Beverly Bivens

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Beverly Bivens
Beverly Bivens in 1965
Beverly Bivens in 1965
Background information
Birth name Beverly Bivens
Origin Flag of the United States Santa Ana, California
Genre(s) Folk rock; experimental jazz
Occupation(s) Singer
Years active Mid 1960s
Label(s) A&M
Associated acts We Five; Light Sound Dimension

Beverly (Bev) Bivens, later Beverly Marshall, was lead singer with the American West Coast folk-rock group We Five from 1965-7.

Contents

[edit] We Five

Beverly Bivens was born in Santa Ana, California in the mid 1940s and educated at Santa Ana High School (attended also by Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, as well as members of the Chantays and actress Diane Keaton, who frequently broke the rules on dress[1]) and Orange Coast Junior College.[2] In 1964 she began singing with Jerry Burgan and Mike Stewart (1945-2002), who had formed a folk duo at high school and branched out into electronic music with guitarist Bob Jones, whom they met at the University of San Francisco. With the addition of Pete Fullerton, this group, initially called the Ridgerunners[3] and, for a while, the Mike Stewart Quintet, became known as We Five.[4] They recorded their first album, the highly eclectic You Were on My Mind, for A&M records in 1965 after Herb Alpert, founder of A&M, heard them at the "hungry i", a folk/night club on Jackson Street in the North Beach area of San Francisco.

You Were On My Mind LP: We Five, 1965
You Were On My Mind LP: We Five, 1965

[edit] You Were on My Mind

We Five's first single was a cover version of Sylvia Tyson's song You Were On My Mind. [5] The single reached number three in the Billboard "Hot 100" in August 1965.[6]

Tyson has said that she was unaware that her song had been "covered" until she heard We Five's version on a car radio while driving on Highway 101. [7]. One consequence of We Five's success was that Tyson's song, which, until then, had been unavailable in sheet form, was published by Witmark of New York, with a photograph of Bivens and We Five on the cover.

On 2 October 1965, We Five performed You Were on My Mind live on the ABC television show The Hollywood Palace, on which they were introduced by guest compère Fred Astaire.[8][9] Video footage of this performance survives, as does that of appearances around the same time on the Jack Benny show and Shivaree.

A subsequent 1965 single, Chet Powers' Let's Get Together was a more modest commercial success, reaching number 31 on the Hot 100. The song became a much bigger hit in 1969 for the Youngbloods under the shortened title "Get Together." [10][11].

[edit] Influence

Bivens' voice was what gave We Five its distinctive and memorable sound. Almost operatic in quality, its range was described as low tenor to high soprano.[12] Bivens' performances on You Were On My Mind and in concert largely foreshadowed a female vocal style that, by 1966-7, was associated with, among others, Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane, Grace Slick of the Great Society and Jefferson Airplane [13], and Cass Elliot and Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas. Bivens was said to have inspired Jefferson Airplane's original vocalist Signe Toly Anderson, who was already well established on San Francisco's jazz and folk scene before joining the Airplane. It may be no coincidence either that Karen Carpenter who, like Bivens, had a fine vocal range, was signed by Alpert to A&M, with her brother Richard, in 1969 [14].

Bivens' influence was apparent too in recordings by some male bands: for example, the Turtles' single Happy Together and the Cowsills' The Rain, the Park and Other Things (both major hits in 1967). In 2002, the British newspaper The Independent described We Five as having "bridged the gap" between Peter, Paul and Mary and the Mamas and Papas [15]; indeed, Bivens' voice and that of Mary Travers had a similar atmospheric quality, although Bivens' was the more commanding. In the latter respect, there was a similarity with Judith Durham of the Australian group the Seekers and Dusty Springfield, initially of the Springfields [16], who made their names in England in the early to mid sixties as the lead singers of folk-oriented groups. The vocal delivery of Judy Dyble, the original lead singer of England's premier folk-rock band, Fairport Convention, also bore comparsion with that of Bivens.

