Fotomaker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fotomaker was a power pop group based on Long Island, NY which released 3 albums between 1978-79. It was considered to be somewhat of a supergroup of power-pop musicians, featuring what would become some future members of the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, albeit for their work with previous bands. They created a small body of well-crafted pop songs on their 1st 2 albums and a forgettable 3rd techno-disco album, all within the span of a little over a year, but failed to achieve any measure of success, mostly due to lack of record company promotion.
The genesis of Fotomaker came about in 1975 when Lex Marchesi was attending Nassau Community College in Garden City, NY and met Ed Perlowsky in a Television Production class. Ed immediately recognized Lex's talent and lent a blues/rock guitar influence to Lex's production abilities. The band Feelings sprung from this partnership and with Lex on lead vocals and Ed on back-up vocals/lead guitar a single featuring the songs "Baby Tomorrow" and "Since You've Been Gone" (both written by Lex/Ed) leapt onto the local charts with about 16 copies sold! Both songs evoked a Badfinger/Beatles influence with excellent attention to vocal harmonies and "hanging" piano chords. A neat guitar solo by Ed influenced by George Harrison in "Baby Tomorrow" portrays what might have been if this band had kept together.
Feelings was extremely short lived and with commitments after college, Lex and Ed went separate ways with Ed going to California to find his fame and fortune and Lex to stay in NY and develop his musical abilities.
The band Fotomaker was formed in 1978 by bassist Gene Cornish & drummer Dino Danelli, who were both former members of the seminal 1960s power-pop group The Rascals (a/k/a "The Young Rascals"). Rounding out the group were guitarist Wally Bryson, formerly of power-pop hitmakers The Raspberries (which featured singer Eric Carmen), and 2 relative newcomers, guitarist/vocalist Lex Marchesi (who had previous experience in the band Feelings) & keyboardist/vocalist Frankie Vinci. The latter two members, though the only unknowns in the band, were the core talent that drove the band with their songwriting and vocal skills.
The best album was clearly the 1978 debut release, simply titled Fotomaker. This album featured all the clichés of power-pop of the `70's --- hook-laden choruses, tight overdriven guitars, lush strings, 12-string acoustic guitars, a few melodic ballads, 3-minute radio-friendly tunes and strong vocal harmonies throughout. Due to typical record company fashion, the group didn't get the publicity & promotion it deserved and its minor chart hits failed to find a tangible audience.
The 2nd album, Vis-a-Vis was hurriedly released later that year and also failed to hit. Seeing that power-pop groups had all but died, with the exception of a few acts like Elvis Costello, The Knack & The Cars who were defining themselves as "new wave" or "post punk" to escape the downdraft, and with disco still somehow raging on the charts and still a favorite with the New York A&R record bosses, the 3rd album, Transfer Station was released to target the disco/techno genre and quickly lost the few fans they had managed to acquire the previous year, therefore disbanding about a soon as the record reviews came in.
Wally Bryson went back to Cleveland and has since turned up in Raspberries reunions over the years including collaborating with his son in The Bryson Group. Frankie Vinci has done plenty of TV work including TV jingles and music for the Super Bowl as well as writing songs for others such as country artist Tim McGraw.
In 1997, Gene Cornish & Dino Danelli, along with former Rascals bandmates Felix Cavaliere & Eddei Brigati, were inducted into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame.
