of showing off your sophistication. Chubby Checker checked in with ‘Let’s Twist Again’, a sensational song that spawned a dance craze called the “Twist”. Cliff Richard gave us a ‘Summer Holiday’ , Peter, Paul and Mary exposed us to palatable, folksy sound in ‘Blowing in the Wind’ and while Elvis Presley was categorizing his anonymous acquaintance as ‘( You’re the) Devil in Disguise’ , Millicent Small, a diminutive Jamaican songwriter-singer, was asking us ‘Don’t You Know’ , a harbinger of massive recording successes like ‘Sweet William’, ‘My Boy Lollipop’ and ‘Oh Henry’.
Even though Motown was in its infancy, the Chiffons hit the charts with ‘One Fine Day’ and ‘He’s So
Fine’, the Crystals debuted with ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ while the Ronettes were asking us to ‘Be My Baby’. Then came those four lads from Liverpool whose style of brash, suggestively raunchy, bewildering, exuberant and attention-grabbing Pop music took the world by storm. I am talking of none other than The Beatles! In that standout year of 1963, The Beatles released ‘She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)’ , ‘Please, Please Me’, ‘I want To Hold Your Hand’, and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. Yet, there wasn’t a smidgen of a band on OGS campus.
In 1964, more hits rolled in. Among the biggest of them were ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark, ‘I Feel Fine’ by the Beatles, ‘The Way You Do The Things You Do’ by the Temptations and ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, ‘Baby love’, and ‘Come See About Me’—all hits by the Supremes. While the Seekers were confessing that ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’, Millicent Small was fundamentally changing the order of things in the music world with her high-pitched, danceable, popping tunes entitled ‘My Boy Lollipop’ and ‘Oh Henry’ . Arguably, the most widely played song on the radio in 1964 was ‘Dancing In The Street’ by Martha and The Vandellas. It was the apotheosis of Motown sound. Typically, Motown is a meshwork of horns and strings, double, sometimes contorted, bass lines, abutted by the filling and joyful sound of tambourines. It is colored by complex chord changes and tantalizing guitar rifts, sophisticated melodies delivered with gospel-influenced vocal harmonies and strictly regimented, awe-inspiring choreography. Motown sound makes you want to clap, Motown sound makes you want to nod and move, Motown sound makes you want to dance, even if you’re coordination-challenged!
I was smitten by the Beatles’ 1964 hit ‘I Should Have Known Better ( with a Girl Like You )’. As fate would have it, so were my childhood friends Joseph Olajide Kuti ( now a Professor of Genetics ) and Femi ‘Kaka’ Adeyemi ( now an entrepreneur in the Music arena ). I had known both of them since the age of 5 and we all ended up at Paku. I was a member of the glorious 1963 admission pool and both Jide and Femi were admitted in 1964.
A band without musical instruments
Towards the end of the Third Term of school in 1964, the Satchmos, a social club on campus, was throwing an end-of-term party at Ogbomoso City Hall. Being a member of the Satchmos, I asked the senior leaders of the club for an opportunity for Jide, Femi and I to sing at the party. My request was granted and we sang acapella ‘I Should Have Known Better (with a Girl Like You)’ by the Beatles. The standing ovation at the conclusion of our rendition was long and sustained! We were elated beyond imagination. When we got back to OGS campus that evening, the three of us decided that we were going to capitalize on this newly found popularity and upend the dull status quo on campus. We were going to introduce a different form of fun, we were going to reface OGS musically, we were going to initiate, establish and incorporate live entertainment into life at Paku — we were going to form a BAND!
We knew that it was a tall order since we had no drum set, no guitars, no tambourine, no trumpet, no saxophone, not even a mouth organ; yet, we were not despondent. Since we envisaged forming a five-member Pop group, we extended an invitation to Yomi “Alonga” Olufunwa (now Sir Olufunwa ) and Idowu George Ogidi-Olu (‘63/’67 set ). They both jumped at the opportunity and we named our group THE DANE BEARS, a group with no instruments. Ha, Ha, Ha!
When the Third Term of 1964 ended, Jide and I went to Kingsway Store in Ibadan to shop for instruments. The prices were well beyond our means. So, we took some polaroid pictures of the expensive band sets on display, showed them to a local welder/talking drum maker and asked if he could duplicate them using locally obtainable material. He replied in the affirmative. For aesthetic and ergonomic purposes, we instructed him to paint the drum set glossy blue and to inscribe “The Dane Bears” on the base drum. We also gave him an idea of what we wanted the spatial arrangement of the set components to be. The drum maker completed the assignment on time and he gave us a tambourine without charging us for it. Femi bought a mouthorgan and my cousin, who was a professional musician, gave me two old acoustic guitars. Lo and behold, we had a semblance of a band!