[edit] Images and personal style

In 1965 Bivens' personal interests were said to be fashions, Chinese food and freedom.[17] As regards fashion, photographs show her wearing dresses whose hemlines were well above the knee in 1965, at a time when the mini-skirt, which, in England, became a defining symbol of "Swinging" London, had yet to make a wide impact in America.[18] Surviving television clips capture her rather chic "mod" style of dress and bobbed hair. [19]

Her brief career happened during a time when she was one of a very small number of female rock and roll musicians: her classic style was a departure from the more bohemian look favored by contemporaries like Grace Slick or Janis Joplin.


[edit] Photographs

In October 1965 KYA, a leading San Francisco radio station, used a large photographic portrait of Bivens to draw attention to its inaugural International Pop Music Awards (maybe patronising her a little in the process with its caption, "Wee One of the We Five") [20]. Other photographs of Bivens included those of We Five taken by Lisa Bachelis (later Lisa Law), using a Leica given to her by the group's manager and producer Frank Werber (1929-2007), who also managed the Kingston Trio, of which Mike Stewart's brother John (1939-2008) was a member [21]. We Five sometimes used Werber's home at Mill Valley to rehearse; one photograph taken there shows Bivens barefoot in a bikini top and jeans, while the group used, among other things, a broom in place of a microphone [22]. Bivens appeared barefoot also on the cover of You Were On My Mind, walking along a beach in a reddish-orange tunic, accompanied by her male collegaues, all fully shod and wearing matching turtle necks.

[edit] Split of We Five and the legacy

We Five were in the vanguard of the San Francisco bands, including Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, that reached international prominence in the “Summer of Love” of 1967. However, the original version of the band had disbanded by then.

In his notes for We Five's second album, Make Someone Happy (1967), released after they had split (an episode that give rise to unfounded rumours that Bivens had been killed in a road accident [23]). George Yanok observed that

"We 5 was the first “electric band” to come out of San Francisco. It predated the entire present “happening” in the Haight-Ashbury [a district of San Francisco that became the centre of "flower power"] with all its attendant trippery and hang-overs …".[24]

Yanok asserted also that "there was nothing psychedelic or arcane about We 5's music". However, various elements of the music of the psychedelic era, notably Bivens' vocal delivery, which Yanok described as "a major reason for this [We Five's] special something", were plainly discernible in We Five's output (for example, on Let's Get Together and such tracks as If I Were Alone [25], Love Me Not Tomorrow[26], You Let A Love Burn Out [27] and Bivens' blues solo High Flying Bird [28]).

[edit] After the split

Jerry Burgan and Pete Fullerton reformed We Five. Burgan's wife, Debbie, née Graf, who sang with a group called the Legendaires and had sometimes worked with the Ridgerunners (as they then were), took over from Bivens as lead vocalist.[29] A group known as We Five was still performing forty years later.

The two albums featuring Bivens were re-released as a compilation compact disc by Collectors' Choice Music in 1996.[30] Because of her short period of fame, Bivens has remained a rather elusive figure, but one whose voice has plainly been cherished by many who heard her in the mid sixties. Although Mike Stewart appears to have been the "engine" of We Five, putting in extra hours to attend to arrangements of the group's material [31], George Yanok's notes for Make Someone Happy were perhaps revealing in that they concentrated on Bivens' centrality to We Five virtually to the exclusion of the other members: according to Yanok, she was "totally honest, gifted and possessed". Yanok also observed that We Five's music was about "fun" and that it was "unfortunate that that 'fun', in this age [i.e. 1967], has become equated with frivolity and dismissed as trivia". Even so, although Bivens' documented recording career lasted less than two years and extended to a mere two dozen tracks, it seems probable that, had she remained in the industry (and there was no suggestion that she herself - "the miniskirt-wearing, free spirit of the band" [32] - had become passée [33]), her soaring and beautiful voice would have made her a big star.

