Well ya see... This bunch of guys were working (temporarily) for Uncle Sam in the Tidewater Area of Virginia (Hampton / Newport News). They thought it might be fun to get together, rehearse some songs and throw a party for our friends. Karl, Sjodahl Don Lombardi, Bob Mancini and John Speight at the US Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) came up with the idea. Frank Mantia, Kerry Gavin and Stan Rood at Langly Air Force Base wanted to get in on the fun. Jeff Willis from T.H.E... (and a recent Army alumnus) drove down from DC several times to join us for the rehearsals and show.

The original group - (front) Frank, (middle) Jeff, Stan,
(back) Don, Bob, John, Karl and Kerry

Three civilians from USAREC, Cecil Kelly, Terry Robinson and Lorna McConnell joined in, and before we knew it, we had four guitar player/singers, four solo and backup singers, two drummers and an organist on board (we hadn't found a bass player yet.). The simple jam session had grown to eleven players, and we were beginning to outgrow the apartment complex party room we had planned to use for the party and show.

The group grew even more after Karl went to New York to record film tracks for The Concert For Bangladesh on August 1, 1971. This concert featured some of the biggest names in the music business... George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voorman, Badfinger, a half dozen back-up singers, Jim Horn and a full horn section. The sound of the horns worked so well with the large rhythm section that we decided to see if we could get five horn players to play with us, just for the fun of it. We did, and added two trumpets: Ernie Toplis and Joe Renauro... three saxophones, Jaques Johnson, George Yingling and Dom Varonne... and bass player Dave Bauder... all from the Continental Army Band. We went from a band of eleven to seventeen. USAREC's Paul Byrd made his performing debut "as Elvis." (Paul was a highlight of the live show, but we never counted him as part of the "Seventeen.") The size of the group now meant we had to find a larger place for the show. After looking for a venue and an appropriate date for several months, we settled on December 11th, and everybody confirmed. To fit the band and all their friends, we rented the Hampton National Guard Armory for the night. Add a professional multi-track recording setup and the rest is recorded music history... well... sorta.

Stan and Karl created promotional flyers which were posted around the Recruiting Command Headquarters and at Langly Air Force Base, inviting friends and coworkers to attend the show.

(Click for a Larger Image)

Small groups of singers and guitar players got together to rehearse during the Fall of 1971, to work on songs and harmonies. Because full rehearsals required coordinating a lot of schedules, and meant that Jeff had to drive down from DC, we only had two major rehearsals before the day of the show. The first full run through with everybody, including all five horns, happened a few hours before showtime.

The day before the show, Karl flew to Detroit to record film tracks for the "Free John Sinclair Concert" at Cobo Hall, in Ann Arbor Michigan. The film, titled "Ten For Two", received an MPAA rating but has never been released to the public. It features performances by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, David Peel and the Lower East Side, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, Joy of Cooking, Stevie Wonder and Wonderlove, Bob Seeger, Roswell Rudd and MJQ, and speeches from Bobby Seale, Rennie Davis, and other political activists of the time. After flying all night, Karl got back in town in the afternoon in time for set-up and rehearsals. Ray Merlock from USAREC helped pull everything together. Tom Bruckmann, T.H.E...'s bass player flew in to help with the lighting and sound.. (We couldn't have done it without you guys.)

The following images are the only surviving pictures of the One Night Band concert. They were so underexposed that the folks at the local FotoMat couldn't even find an image. After extensive work in a darkroom, we got recognizable black and white images out of the underexposed color negatives. They aren't much, but they're all we've got.

Ed Johnson and John Probst had just finished working on a US Army Band show in Norfolk, VA, and agreed to spend an off day recording our show. We filled up five rolls of four track tape and felt we had enough good stuff to try creating an album of the best material.

We took the four track master tapes to a studio in Washington DC and cleaned up the tracks. Kerry, Jeff and Karl added guitars, bass, drums, percussion and vocals to fix tracks which had turned out badly in the chaos of the live show. The final mixes are a fair representation of what happened in the Armory on December 11th.

