from Timothy - March 1981

 by Maxim Furek

The majority of Top 40 radio listeners associate New York singer-songwriter Rupert Holmes with his songs of social commentary and inter-personal relationships. Musical gems such as Him and Escape (The Pina Colada Song) helped make his 1980 breakout LP, Partners In Crime a golden effort, and netted Holmes a long-awaited national recognition.

But the 33-year old Holmes has also earned songwriting success in the Great Northeast. His song Timothy, an unlikely rock ballad about subterranean cannibalism, became a Top 10 national hit in 1971 as recorded by Wilkes-Barre’s group, The Buoys.

“I was trying to write a song that would get banned and cause some controversy, and get the group The Buoys known,” Holmes admitted while paying a visit to the Bloomsburg Fair, earlier in 1980.

“It was sort of a calculated attempt to get people to notice The Buoys, and it did, but unfortunately they noticed Timothy and didn’t notice the group as a whole.

SHEPPTON DISASTER

“I was working on an arrangement of Sixteen Tons for Andy Kim, and watching a cooking show on TV when the idea came to me. I thought, ‘That’s it,’ that’s the one subject no one has done a pop song about – cannibalism.’ That’s how the link between cannibalism and mining took place. It’s not that I was out to do mining, I mean, I respect the miners of America tremendously.”

“I learned about the Sheppton Mine disaster after Timothy was on the charts. If I had known about that at the time I probably never would have written the song, because I don’t want to make fun of something that’s tragic.”

“I sadly found out that there actually was a parallel in reality, but only after the fact. It never occurred to me that there could be anything quite like that. It’s one of those things that I wish would go away, but I have to live with it.”

Holmes was referring to the tragic mine disaster at Sheppton, PA, that claimed one life. The accident happened in the early 1960’s, and was eerily detailed in the song. Holmes, however, claims that he knew nothing about the mind disaster and that his song was purely an experiment in musical fantasy.

Still, Holmes was no stranger to this area. The songster has also produced other local musical groups. Holmes produced a single for the proverbial rock mainstays, The Eddie Day Group (1968) on Decca Records called Our Town. Holmes also produced several projects for Mel Wynn and The Rhythm Aces on Wand Records. During this period, Holmes used his real name of Julian Gill.  

THE BUOYS

The hurdy-gurdy storybook career of The Buoys began after producer C. Michael Wright signed them to a singles contract on Scepter Records.

Actually, The Buoys were his second choice. Wright originally wanted to record The Glass Prism (Tom Varano, Auggie Christiano, Rick Richards, Carl Siracuse), but since they were already contracted to RCA Records, he followed a suggestion from Verano and contacted The Buoys. Their first recording effort, called These Days, was written by Holmes. 

“These Days was written for another group, actually,” explained Holmes. “The track of These Days wasn’t done by The Buoys. The only thing on These Days which is The Buoys was Bill Kelly singing lead. As a matter of fact, the guy on stage (John Caruso) played bass on that recording. One of the groups that Mike Wright had was called Mode of Music and they did my song These Days, but they didn’t sound as good as Bill Kelly did, and that was The Buoys first single, just like the Beatles’ Love Me Do, didn’t have Ringo Starr on it. Timothy was the first single that The Buoys themselves put out, and Jerry wasn’t on it, it was another bass player.” (Note: Bob Gryziec was the original bass player on the Scepter recording. The Buoys went through an amazing 3 bass players within a short 4-month period, before Jerry Hludzik assumed the duties.)

“Mike Wright was an engineer at Scepter Records and he wanted to try and produce groups,” Holmes said. “He was always on the lookout for new, talented groups. He came down to Pennsylvania and heard The Buoys, and they came up to New York to the studio where I heard them. I agreed with Wright that they were incredible.”

“I think Bill Kelly is one of the great lead vocalists of all time. Both Jerry and Bill are superb songwriters, and they’re destined to make it. It’s only a shame it’s taken them a little longer than it ought to have,” he said.

Ex-Buoys Bill Kelly and Jerry Hludzik are experiencing new-found success with their current group, Dakota. An attempt was made to have Holmes and Dakota on the same bill at the Bloomsburg Fair, but then it was aborted at the last minute.

THE POLYDOR LP

The next progression of events found Holmes replacing Wright as producer. A new album was recorded in 1973 on the Polydor label, but it was never released. The LP included an entire slate of original Buoys compositions, including Don’t Try To Run, Downtown Singer, and Liza’s Last Ride, which, according to Holmes, was written for his wife. The LP was an ill-fated endeavor from the start.

“Polydor, at that time, was going through a lot of transitions, and the people running the label didn’t quite know how to do it,” said Holmes in explaining the Polydor non-album.