[edit] Circumstances of the split

Beverly Bivens from cover of Spanish EP, Estabas En Mi Recuerdo (Hipavox, 1966)
Beverly Bivens from cover of Spanish EP, Estabas En Mi Recuerdo (Hipavox, 1966)

The precise reasons for the break-up of the original group remain unclear, although there has been periodic speculation and comment over the years, not least following the re-release of We Five's two albums at a time when the Internet was becoming a part of everyday life. Most versions have tended to focus on Bivens herself. The official website of the latter-day We Five, which was in a position to capture the collective memory of some its original members, explained that "Beverly turned her back on stardom to marry ... [to] explore experimental music, and become a mom" [34]. However, there have been suggestions that, among other things, differences within the group and aspects of its management were also factors [35].

In some respects Bivens was an "outsider". For example, her education did not intersect that of the other members: Stewart, Fullerton and Burgan all attended Mt. San Antonio College ("Mt. SAC") in Walnut, Los Angeles, while Stewart, Jones and Burgan graduated at the University of San Francisco. The academic background of each was recorded prominently on the sleeve of You Were On My Mind, together with the information that Bivens had attended junior college. There were other mild hints of condescension: the same sleeve notes recognised that Bivens' "unusual brilliance and vocal range is the basis of our sound" and that she was "the spark of the group", but referred also to her "genuine involvement in singing and desire to learn", while, many years later, the We Five website referred curiously to Stewart and Burgan's having added "the sound of a female voice that was eventually to be made famous by Beverly Bivens" [36]. (This is perhaps consistent with another, possibly ironic, sleeve reference to Bivens' instrument as her throat.)

[edit] Issues of management

As for management, it is almost self-evident that the original We Five, and Bivens in particular, did not really fulfill their potential; in part this was because, as George Yanok implied, some of their material appeared rather dated by 1966-7, but there were other factors, including the success of Crispian St. Peters’ British cover version of Fricker’s You Were on My Mind, which arguably stunted their international recognition [37] at a time when the effects of the "British invasion" set in train by the Beatles were still being felt [38]. It may be relevant also that, despite Herb Alpert's own recording success, A&M was not a major label (and, in any case, the actual production of We Five's material remained with Frank Werber's Trident company), whereas Jefferson Airplane, who became far more successful, were the first electric band from San Francisco to sign with a leading company, namely RCA[39]. Reflecting on the city's musical environment in general, Myra Friedman recalled that, although by the time of the Monetery festival in 1967, a few of the bands from San Francisco had signed contracts with major companies, "their captive audience was still on the home ground of the West Coast, and the great majority of the Bay Area bands were functioning in a self-sustaining community, far away from the mechanics of industry" [40] In 1968 We Five were among a number of A&M's artists included in an injunction by a Los Angeles court prohibiting the "pirating" of their recordings by a company named Superba Tapes [41].

We Five have sometimes been referred to as "one hit wonders", although this description, while technically accurate in terms of the US "top 20", rather belies the group's credentials and influence [42]. Jerry Burgan recalled, in 2007, that Werber “had an ability to encourage creativity and the musical process without having to direct it. While encouraging us [We Five] to write, to sing, and to play, he surrounded us with a team that shaped all of the other elements which led to our success". However, there may be a certain implication in Burgan’s further observation that "we were too young to see it at the time, but I later learned to appreciate the impact he had on my life" [43].

[edit] Fred Marshall and the Light Sound Dimension

After leaving We Five, Bivens married jazz bassist Fred Marshall (Frederick Calvin Marshall, 4 October 1938 - 14 November 2001) [44], who had worked with a number of West Coast rock bands and been a member of the Vince Guaraldi Trio which famously recorded the incidental music for television specials based on the Peanuts cartoons of Charles Schulz [45]. Guaraldi had been an habitué of the hungri i club and Marshall's own band, the Ensemble, played at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on the same bill as Jefferson Airplane on the night in October 1966 that Grace Slick first sang as their lead vocalist.

