The Rascals (initially known as The Young Rascals) were an American rock band, formed in Garfield, New Jersey, United States, in 1965.
Between 1966 and 1968 the New Jersey act embraced soul music, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 with nine singles, including the #1s "Good Lovin'" (1966), "Groovin'" (1967), and "People Got to Be Free" (1968), as well as big radio hits such as the much-covered "How Can I Be Sure?" (#4 1967) and "A Beautiful Morning" (#3 1968), plus another critical favorite "A Girl Like You" (#10 1967), becoming one of the best known examples of the blue-eyed soul genre, along with the Righteous Brothers. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
The Rascals were inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2010 and also reunited in 2012 for a series of shows in New York and New Jersey. The reunion continued in 2013 with shows on Broadway.
History
Origins
Felix Cavaliere was already trained in classical piano by his mother when he founded a doo-wop group, the Escorts (not the R&B group of the same name), while enrolled at Syracuse University. In 1964, Cavaliere took a job with Joey Dee's backing band, the Starliters, of "Peppermint Twist" fame, where he met Starliter David Brigati. When the group played the Choo Choo Club in Garfield, New Jersey, Cavaliere met Brigati's younger brother, Eddie, who wanted to follow in his brother's footsteps. Cavaliere, in an interview with journalist Don Paulson, spoke about his first encounter with the younger Brigati:
Canadian guitarist Gene Cornish left his group, The Unbeatables, for which he acted as their frontman, to join the Starliters, in early 1965. After meeting Cornish, Cavaliere's interest in forming a band of his own led him to convince both Cornish and (Eddie) Brigati to depart from Dee's backing band to start a new one with an old acquaintance of his, jazz drummer Dino Danelli. The group came up with the name "Rascals" while at the Choo Choo Club. Prior to the Rascals name they were using another group name "Them". Because there was another group using the name "Them" in the UK they dropped that name and came up with The Rascals name through the help of TV comedy star Soupy Sales whom they met through manager Billy (Amato) Smith. The Rascals were Sales's back up band touring local colleges in the early months of 1965.
Initially, the Rascals began rehearsing at Cavaliere's house in Pelham Manor, New York and then, the Choo Choo Club, mostly because it was close to Brigati's home and they needed a showcase. Later in May 1965, under the direction of their management Billy (Amato) Smith, they were hired to do a summer engagement at the debut club of The Barge on Dune Road in Westhampton New York, a floating Long Island club, where they settled. There they developed their mixed R&B-soul sound based on Cavaliere's organ and soulful vocals, mostly filled with traditional R&B covers.
The quartet did not have any official bass player, because of Brigati's inability to play musical instruments, other than percussion (even when the band bought him a Fender Mustang Bass in 1967) and the Rascals' wish of staying in the formula of four members. Cavaliere's organ pedals (and later, session bassists, like Chuck Rainey, in studio recordings) filled the bass parts.
In August 1965, manager Billy (Amato) Smith, who discovered them at the beginning of their music career as the Rascals, introduced the group at the Barge on Dune Road in Westhampton New York to Sid Bernstein, an impresario known at the time for helping to promote the British Invasion, bringing famous UK bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to America.
To promote the band, in August 1965, Bernstein and Smith came up with the publicity stunt of posting the phrase "The Rascals are coming!" at the Shea Stadium's scoreboard, at the same time that the Fab Four were doing the opening of their 1965 North American tour. Beatles manager Brian Epstein ordered the post to be removed before his band arrived on the stage.