The Delights - Every Minute, Every Moment, Every Hour / Just Out of Reach 1966 (Smash)

 As a garage band moniker, the Delights might seem lightweight in retrospect, but the band's guitarist Vince Schraub offers an explanation. Eventually rechristened the Hudsen Bay Company on Dunwich, Schraub recalls, "When we signed up with Bill Traut and Dunwich, they thought the Delights was a square name. Yeah, but it really wasn't because we used to be a soul band. When I joined them, they were doing all these obscure and esoteric black instrumentals.At one time, they had three black singers in the band," According to Schraub, the band's earliest guise was as a straight polka band!

"The band never changed except drummers, says  Schraub. It's almost like Spinal Tap. Two of 'em were dead within two years of the band's end," For their sole Quill-produced single, the Delights were comprised of Greg Grimes (vocals, flute), Vince Schraub (lead guitar, backing vocals), Jerry Germansen (Vox organ, backing vocals), Norbert Soltysiak (tambourine, backing vocals), Louis Sanjurjo (bass, backing vocals), and Bob Buff (drums, backing vocals).

Prior to their association with Quill, the band was managed by Carl Bonafede (the Buckingham’s, the Daughters of Eve). Assisted by Chess engineer Ron Malo, Bonafede had produced the Delights' first single; their blazing cover of "Long Green" on the Delaware label. There was also an earlier, scrapped session for the material eventually produced by QuilL Schraub: "We got hooked up with Ralph Marterie, the band leader from the 1940s. He became our manager We went back to Chess with Marterie and re-recorded 'Every Minute, Every Hour, Every Moment' and probably Just Out of Reach".

The Delights' Zombies cover, "Just Out of Reach" is faithful as a whole and simply astonishing in its lead vocal (with teenage phenomenon Greg Grimes executing a flawless, almost clone-good impersonation of the Zombies' Colin Blunstone). According to Vince Schraub, "Greg's voice coach was said to be the best in the business and she claimed that the only reason she was staying in the biz is because she thought Greg's stardom was a certainty."

But better than their Zombies cover was the Delights' masterpiece, "Every Minute, Every Hour, Every Moment." To borrow a quote from Schraub, "That thing sounds more like the Zombies than the Zombies," For all their promise, Schraub admits that I the Delights/Hudsen Bay Company got caught up in the craziness of the era and by the late '60s, "went over the edge of the cliff."

Taste :  

The Delights - Just Out of Reach

By Electric Looser