In 1966 Marshall began to collaborate with lighting technician Bill Ham (William Gatewood Ham, born 26 September 1932), who is generally credited with creating the first psychedelic light show, a concept that originated in the "beat" era of the 1950s and became a feature of many late 1960s rock concerts [46]. Together with Jerry Granelli, who, in addition to playing on We Five's first album, had also worked with Guaraldi[47] and been a close associate of the songwriter and producer Sly Stone [48], they formed the Light Sound Dimension (which, as with the Beatles' 1967 song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, many were quick to notice bore the initials LSD), an "audio visual multi media group" combining lighting technology and experimental music [49]. The LSD, which continued into the 1990s, established itself at various West Coast venues, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Fillmore Auditorium (which became known for its psychedelic posters), and appeared with, among others, Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Grateful Dead.

[edit] Vocal experimentation

Beverly Bivens sang for a while with the LSD, her work including vocal experimentation paralleling Yoko Ono's.[50] A photograph taken backstage in 1968 at the LSD’s own theater in San Francisco (which ran for about 18 months from January 1968) shows Bivens and Marshall with Ham, Granelli, saxophonist Noel Hawkes (born 18 June 1940) [51] and Ham's assistant Robert (Bob) Fine. One observer wrote at the time that:

Using rear projection to flood a wide screen with essentially liquid images, and large speakers to project highly amplified jazz-electronic improvisations, the LSD. is an intensely dedicated, highly gifted group of light artists and musicians who carry abstract light-sound art to perhaps its ultimate in purity and concentration [52].

Less prosaically, Hawkes recalled the LSD as "far out ... It was a mind opening experience. We were on the cutting edge, you might say, back then" [53].

[edit] Family and later activities

The Marshalls (Bivens used her husband's surname) had two children: the saxophonist Joshi Marshall, who was born in Berkeley, California in 1971, and a daughter, Zoe Terry Marguerite.

[edit] 1970s-80s

During the 1970s Bivens appears to have done some session recording, as well as making occasional appearances on television and recording radio jingles. During this time, she and Fred Marshall raised two children in Berkeley, California, one of whom is a noted musician in his own right. A publicity bio for her son, the saxophonist Joshi Marshall, states that, while he was still in high school in the last half of the 1980s, he "play[ed] in and host[ed] sessions with his mother, Beverly Bivens, lead singer of the pop group, We Five, and many notable jazz musicians which included saxophonist Pharoah Saunders and pianist, Benny Green."[54]. However, Bivens' career after leaving We Five is not well documented publicly and sketchy information is derived mainly from recollections posted on the Internet. Various rumours that she had died persisted for many years.

[edit] 1990s-

Jerry Burgan reported that, when he spoke to Bivens in 1999, she was not singing professionally [55]. After Fred Marshall died in Oakland in 2001, an obituary published in his home state of Arkansas referred to Bivens as his former wife and his having had another partner of long standing[56]. Bivens was said then to be living in Berkeley and, by Burgan in the mid noughties, to be doing up an old house [57].

[edit] Discography: We Five (with Beverly Bivens)

[edit] Albums

The tracks shown in italics were solo (S) or largely solo performances by Beverly Bivens. However, her voice dominated virtually all recordings by We Five and some others (SF) contained marked solo flourishes.

  • You Were On My Mind (1965) A&M LP-111/SP-4111

1. Love Me Not Tomorrow (S) 2. Somewhere Beyond The Sea 3. My Favorite Things 4. If I Were Alone 5. Tonight 6. Cast Your Fate to the Wind (SF) [58] 7. You Were On My Mind 8. Can't Help Falling in Love 9. Small World 10. I Got Plenty O' Nuttin' 11. Softly As I Leave You (SF) 12. I Can Never Go Home Again (SF)

  • Make Someone Happy (1967) A&M LP-138/SP-4138

1. Let's Get Together 2. High Flying Bird (S) 3. Make Someone Happy 4. Five Will Get You Ten 5. Somewhere 6. What Do I Do Now 7. First Time 8. Our Day Will Come 9. Poet 10. What's Going On 11. Inch Worm 12. You Let A Love Burn Out

  • A compact disc, combining these albums, was released by PolyGram (DPSM 5172) in 1996.

