Redbone (band)

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Redbone

Redbone in 1971
Background information
Origin Fresno, Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres Rock
R&B
Cajun
Funk
Years active 1969-1977
1997-present
Labels Epic Records
Associated acts Pat and Lolly Vegas
Danny Spanos
Website Redbone.com
Members Pat Vegas
Garrett Saracho
Joe Gonzales
Raven Hernandez
Past members Lolly Vegas
Tony Bellamy
Peter DePoe
Arturo Perez
George Spanos
Butch Rillera
Aloisio Aguiar
Eddie Summers
Jack White

Redbone is a Native American/Mexican American rock group that was most active in the 1970s. They reached the Top 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974 with the million-selling gold-certified single, "Come and Get Your Love".[1]

History

Originally from Coalinga, California, brothers Patrick (bass and vocals) and Candido "Lolly" Vasquez (guitar and vocals) moved to Los Angeles in 1969 to form the group Redbone.

The name Redbone itself is a joking reference to a Cajun term for a mixed-race person ("half-breed"), the band's members being of mixed blood ancestry.[1] The band referenced Cajun and New Orleans culture many times in their lyrics and performing style. Patrick (Pat for short) and Lolly, who were a mixture of Yaqui, Shoshone and Mexican heritage, had previously performed and recorded under the stage surname Vegas, in part to downplay the Latin American association of their birth surname, Vasquez.[2] According to Pat Vegas, it was Jimi Hendrix - himself part Native American - who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group, and they signed as the band "Redbone" to Epic Records in 1969. The band then consisted of Pat Vegas, Lolly Vegas, Peter DePoe and Robert Anthony Avila, a Yaqui-Chicano, better known by his stage name Tony Bellamy. Their debut album Redbone was released in 1970.[3]

Prior to forming Redbone the brothers had some initial success as songwriters. In 1967 P.J. Proby recorded his only Top 30 hit "Niki Hoeky" by Jim Ford, Lolly Vegas and Pat Vegas. The next year, Bobbie Gentry performed the Cajun-influenced song on The Summer Smothers Brothers Show.[4][5]

Redbone played primarily rock music with R&B, Cajun, Jazz, tribal, and Latin roots. Their first commercial success came with the single "Maggie" from their second album, Potlatch, in 1970, and two other hit singles followed - "The Witch Queen of New Orleans" (1971, #21 on the Billboard Hot 100) and "Come and Get Your Love" (1974, #5 on the Billboard Hot 100). "Come and Get Your Love", written by Lolly Vegas, remained on the chart for 24 weeks, and was certified gold by the R.I.A.A. on April 22, 1974.[1]

Lolly was one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of the distinctive Leslie rotating speaker effect in his electric guitar amplification set-up. Vegas played improvised, jazz-influenced guitar. Drummer Peter DePoe (born 1943, Neah Bay, Washington) is credited with pioneering the "King Kong" style of drumming, which features sharply accented polyrhythms involving the bass and snare drums and is similar to funk styles of drumming. The band referred to DePoe's "King Kong Beat" in their lyrics to the song "Prehistoric Rhythm" on their debut album.

Pat Vegas (Patrick Vasquez), 1971
In 1973, Redbone released the politically oriented "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee", recalling the massacre of Lakota Sioux Indians by the Seventh Cavalry in 1890. The song ends with the subtly altered sentence "We were all wounded 'by' Wounded Knee". It charted in several European countries and reached the #1 position in The Netherlands but did not chart in the U.S. where it was initially withheld from release and then banned by several radio stations.[6] DePoe had left this band in 1972, and was eventually replaced by Bellamy's Filipino-Chicano cousin, Butch Rillera around that point. Following this the band achieved much of their commercial success. Tony Bellamy (guitar, piano and vocals) left the band in 1977, with Rillera leaving shortly after.[6][7] He died, at age 63 in a Las Vegas hospital on December 25, 2009, as the result of liver failure.[8]

The band's current remaining membership is led by Pat Vegas. Raven Hernandez (guitar, vocals and songwriter) joined Redbone in 1996 to replace Lolly Vegas after he suffered a stroke that left him unable to tour with the band. Although Redbone has had some limited activity in recent years, their songwriting and touring output is slight compared with that of the early 1970s. A proposed reunion tour in 2003 did not occur. Evidence suggests the existence of an "imposter band" illegally touring the United States and posing as Redbone under the name (or alias) "Denny Freeman". Freeman - who Pat Vegas confirmed to be unaffiliated with Redbone in an interview with the Montana Standard - defrauded the county fair board of the Butte Silver-Bow County Fair in Butte, Montana, under pretenses of being a co-founding member of Redbone, yet he was never a band member.[9]

Prior to forming Redbone, Pat and Lolly Vegas released an album in the mid-1960s entitled Pat & Lolly Vegas at the Haunted House (Mercury MG 21059/SR 61059).[10] Of the twelve songs on the album, six were originals by the Vasquez brothers. Pat and Lolly also released several singles from 1961 to the mid-1960s. One of them was titled "Robot Walk" / "Don't You Remember" (Apogee Records A-101).