We transported all the rudimentary instruments we acquired to Paku and started practicing how to cover some existing pop songs. It didn’t take long for us to discover that we needed a richer, fuller, more rhythmic sound which we could attain by adding an Organ to our array of musical instruments. Since the school already had an Organ that was played during our morning devotions and Sunday evening services only, I invited my very close friend and roommate at Oyerinde House, maestro Terence Asuquo Ekpo (‘63/’67 set ), to join our band since he was the school’s Organist. He enthusiastically did. With the addition of Terence, we had the very FIRST BAND WITH INSTRUMENTS in the history of Paku! I was playing the Rhythm guitar, Ogidi-Olu was the primary vocalist, Olufunwa assisted with vocals, Jide was the tambourine man, Terence played the Organ and Femi was the drummer. We were still the Dane Bears.
In 1965, we didn’t have a song of our own. Fortunately, we had an extensive variety of music genres available to us to cover, including Pop music, Folk songs, Rhythm and Blues, the Blues, Jazz, Country music, Rock & Roll, Doo Wop, Soul music and Motown sound. The airwaves were jampacked with monster hits like the alluringly simple but very catchy track ‘I Got You, Babe’ by Sonny and Cher; the upbeat, steadily pounding, driving rhythm, sensational, once-in-a-lifetime composition by the Rolling Stones called ‘( I Can’t Get No ) Satisfaction’; and ‘Get Off My Cloud’ and ‘Time Is On My Side’, both of which were the Rolling Stones songs, were also on the pop scene. The Seekers were still seeking ‘A World Of Our Own’ in 1965 and the Beatles were permitting ‘( Baby, you can ) Drive My Car’. The Four Tops, one of the top Motown groups, featured the tender tenor sound of Levi Tubbs in a soul/pop ballad entitled ‘Just Ask The Lonely’. Listening to that song, one gets a medley of emotions from sorrow, to pity, to empathy, to sympathy, to raw, all-encompassing love. The Four Tops hit the chart again in the same year with one of their biggest sellers ever, a song called ‘I Can’t Help My Self (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’.
Megahits kept tumbling down in 1965. That was the year when Jay Black, the leader of the band Jay & The Americans, one of the most powerful, invigorating, fascinating and enthralling voices you ever heard on radio, delivered with his soaring vocal and emotional weight, ‘Cara Mia’, a 1954 David Whitfield song. Jay’s version had chills running up and down your spine and stayed with you forever. Jay did a similar masterful rendition of ‘This Magic Moment’, a song that was originally recorded by The Drifters
( featuring Ben E. King ). We still haven’t caught The Dave Clark 5 since their 1965 major chart single ‘Catch Us If You Can’ and the slick, slippery, velvety smooth, mesmerizing, emotional ballad labeled ‘Ooo Baby, Baby’ by the incomparable writer, composer, lyricist extraordinaire, silky singer, Smokey Robinson, still evokes passion, love and tenderness from listeners today, decades after its release in 1965. As if he was subconsciously testing his limits, Smokey wrote and gave to the Temptations the most iconic, immortal, unforgettable, elegant Motown song of all time, ‘My Girl’. How could someone come up with a song like that! Wow, simply Wow! Only the rendition of ‘Unchained Melody’ in that same 1965 could hold a candle to ‘My Girl’ by the Temptations.
We could not do justice to many of the 1963-1965 hits using acoustic guitars and our hastily constructed band set. Consequently, we petitioned our most venerable, honourable and revered Principal, Chief E.G.O. Gesinde, for financial assistance in procuring electric guitars and a standard band set. Surprisingly, he obliged. We later learned that he lent his support so quickly because he had been highly impressed by the efforts we had put forth on our own. He asked for the estimated cost and we quickly submitted it to him. He gave us the money. Ogidi-Olu ( ‘63/’67 set ) and late Chief Owoade Omoni
(‘63/’67 set) were dispatched to Kingsway Stores in Ibadan to go and buy the needed instruments.
