Customer Reviews

A.B. Sky

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The original 33 1/3 vinyl has been in my collection for 30 years, and I still think it's one of the best records I own. Jim Marcotte's walking bass underlies some brass riffs that'll knock your socks off. Dennis Geyer's guitar makes you want to get up an dance. Terry Anderson's drum work is solid and lays a great foundation for the rest of the band. Howard Wales makes the Hammond sing, and combines with the rest of the group to make you wish every song was longer. The horns are this album were arranged by Dave Roberts, and it's evident that he knows what he's doing. From the first blast, until the last note, they hit you and hold you. This is a solid buy, and it belongs in the collection of every fan of good jazz. blues, or rock.

The differences of opinion as to what constitutes a One-Hit Wonder will likely never end. Many assert that anything that did not make the Billboard Pop Top/Hot 20 - 30 - or 40 cannot be regarded as a hit which is, in my opinion anyway, utterly ridiculous. Those charts have, since 1955 (generally regarded as the first full year for the genre known as Rock `N' Roll) listed songs that charted anywhere from No. 100 to 1. In each year there were hundreds more singles that never made it to # 100, leading to the eventual creation of what they term the Hot 100 Bubble Under charts.

So, someone with, say, a # 10 hit along with several more that ranked only in the # 41 slot down, is often unfairly labelled a One-Hit Wonder. However, there are quite a few who can only point to one Top 100 entry and these, again in my humble opinion, are the true bona-fide One-Hit wonders.

One such is A.B. Skhy, a band from San Francisco (guitarist/vocalist Dennis Geyer, keyboardist Howard Wales, bass Jim Marcotte, and drummer Terry Andersen) which, in late 1969, had one single released by MGM, culled from their album (this is a 1994 CD version of that album) A. B. Skhy. That was the instrumental Camel Back which came out on MGM 14086 b/w Just What I Need (also from the album) and, in December, made it to exactly # 100, spending one week on the charts.

Unfortunately for their hopes of raising a following, and perhaps increasing their weak commercial fortunes, only Marcotte remained from the original group by the time they were due to record a second album. On that effort, Ramblin' On, which came out in 1970, he had been joined by guitarist James "Curley" Cooke, one-time member of The Steve Miller Band, and drummer Rick Jaeger, but their original "sound" was lost without the distinctive organ of Howard Wales (he had left to join the local band The Loading Zone and would later join Jerry Garcia as the act Howard wales & Jerry Garcia). For what it's worth, the tracks on that album are: Gotta Be Free; My Baby's Quit Me; Pearl Is The Girl Of My Dreams; Lady In The Dark; Hope For The Future; Sweet Mother Earth; Groovin'; Trackin' Shoes; I'm Walkin'; Gazebo.

They broke up even as plans were in place to cut a third album, with Cooke forming a new group, The Cat & The Fiddle, and Jaeger moving on to the band Crowfoot.

No doubt they had a following in the Bay area, but the fact is, even with the promotional abilities of a giant like MGM behind them, their records just never caught on with the buying public to any great extent. Primarily a curiosity now.