[edit] Other

  • There Stands the Door (promotional track c/w Somewhere) (A&M, c.1966)
  • Several of the tracks on We Five's two albums were released as 45 inch singles or EPs. Special issues appeared in some countries, including Spain (for example, the 1966 EP, Estabas En Mi Recuerdo [You Were On My Mind], distributed by Hispavix HDA 377-02 [59]), Brazil and Japan. In Taiwan, You Were On My Mind was released on red vinyl.
  • The title track of You Were on My Mind was included on the first disc ("Seismic Rumbles") of a 4-CD boxed set Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 (Rhino Records, 2007).

[edit] External links

Bev Bivens with We Five: Hollywood Palace, 1965
Bev Bivens with We Five: Hollywood Palace, 1965

[edit] Video recordings

[edit] Sound only

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Jonathan Moor (1990) Diane Keaton: The Story of the Real Annie Hall
  2. ^ Sleeve notes for LP, You Were on My Mind (1965)
  3. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  4. ^ The name is thought to derive from We Seven (1962), the title of a book by the seven Mercury astronauts.
  5. ^ See Charles H Smith (2007) [1]
  6. ^ Charlie Gillett & Simon Firth (1976) Rock File 4. This was A&M's first "hit" record that was not made by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.
  7. ^ Richie Unterberger, interview with Sylvia Tyson [2]
  8. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_f16t1JGHo YouTube.com
  9. ^ The Hollywood Palace: Host: Fred Astaire / We Five / Jackie Mason - TV.com
  10. ^ As Get Together: see Rock File 4 (ed Charlie Gillett & Simon Frith, 1976)
  11. ^ Sounds of the 60s, BBC Radio 2, 28 July 2007
  12. ^ Sleeve notes for You Were on My Mind (1965)
  13. ^ Grace Slick's delivery was rather more "edgy", being described by James Goodfriend, Music Editor of Stereo Review, as "beautifully focused, but [with] the kind of steely edge to it that forbids prettiness" (sleeve notes to CBS LP The Best of Grace Slick, 1974).
  14. ^ A&M continued over the years to have an instinct for spotting striking female talent. A more recent example was their signing of the Welsh singer Aimee Duffy in 2007.
  15. ^ Pierre Perrone, obituary of Michael Stewart, The Independent, 27 November 2002
  16. ^ In the late 1950s, Dusty Springfield, then known by her birth name of Mary O'Brien, had been a member of group called the Lana Sisters.
  17. ^ Sleeve notes for You Were on My Mind (1965)
  18. ^ See, for example, Lisa Law (1987) Flashing on the Sixties. The mini-skirt really only took off internationally after British model Jean Shrimpton caused much controversy by wearing a shift dress four inches above the knee at the Melbourne Cup race meeting in Australia in November 1965: see Shrimpton (1990) My Autobiography.
  19. ^ Bivens appears to have adopted a bob, then extremely fashionable in England, at some point in 1965. Some photographs from that year, including one by Lisa Law, reveal a slightly longer style, parted in the middle. Photographs on the sleeve of You Were on My Mind show her with the bob, the style seen also in October 1965 on the Hollywood Palace television show and the cover of KYA Beat.
  20. ^ KYA Beat, 23 October 1965, vol 1, number 13
  21. ^ As both Mike Stewart's brother and a member of the Werber stable, Stewart was an influence on the development of We Five, a factor recalled by Jerry Burgan following John Stewart's death on 19 January 2008: Wefive.net. Stewart had left the Cumberland Three to replace Dave Guard in the Kingston Trio, which, unlike many other folk groups of the late 1950s and early 60s, eschewed politics and wore matching short sleeved shirts and short haircuts (Donald Clarke (1995) The Rise and Fall of Popular Music). Shortly before leaving the group in 1967, he wrote the Monkees' hit Daydream Believer, and in 1968 worked for Robert Kennedy's Presidential campaign. Burgan has described Stewart as his mentor.