Once the final mixes were completed, the album was mastered in California. Jeff's father arranged for the cover printing in Cincinnati. Queen City Album in Cincinnati, assembled the printed elements of the cover. The "Limited Edition" stamps and the inserts were added by hand, before the albums were shrink wrapped by Queen City.

A limited edition of two hundred and fifty copies of "Record, One Each" were pressed and sold for $5.00 to members of the band and to people who attended the show (some of whom couldn't remember exactly what happened that night).

Due to the almost total lack of images from the concert, the back of the album features a 1968 concert shot of T.H.E... (That's actually Jeff, Karl, Mark and Don in the first picture). Surprisingly, the picture looked like it could have been taken of the One Night Band, since Jeff and Karl were in both groups with the same gear, Bob Mancini played a Hammed organ much like Mark's and Kerry played a Fender Stratocaster like Don's. The other pictures were taken around Cincinnati in January, to suggest that all the gear wound up at a pawn shop after the show.

Since everyone in the band was either in the service (or had recently escaped), the album cover was designed using the colors of a K-Rations box, and "Record, One Each" was an appropriately military designation. The "Limited Edition" rubber stamp, carefully added to each album by hand, was reminiscent of The Who's "Live At Leeds". It made every album a unique work of art, since no two copies are identical, and it let us add a second color to the cover at a fraction of the cost of conventional printing.

(Click for a Large Image of the Front Cover)  - - (Click for a Large Image of the Back Cover)
 

 
 

Each album had a copy of the original promotional flyer...
...two tickets to the show...

...and a few production notes stuffed inside.

(Click for a Larger Image)
 
 

CREDITS
 

YOUR FRIENDLY, NEIGHBORHOOD,
ALL-AMERICAN, SEVENTEEN PIECE, CO-ED,
ONE NIGHT BAND

ON STAGE
FRANK MANTIA - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
KERRY GAVIN - Guitar, Vocals
KARL SJODAHL. - Guitar, Vocals
STAN ROOD - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
CECIL KELLY - Vocals ("Dock Of The Bay")
LORNA McCONNELL - Vocals -  Cowbell
THERESA ROBINSON - Vocals, Tambourine
JOHN SPEIGHT - Vocals, Tambourine
BOB MANCINI - Hammond Organ
DAVE BAUDER   Electric Bass
JEFF WILLIS - Drums
DON LOMBARDI - Drums
PLUS
PAUL BYRD   As "Elvis"

THE HORNS
JAQUES JOHNSON - Tenor Sax
ERNIE TOPLIS - Trumpet
JOE RANAURO - Trumpet
GEORGE YINGLING - Alto Sax
DOM VARRONE - Baritone Sax

IN THE STUDIO
KERRY GAVIN - Acoustic Guitar,  Electric Guitar, Bass, Vocals & Percussion
KARL SJODAHL - Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Vocals & Percussion
JEFF WILLIS - Drums & Percussion

ARRANGED BY: THE ONE NIGHT BAND
HORN ARRANGEMENTS BY: THE HORNS
PRODUCED BY KARL SJODAHL

RECORDED IN CONCERT AT THE
HAMPTON NATIONAL GUARD ARMORY
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11th, 1971

4-TRACK LOCATION RECORDING & SOUND: Ed Johnson, John Probst
8-TRACK STUDIO RECORDING: Ed Johnson, Karl Sjodahl
RE-MIXING: Karl Sjodahl, Jeff Willis
MASTERING: Bruce Leeks, United Sound Inc., Burbank, California
COVER PRINTING: Willis Graphics, Cincinnati
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Tom Bruckmann, Ray Merlock, Stan Rood, Lou Holub, Jim Auchterlonie, Dan Coffey, Mac McCartney, Frank Cimo, Rusty Van Lydegraf, Butterfly Productions Inc.-New York, Fort Monroe YMCA, U.S. Army Recruiting Command, and all the members of the band who gave their time, free of charge, to put everything together.