The first self-titled album by Redbone was released as a double album in North America. In Europe it was released both as a double (EPC 67242) and as a single album (BN 26280) on the Epic label.

Their third album, Message from a Drum, was released in Europe (except Spain) with the title The Witch Queen of New Orleans and different cover than the one released in the U.S. and Canada.

One of the 1970s drummers, George Spannos, released his own hit album Passion in the Dark in 1983 under the name Danny Spanos, having a Top 40 hit single with "Hot Cherie".

Redbone was inducted into the Native American Music Association Hall of Fame in 2008.

Bellamy died of liver failure on December 25, 2009 at a hospital in his hometown of Las Vegas.

Lolly died of lung cancer in Reseda, California on March 4, 2010.[11]

Members

Current members
  • Pat Vegas - bass, vocals (1969-1977, 1997–present)
  • Garrett Saracho - keyboards
  • Joe Gonzales - drums
  • Raven Hernandez - guitars, vocals
  • Robert Lame Bull McDonald - guitars, vocals (2011–present)
Former members
  • Lolly Vegas - guitars, vocals (1969-1977, 1997; died 2010)
  • Tony Bellamy - guitars, vocals (1969-1977, 1997-1998, 2008; died 2009)
  • Peter DePoe - drums, percussion (1969-1972)
  • Arturo Perez - drums, percussion (1972-1973)
  • George Spanos - drums, percussion (1973)
  • Butch Rillera - drums, percussion (1973-1977)
  • Jack White - drums, percussion (1977)
  • Aloisio Aguiar - keyboards (1977)
  • Eddie Summers - drums, percussion (1977)
  • Joe Gonzales (Thunderhand Joe) - drums (1982, 1999)
Redbone 1977

Discography

Studio albums

Live album

Compilation albums

  • Come And Get Your Redbone: The Best Of Redbone (1975) as Epic PG-33456
  • The Best Of Redbone (1976) as Dominion/K-Tel 833
  • The Very Best Of Redbone (1991) as Sony Music Distribution 4679362
  • Greatest Songs (Come And Get Your Love) (1995) as Curb 77746
  • Golden Classics (1996) as Collectables 5802

[note: this is a 2LP-on-1CD reissue of 'Potlatch' (1970) and 'Message From A Drum' (1971) plus two singles]

  • To The Bone (1998) as Sony Music Special Products 28581
  • Redbone And Wet Willie: Take Two (2002) as Sony Music Special Products 52777
  • The Essential Redbone (2003) as Epic/Legacy 86072

Charted singles

  • Maggie b/w New Blue Sermonette (1971) US #45 as Epic 5-10670
  • The Witch Queen Of New Orleans b/w Chant: 13th Hour (1971) US #21 as Epic 5-10749
  • When You Got Trouble b/w Jerico (1972) US #111 as Epic 5-10839
  • Come and Get Your Love b/w Day To Day Life (1974) US #5, US R&B #75 as Epic 5-11035
  • Wovoka b/w Clouds In My Sunshine (1974) US #101 as Epic 5-11131
  • Suzie Girl b/w Interstate Highway 101 (1974) US #108 as Epic 8-50015

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 349. ISBN 0-214-20512-6. 
  2. ↑
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ "Bobbie Gentry - Niki Hoeky". YouTube. Retrieved 2012-04-23. 
  5. ↑ "The Summer Brothers Smothers Show: Season 1, Episode 6". IMDb.com. 28 July 1968. Retrieved 2012-11-11. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Redbone Biography". Musician Guide. 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-19. 
  7. ↑ "Redbone-History". 20gp.ovh.net. Retrieved 2012-11-11. 
  8. ↑ "Claire Voyant - Las Vegas Gossip". Lvol.com. Retrieved 2012-11-11. 
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ Allmusic.com discography
  11. ↑ "IT'S A SAD DAY TO DAY, JUST GOT SOME BAD NEWS, WE JUST LOST A ROCK LEGEND van Redbone Official Myspace op Myspace". Blogs.myspace.com. Retrieved 2012-11-11. 

External links

Redbone
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
  • Come & Get Your Redbone
  • The Best of Redbone
  • The Very Best of Redbone
  • Great Songs (Come and Get Your Love)
  • Golden Classics
  • To the Bone
  • Take Two
  • The Essential Redbone
Singles
Related articles
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