Once the instruments arrived on campus, we issued an open invitation to everyone at Paku to come and compete for inclusion in the band if they thought that they had the requisite skills. We felt that it was the fair thing to do since the instruments were now owned by OGS, not the Dane Bears. In fact, we even had students audition for both the nascent Juju band and the almost full-fletched Pop band. Neutral judges were extracted from Oyewumi, Oyerinde and Eyo-Ita Houses. While Jide and I supervised the final formation of the Pop band, configuration of the Juju band was left in the able hands of the versatile, skillful, multitalented, vastly experienced guitarist and percussionist, late Adeniran Ayanwale
(‘63/’67 set). At the conclusion of the two-week audition, we had the components of the Juju band and the Pop band firmly in place. After much deliberation, we named the school band The Prospects, borrowing a word from the official, endearing and appropriate description of the location and picturesque environment of Paku — “A city set on a hill where every prospect pleases”.
From the open competition, Christopher Oluwole Omole of the ‘63/’67 set (now the High Chief of Igede Land in Ekiti) emerged as the winner of the drummer spot on the Pop band while Femi ‘Kaka’ Adeyemi was the unrivaled, undisputed drummer boy for the Juju band. Yinka Gesinde, the son of our revered Principal, displayed his skills on the Bass guitar and he was added to the Pop band. Yemi ‘Pythagoras’ Sanni (‘63/’67 set), of blessed memory, was drafted to be the Introducer of the Pop band.
The Prospects entertained the audience at the conclusion of every major academic and social event on OGS campus from 1965 to 1967. Selection of the songs that the Pop band would render at the events was heavily influenced by songs made by the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Troggs, Motown artists and, of course, the Monkees. The Beach Boys, consisting of the three Wilson brothers, their cousin and a childhood friend, produced songs that personified laissez-faire, sun-bathing and surfing, all encapsulated in a delicate, inviting, liberating and continuous, harmonious rhythm. Their blockbuster hit in 1965, ‘Barbara Ann’, became one of our favourite songs. In fact, it was the song that we opened many of our gigs with. The first time that the Prospects played ‘Barbara Ann’ was at Imesi-Ile High School in early 1966. The reception after opening with ‘Barbara Ann’ was so scintillating and exhilarating that we decided to also close the show with ‘Barbara Ann’.
‘Wild Thing’ by the Troggs and ‘Hang On, Sloopy’ by the McCoys in 1965 were our easiest songs to cover. We arguably had our most interesting on-stage experience when we played ‘Wild Thing’ at Baptist Girls’ High School, Osogbo, Nigeria. Looking at the multitude of adoring girls pressing against the stage, I struggled to keep in rhythm on the guitar with the rest of the band. I took a glance at Wole Omole on the drums and he seemed to be nervous, yet elated. Later that evening, he recounted that he was having a blast gazing at those girls but that he was simultaneously anxious because he didn’t know if those girls were going to storm the stage. Furthermore, Femi ‘kaka’ Adeyemi could not make the trip and Omole had to play the drums for the Juju band also, something he hadn’t done in years; that’s enough to make one nervous, I’d say.
Between the Second Term of 1966 and early 1967, the Prospects had performed, to much acclaim, at many schools including Awe High School, Awe; Modakeke High School, Modakeke; and Queen’s School, Ede, Nigeria. We were invited to play at Molusi College, Ijebu-Igbo but owing to logistical issues, the far distance being one of them, we were unable to honour that invitation. Our performance at Queen’s School, Ede, was not particularly stellar. Three key members of the Juju band and two important members of the Pop band, for one reason or another, were unable to go on that trip. We had to improvise but the product, musically, was not to my liking.
By the middle of 1965 to early 1966, the Beatles had steadily progressed artistically from their initial skiffle music and the elementary, colourless, bodiless, stiff doldrums that characterized their early songs like ‘Love, Love Me Do’ to a cleaner, revolutionary, adult and more pop-driven sound that used more chords with complex interlocking systems, dropping the pitch and speeding up their recordings. In some of their songs, they were able to marry the F major with E flat to yield the wobbly F7 chord and they were also experimenting with exotic instruments, particularly from India and the far East, in their music. While the Beatles were successfully modulating their music and producing a string of hits like ‘Day Tripper’ , ‘Rain’ and ‘Paperback Writer’ , their radical innovations and studio ingenuity were not the biggest news in Pop music in 1966; that honour went to Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith, i.e., The MONKEES !
The Monkees’ foray into the musical world was nothing short of seismic. The chart-topping songs were just cascading in rapid successions. The rapidity prompted one American critic to declare unceremoniously that the Monkees accomplished in 3 months what took the Beatles 3 years to do. The Monkees produced hits like ‘Last Train To Clarksville’ , ‘Day Dream Believer’ , ‘Another Pleasant Valley Sunday’ , ‘A Little Bit Me, A little Bit You’ , and ‘(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone’ but none was nearly as big as ‘I’m A Believer’. We practiced ‘I’m A Believer ‘ like heck until we mastered it. We had to, it was the song of the year in 1966 in the Pop music world. We played it everywhere we went.