  22. ^ Lisa Law (1987) Flashing on the Sixties
  23. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net. Various stories circulated to this effect; some have attributed them to confusion with a serious accident sustained in August 1969 by Nancy Nevins of the West Coast band Sweetwater. Another rumour, which seems to have persisted into the 21st century, was that Bivens had committed suicide.
  24. ^ Sleeve notes for LP, Make Someone Happy (1967)
  25. ^ You Were on My Mind LP (1965)
  26. ^ You Were on My Mind LP (1965)
  27. ^ Make Someone Happy LP (1967)
  28. ^ Make Someone Happy LP (1967)
  29. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  30. ^ DPSM 5172 (distributed by PolyGram)
  31. ^ Los Angeles Times, 9 May 1965
  32. ^ Description of Bivens by journalist Steve Thorn, who interviewed Pete Fullerton at length in 2008 [3].
  33. ^ George Yanok wrote simply that Bivens (like Bob Jones, who was also not part of the reformed We Five) was "making individual plans of [her] own": sleeve notes for Make Someone Happy (1967).
  34. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  35. ^ An Internet "blog" posted in 2002 contained the text of an e-mail purportedly from Bob Jones of the original We Five. Though dating the split of the group to 1969 (which must surely be a mistake), Jones noted, among other things, that "Bev went on to sing "free jazz" with her husband" and that Jerry Burgan obtained the rights to the name of We Five from Bivens, Stewart and himself. There was perhaps a hint of discord in Jones' recollection of the re-formed group that "except for an unfortunate gig we did together in the North Bay later, I was never involved in any of that" [4]
  36. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  37. ^ The Independent, 27 November 2002
  38. ^ See, for example, George Yanok, sleeve notes for Make Someone Happy (1967)
  39. ^ Grace Slick (1998) Somebody to Love?
  40. ^ Myra Friedman (1973) Buried Alive. Friedman added (although such a statement would not have been applicable to We Five, who, in any case, had split by the summer of 1967) that "those musicians were as green as the leaves that top the California redwoods and, not incidentally, just as high".
  41. ^ Los Angeles Times, 13 April 1968
  42. ^ By comparison, Jefferson Airplane had only two top 20 hits (the highest, Somebody to Love reached number five in 1967), while the Grateful Dead never had a top 20 hit. Jimi Hendrix had several hits in the UK, including a posthumous number one (Voodoo Chile), but his only top 20 entry in the USA was All Along the Watchtower (1968). By the mid 1960s albums were seen increasingly as more significant, especially artistically, than singles.
  43. ^ Jerry Burgan, reflecting on the death of Frank Werber: http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  44. ^ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 16 July 2000; 22 November 2001
  45. ^ The first special for CBS was A Charlie Brown Christmas, broadcast on 9 December 1965.
  46. ^ Frieze Magazine, issue 46 (May 1999)
  47. ^ [5] Jerry Granelli
  48. ^ Interview with John Sekerka, 2000 on CHUO FM in Ottawa [6]
  49. ^ [7] Bill Ham Lights
  50. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  51. ^ [8] Noel Hawkes
  52. ^ Thomas Albright, 24 August 1968, quoted in The Rolling Stone Rock 'n' Roll Reader (ed Ben Fong-Torres, 1974)
  53. ^ [9] Noel Hawkes
  54. ^ [10] Left Coast Horns
  55. ^ http://www.wefive.net/ Wefive.net
  56. ^ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 22 November 2001. Intruigingly, a profile of Marshall in the same newspaper in 2000 had referred to Bivens as if she and Marshall were still together (ibid, 16 July 2000).
  57. ^ YouTube - We Five - You Were On My Mind (Live On Hollywwod Palace)
  58. ^ "Wind" is singular, though shown as "Winds" on the album sleeve.
  59. ^ Though the titles were given in Spanish, all four songs on the EP were the English versions from the album You Were On My Mind.