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The late 1960s and early \u201870s provided inspiration for young musicians around the globe. In the wake of the success of bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones \u2013 and literally hundreds of others \u2013 the idea that one could make one\u2019s own original music and bring it to a receptive audience took hold nearly worldwide. But perhaps nowhere was that feeling as strong or as fully realized as it would be in cities and towns throughout the United States.<\/p>\n
And while many histories of the locally-grown music scenes of that era focus on the garage rock phenomenon largely populated by middle-class white teenage boys, the urge to put together bands and create music transcended class and race. In 1968, a group of African American musicians in Cleveland, Ohio\u2019s East 105th<\/sup> Street neighborhood formed a group of their own, eventually to be called Purple Image. The band would go on to release a classic (if little-heard) album, open for Steppenwolf and Aretha Franklin and secure a spot at a huge open-air festival in Ohio.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had just come out of an excitement, with the funk rock era,\u201d says Warren Adams, singer, pianist and founding member of the group. He vividly recalls being inspired by Sly and the Family Stone \u201cand a lot of other people: Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix. [That music] filled my spirit.\u201d Married and with two children, at age 24 Adams still made time for music. \u201cI was always involved in music one way or the other,\u201d he says. \u201cI sang in gospels, church, and community things.\u201d He already had it in his head that he wanted to start a band. Then one day, he was approached by Victor Reed, a friend of his older brother. \u201cHe said that he had an opportunity for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Reed brought with him a song written by a Cleveland television reporter at WKYC, Bill Jacocks. Because Jacocks had been told by his boss at the NBC affiliate that on-air talent was prohibited from using their real names on projects outside of work, Jacocks used a pseudonym, Robert Craig. Reed had a cassette tape of Jacocks demoing his song, \u201cMarching to a Different Drummer.\u201d He wanted to play it for Adams and get his thoughts on the tune.<\/p>\n Adams chuckles at the memory of first hearing the tape. \u201cThat wasn\u2019t quite what I had in mind insofar as where my groove was going,\u201d he says. Jacocks\u2019s spare, almost spoken-word reading of his original tune was miles away from funk and rock. \u201cThere was no melodic line to it when we got it,\u201d Adams says. \u201cIt was pretty much a poem.\u201d (A decade later, Jacocks\u2014now using his real name\u2014released a smooth, disco-flavored single, \u201cYou Are the One\u201d b\/w \u201cFickle Finger.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s interesting when you want to give somebody an idea, and you\u2019re hoping on that idea,\u201d Adams observes. \u201cBut the idea is not really saying what you want it to say at the time of its development.\u201d Still, Adams found that the song\u2019s lyrical ideas touched a nerve. \u201cI was a rebel during that time,\u201d he says. \u201cI was involved in all of the marches and everything else that could possibly be going on for society, and I had to, let\u2019s say, march to a different drummer. That\u2019s pretty much what we were all doing: We were marching to that different drummer as a community, and as a nation.\u201d So his interest in the song grew.<\/p>\n Adams mentioned the song to a friend and occasional musical collaborator, James Spears. Based just on hearing the title and some of the words, Spears responded that he\u2019d like to hear Jimi Hendrix play such a song. \u201cIt was a joke at the time,\u201d Adams admits, \u201cbut then those little brain cells started working, and I thought, \u2018Well, if he could do it, why shouldn\u2019t I try to do it?\u2019 And that\u2019s what I did.\u201d Working with Spears, Adams began to develop a melody for Jacocks\u2019s work.<\/p>\n Adams worked up the courage to ask his mother-in-law (and upstairs neighbor) if he could borrow the family’s spinet piano. \u201cI got together with a bunch of guys, and we moved the piano down to our apartment,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd when I put it up against the wall and sat down, something started to happen. And that something ended up being \u2018Marching to a Different Drummer,\u2019 musically.\u201d<\/p>\n Adams recruited band members from among family, friends and friends-of-friends in the neighborhood. \u201cMy younger brother, William, was a vocalist; he liked to play bongos and stuff \u2026 a rhythm guy,\u201d Adams says. \u201cHe mentioned that we should call our other school chum, Kenny [Roberts], in on this discussion. His vocal abilities were up to par with everybody else. But now we had three male vocalists and nobody to play the song!\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts suggested Frank Smith for the role of lead guitarist. Adams describes Smith\u2014who sings lead on the album\u2019s \u201cWe Got to Pull Together\u201d\u2014as \u201ca wonderful brother who we went to school with, deep in his ideas about music and in the same frame of thinking insofar as what society was doing at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n For the drumming position, Adams wanted Richard Payne, another friend and classmate of his younger brother. \u201cI had to go by Richard\u2019s house and talk to his parents about becoming involved, because he was young,\u201d says Adams. \u201cRicky was in 11th grade at the time, and we were talking about recording, talking about all our hopes and dreams. His mother was very warm and cordial to us.\u201d Payne\u2019s parents eventually consented. \u201cSo now we had a drummer, a guitar player, and three singers,\u201d Adams laughs.<\/p>\n To fulfill the funky and thunderous bottom end of Adams\u2019s musical vision, he sought out Del Sartre Moran, a musician he describes as \u201cone of the baddest young bass players I had ever heard.\u201d He visited a club where Moran was playing live, and made his pitch. \u201cIt must have been strange to him,\u201d Adams chuckles. \u201cI told him, \u2018You can be the bass player. We\u2019re not playing any gigs, but we\u2019ve got a song that we\u2019re going to record.\u201d Moran was interested. Though he, too, was underage, his parents eventually signed on to Adams\u2019s musical vision and let him participate in the new (and as yet unnamed) group. Vocalist Diane Dunlap and saxophonist Ed Snodgrass were soon added, completing the lineup.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/purple_image_back.jpg\")
Soon thereafter, Victor Reed brought Jacocks over to meet Adams at his apartment. \u201cThe most important question that was thrown at me was, \u2018Where\u2019s the group?\u2019\u201d Adams says. He didn\u2019t have a group, and he freely admits that his musical abilities were limited. \u201cI\u2019m a vocalist, but I did play saxophone when I was young,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I did have some kind of instrumental background.\u201d<\/p>\n