The Record

During the time The Whitsuntide Singers played at It's Here in Chicago there was a solo act, a fella named Joel Cory. He did a lot of sea shanties as I recall, (and played a big booming 12 string). Joel liked our sound, and signed us to a record deal on the Fontana label. I think it was called a "deal" 'cause he got all the money. Joel and his producer, Dick Toops took us into the best studio in Chicago at the time. I recall it was on Rush Street above a liqour store. These guys had an entire orchestra to back us up, and it became apparent that this was not going to be a "folk music" record. I don't recall how many sessions we had, but I do remember that Toops guzzled a lot of Maalox as the studio time began to rack up.

The "A" side was a song called "It's My World" and it was way over produced with psychedelic sound mixes, horns and you name it. The "B" side was a solo by Marci called "Beach Ball" done in one take because we shot the whole studio budget on "It's My World".

The record got some air play locally as well as on WBZ in Boston. The group was re-named for the release. We were now (for recording purposes) The Daisy Chain. The song was all over the place musically, and even STOPPED in the middle for drama I suppose. Anyway I guess it was a good thing it wasn't a hit because we could have never duplicated the sound on stage!

Still we were now "recording artists" and jacked our appearance fee accordingly. And as great an experience as making a record was, I was at the point were I was not going to go electric. I retired from the group, and took my 1969 Gibson J-50 on a solo career into oblivion.