THEY COULDA BEEN BIGGER THAN…


For Illinois’ most notorious nearly-men, the path to fame, notoriety and success was one paved with enough ill-fated accidentals to derail the ambitions of lesser players. TOM SANDFORD takes us on a journey into the candy acid meltdown of THE LEMON DROPS; through death, disbandment and missing drums, to psychedelic hits of every kind, if ever there was a group who should have made it, they were it.


If your sole exposure to Illinois folk-psychsters THE LEMON DROPS stems from the appearance of their lone single on Rhino’s first Nuggets box set, then you have, quite literally, only heard half of the story. Owing to an error made during the mastering stage of RCA’s original 45 back in 1967, the two-channel recording of ‘I Live In The Springtime’ – as originally submitted by writer/producer/mastermind Roger ‘Reggie’ Weiss – was inexplicably processed and subsequently pressed with only one of its two channels intact, thereby omitting the drums and bass guitar. Understandably horrified when he and the band (which featured two of his brothers; Eddie, 14, on rhythm guitar and Gary, 16, on drums) heard what had been presented as the finished article, Reggie, a sort of Midwest version of the prototypical Brian Wilson-do-it-all-wunderkind, attempted to pre-empt the imminent release of his acid-inspired homage.


18 “Reggie freaked out,” says Michael Greisman,


head of Cicadelic Records, which recently released the definitive 2-CD set of The Lemon Drops’ recordings, Sunshower Flower Power. “They went in the morning to the distributor, banging on his door, waking him up, ‘No, don’t do anything with the 45! Don’t send them out!’” Thirty-one years later Rhino Records


released the comprehensive, lovingly compiled, 4-disc box set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968, which included The Lemon Drops’ debut single. Astonishingly, history repeated itself. Somehow, Rhino acquired one of the single-channel rejects and released it – the very same one-channel recording that had precipitated Reggie’s desperate, early-morning wake-up call on the distributor in August ’67. For the surviving members of The Lemon Drops, it was a moment of bitter déjà vu.


Reggie practically lost his mind over it when he played it and found out there was no drums on it


Guitarist Eddie Weiss, now 56, is still bewildered by the event. “How the people from Rhino Records ever picked up a copy, I’ll never know. It’s amazing they came across that.” Reggie Weiss, who had seen the song from


its inception to completion, was devastated. “My brother Reggie [who passed away in January 2007] practically lost his mind over it when he played it off the Rhino Nuggets and found out there was no drums on it. He was furious.” Michael Greisman, whose belief in the band


has remained undiminished since first hearing ‘I Live In The Springtime’ on Volume 8 of the Pebbles series circa-1980, provides the most succinct assessment. “How could the fickle finger of fate strike


twice, you know?” 914 West Oak Leaf Avenue, McHenry, Illinois


(45 minutes outside Chicago), is not an address that is considered hallowed ground in rock


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92