Blue Echoes

Group from Worcester that was active at least from 1963 to 1964.

Members

• Eric Gulliksen
• Tom Collins
• Tom Zagryn

Releases

• Blue Bell Bounce / Tiger Talk (Bristol, B-101) (1963)
• Rosanne / How Do I Tell Her (BEP, B-103) (1964)
• Respectable / Young Blood (BEP, B-104) (1964)

Info

• Zagryn was in Kenny & The Night Riders previously, but I couldn't find his name anywhere in their band history write-up.
• "B.E.P. stands for Blue Echoes Productions, which used to be the label of the band-leader Tom Zagryn.
• All the copies of this 45s had arrived in warped condition, and somehow during the process even the labels got wet and would stick to each other. So, the label owner / producer Tom Zagryn deceided to send all the records back to the pressing plant (all except for the 10 best kept copies) in hope that they would come up with a better pressing. Later on the pressing plant claimed that they've never got the records back, and since Tom had lost his receipt for the package he was never able to receive anything in the end.
• Only 10 copies of this record were saved back in 1964, which makes it one of the rarest 45s from around this period." (discogs.com)
• "From Worcester, Massachusetts this outfit got together at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and are notable for including pre-Orpheus bassist Eric Gulliksen. Their first single, originally issued on Tom Zagryn’s Bristol label, was a local hit - significant enough to be picked up by Swan. Eric recalls: “It you listen hard, you can hear Tom Collins’ bass drum pedal squeaking throughout”. The group's name came from their use of home-built tape-delay echo units. Eric: ”..we used the echo units on vocals and guitars. | played electric 12-string and doubled on bass guitar. Our initial ‘claim to fame’ was that we were playing a New York style of R&R-cum-R&B called ‘shake’ with a beat typified on Tiger Talk - nobody else in the area could play this stuff”. Local station WORC-AM, known to the industry for sniffing out future trends and hits, picked up on Blue Bell Bounce. It reached No. 5 on their charts and generated much label interest. The group signed with Swan who issued it on their Lawn subsidiary. “Unfortunately it was released on the day that JFK was shot and, as you may know, for several weeks no radio Station played any R&R at all, so the record died”. For the second single, the Bristol label was renamed BEP (‘Blue Echo Productions’). incidentally Tom Zagryn also produced Squires’ Going All The Way single, but sold the rights, when they signed to Atco. He also produced their earlier single as The Rogues. Eric adds: - “How in the name of all of the gods of music did you ever come up with the ‘Respectable’ single? When we recorded it we went to a different pressing plant than the one we had been using, to try to save money (mistake no. 1). Unfortunately this company went into bankruptcy before we received product (we’d already paid for it). We screamed and yelled and threatened lawsuit, and finally received product. However, they had rushed it so much that they had evidently applied the labels before the ink was dry; they were all smudged, print had transferred from one to another, etc. The sound wasn’t too bad, but nothing to write home about. Anyway, at the end of the day, we never released this record, and destroyed most of the copies (mistake no. 2). There may be as many as a dozen copies in existence (Tom and | each have one), but there wouldn't be any more than that. The record numbers on Bristol and BEP are sequential (B-101 through B-104). B-102 was a record which Tom and | wrote and produced - Andromeda/Swamp Rat - by a group from Gardner, MA, named Kenny and the Night Riders. It was a good record, sold very well in Gardner, but never went anywhere else. Gulliksen had also previously worked with a few folk groups of various names. One of these, including Jack McKenes had a Kennedy Tribute single, The Man as The College Boys. He played concurrently with The Blue Echoes and Wanderers until the fall of 1963, resigning from the latter as The Blue Echoes’ popularity and commitments were increasing and they were about to release their debut single." (FAF)

Media

Blue Echoes

Blue Echoes