Truth be known, I was getting tired of playing songs that were previously recorded by others. Hence, during the Third Term holidays in 1966, I worked hard on composing 4 songs before school resumed in January, 1977. I did. Two of them, ‘Ile Iwe Ya’ and ‘Lumberjacks’ were worked into our repertoire of songs that we were performing on stage. We did not have the time to work on the other two because four of us on the Pop band, Omole, Ekpo, Ogidi-Olu and myself ( all belonging to the ‘63/’67 set ), were graduating in 1967 and we had to prepare for the West African School Certificate Examination
(WASCE). At some point during the First Term of 1967, a second-year student by the last name of Adeniran, joined the Pop band to assist with vocals. He also composed a song in the Yoruba Language. It was a melodious, 12-bar song so, we had no difficulty mastering it and including it in our playlist.
Around November 1967, we were invited to play at Ogbomoso Girls High School (OGHS). I cannot definitely say it’s true for any other member of our band but for me, it was the first, the last and the only time that I ever stepped on OGHS premises, even though I had been at Paku for almost 5 years and I had girlfriends who attended OGHS. We were the only band on hand so, we played all evening long. We tried out Adeniran’s composition and it was well received. Then we got into our old favourites like ‘Wild Thing’ ( Troggs ), ‘Barbara Ann’ ( Beach Boys ), ‘Twist and Shout’ ( Beatles ), ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ ( Beatles ), ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ ( Beatles ), ‘Money’ ( Beatles ), ‘Hang On, Sloopy’ ( McCoys ), ‘I’m Into Something Good’ ( Herman’s Hermits ) and, of course, ‘I’m A Believer’ ( Monkees ). Perhaps because I was graduating in about a month, I didn’t feel like a High School student at that gig; I had the aura of a professional musician and I played as such.
Our biggest gig in terms of audience size and elitism was the last one for those of us who were graduating in 1967. We were invited to come and participate in a Music Jamboree at Saint Teresa’s College in Ibadan, Nigeria around the middle of December, 1967. Each band would be allowed to play only two songs. When I discovered that Mr. Jimi Sholanke was going to be in attendance, I suggested that we should make ourselves clearly and memorably distinct from all of the other groups by doing the unusual act of playing two songs that the huge audience had never heard before, two songs whose lyrics were all written in the native Yoruba language. It worked like magic! We started off with Adeniran’s song. The audience was totally mesmerized and captivated by our audacious act. You see, they were an informed lot. They were thoroughly familiar with all the contemporary and popular songs of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, the Seekers, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the Animals, and so on; but what we presented was a completely different animal — a pop song that they couldn’t help but take some pride in because it was written and delivered in the Yoruba language. It arrested their attention because it was not a recycled, run-of-the-mill, old song. It was fresh, optimistic in message and melodious. By the time we got to the end of the first stanza of our second song, ‘Ile Iwe Ya’ , which I composed earlier that year, the audience had erupted in a dancing frenzy! The hall had been arranged for a listening session only. However, during our rendition of ‘Ile Iwe Ya’ , the people in attendance could not contain themselves anymore. They jumped up and started dancing. The space between the front row seats and the stage was filled with people dancing and so were the aisles. Man, it was heavenly!
Immediately we got off the stage, Mr. Sholanke, who had a successful Yoruba pop song that was making the rounds in social circles in the Western Region of Nigeria at that time, approached me, complimented our band in glowing terms and asked if he could introduce us to Mr. Tunji Marquis. Mr. Marquis was a highly influential and widely popular Radio/TV personnel in the Lagos-Ibadan telecommunication market in that era. I sincerely thanked Mr. Sholanke on behalf of the band but quickly added that his plan would not be feasible because four members of the group were graduating in a week’s time and they would be moving to different parts of the country to further their studies. He understood.
That was the culmination of the musical journey of the trailblazing ‘63/’67 set at Ogbomoso Grammar School. It was quite a ride!
In the play ‘Twelfth Night’, Shakespeare wrote:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that surfeiting
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
The 1963/1967 set had a cornucopia of music. Inferentially, we spread a whole lot of love. Deductively, since ‘Love Makes The World Go Round’ ( Deon Jackson ), we made the world go round!
- Dr. Enigbokan is a Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Texas Southern University, Houston, Texas.
