The success of the single prompted Harpers Bizarre to record their debut album. At this point, the band consisted of Ted Templeman (vocals, drums, guitar), Dick Scoppettone (vocals, guitar, bass), Eddie James (guitar), Dick Yount (bass, vocals), and John Petersen (drums, percussion, vocals). Petersen had previously already enjoyed a brief spell of success as a member of the Beau Brummels;[1] James left after the release of the group's second album and was replaced by Tom Sowell. Under the guidance of producer Lenny Waronker (and Templeman, who emerged as the leader of the group), Harpers Bizarre developed a unique sound which experimented with heavy vocal layering. Most of Harpers Bizarre's recordings are cheerful and airy, both in subject matter and musical accompaniment, often with string and woodwind arrangements. Their music is most closely associated with the sunshine pop and baroque pop genres.
In addition to covering several old standards (including Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" and Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo Choo"), Harpers Bizarre also recorded the work of several contemporary songwriters, Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks and Harry Nilsson, who also appear on their recordings in the guise of session musicians and/or arrangers. Neither Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, nor Harry Nilsson were ever members of the Tikis or Harpers Bizarre.[7] One of their recordings was the mildly controversial Randy Newman number "The Biggest Night of Her Life", about a schoolgirl who is "too excited to sleep" because she has promised to lose her virginity on her sixteenth birthday to a boy, whom her parents like "because his hair is always neat".[citation needed]
After the band's initial chart ascendancy with "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)", none of Harpers Bizarre's subsequent singles achieved the same level of success. "Chattanooga Choo Choo" did reach No. 1 on Billboard'sEasy Listening chart, despite a drug reference ("do another number down in Carolina"). The band broke up shortly after their last album was released in 1969. Templeman has stated that they broke up over whether to continue with their producer: "Well, the lowdown was that the rest of the band didn't want Lenny to produce us anymore, but I did. So, it was me against them. (Laughs) And that was it."[8]
On October 31, 1969, while returning to San Francisco after playing a concert in Pasadena, California, the group's TWA flight was hijacked. All the passengers were safely released in Denver, Colorado.[9] However, the plane and its crew continued on to Rome, Italy, where the hijacker was apprehended.[10] This incident covered 6,900 miles, the longest distance ever covered in an airplane hijacking incident.[11] Scoppettone later described the hijack as "the best publicity we ever had, by a mile".[12]
In 1976, a partial reunion of the group occurred (without Templeman) to record an album, As Time Goes By, which is often overlooked in Harpers Bizarre discographies.[citation needed]
Drummer John Petersen, husband of Templeman's sister Roberta, died suddenly on November 11, 2007 of a heart attack.[14] Dick Yount died in March 2019.[7]
Feelin' Groovy: The Best of Harpers Bizarre (Warner Archives, 1997)
The Complete Singles Collection (1965–1970) (Now Sounds, 2016)
The Big Beat Records compilation albums Dance with Me: The Autumn Teen Sound (1994) and Someone to Love: The Birth of the San Francisco Sound (1996) contain the Tikis' two 45s and several previously unreleased recordings.
Singles
Year
Single (A-side, B-side) Both sides from same album except where indicated
Templeman, Ted; Renoff, Greg (2020). Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life In Music. Toronto: ECW Press. pp. 65–101. ISBN9781770414839. OCLC1121143123.