“I’ve never really understood what was on their mind. Why they signed The Buoys and got excited about them, and then never released the album. They had no grasp of what to do with the album. I think they were looking for another Timothy, but the stuff they got was much better, frankly. I produced only their material for that album because I felt that it was time people realized that Jerry and Bill were superb writers in their own right.”

Holmes was born in England to an American GI father and a British mother. His father, a music teacher, started him on the clarinet at age 8, and later Holmes formed a band called The Nomads. By 23, he had scripted Timothy, his paean to regional lore.

After dropping out of the Manhattan School of Music, Holmes began arranging for the Drifters and the Platters, washed-up grown-ups trying for a never-to-be-achieved comeback. Holmes has recorded a total of six albums, his latest called Adventure. His musical contacts led him to the scripting of several songs for the motion picture, A Star Is Born, many with classic strains of melancholia included within the lyrics.

“It’s very difficult for me to write songs with happy endings,” Holmes explains. “But the problem is that we still do things like falling in love with the wrong people, hanging in there five months too long when we knew from the first day it wasn’t going to work out no matter how many self-help books we read.”

“My songs are dangerous for me, they are very specific; I’m out on a limb because I can’t hide behind any kind of obscurity. I take a chance when I write these songs because I say exactly what I mean.”

“I like to think of my songs as a cocktail mixed from equal parts of my life and my audiences’ life. Sometimes my songs can be both humorous and cynical because often both parties in the song are caught with egg on their faces.”

In the case of Holmes’ number one national hit, Escape, it’s a little pina colada, if anything, dripping off their crimson faces. There have been few songs in recent years which have had the impact of Escape for the simple reason that it’s the lyrics and not the music that have caused such a strong response.

“I always wanted to write a song about answering an ad in the personal column of those alternative newspapers,” Holmes says. “I would read those ads, and they always sound so exciting and would promise so much. I was struggling with the idea of what happens if you answer one of those letters. Then I woke one day and said, ‘Of course!”

What came out was Escape, an arousing, image-laden narrative where a man, tired of his woman, seeks a more stimulating relationship.

“Sure, it’s gone stale, but he doesn’t realize that the lady next to him is probably more bored than he is because she’s the one who placed the ad in the first place. It’s a very pro-female song.”

Rupert Holmes recorded four previous albums prior to Partners In Crime. The first one, Widescreen, was brought to the attention of Barbra Streisand, who enjoyed his music so much she had him co-produce and arrange her album (1975) Lazy Afternoon, which also contained four of his songs. Other recording artists, such as Barry Manilow, Dionne Warwick, B.J. Thomas, Manhattan Transfer, and Mac Davis have also use his material. Additionally, he’s produced albums for London-based artists The Strawbs, Sailor, Sparks, and John Miles.

But the biggest thrill that greeted Holmes was from a song originally written for The Buoys in 1971. Give Up Your Guns was the follow-up hit to Timothy, and broke in nationally as Billboard’s number 55 song for the year. Then, in 1979, The Buoys LP was re-issued in Europe on EMI where Give Up Your Guns surprisingly climbed the Holland charts to the lauded Number 6 position.

In separate ventures, Buoys’ manager Tom Fox, and Dakota’s Bill Kelly and Jerry Hludzik went over to Holland to capitalize on this unexpected fortune.

“It’s incredible. I’m still trying to accept that that happened,” he said. “It’s amazing when a record that you’ve given up on for seven years suddenly surface again, and the idea that it would do so in a country where English is not the first language is amazing. I’ve always felt that Give Up Your Guns was better than Timothy, and more of what The Buoys, as a group, were about.”

(The western influence on Give Up Your Guns may have been precipitated by the MGM motion picture ‘The Animals,’ starring Keenan Wynn – a flick that Holmes was scoring during the same time period.)

For his two sets at the Bloomsburg Fair, Holmes and his band played before a cold, scant crowd of 2,300 for both shows. Total seating capacity for the two shows is around 16,000.

Despite his recent success, Holmes is still a virtual unknown to the masses, a lightweight. His appeal is musically right of the hard rock crowd, and a sharp left from the moderates. All in all, this was a poor selection for the fair committee, if their aim was to fill seats.

The Rupert Holmes Band consists of Phil Guidos, keyboards; Dean Bailey, lead guitars; John Caruso, bass; Bennie Graham, drums; and Chrissy Faith, back-up vocals. Holmes was also featured on the Yamaha keyboard for the composition Near Sighted.

Other compositions performed by the group included, Lets Get Crazy Tonight; Who, What, When, Why; Him; Answering Machine; Black Jack; Studio Musician; Everything, and, of course, Escape.

The only song that was missing was the song that I had come specifically to hear – Timothy. But then, perhaps it’s better left to those who do it best – namely The Buoys.