September 5, 2024 • 33 mins
Fake Zombies, Fake Animals, Fake Archies -- oh my! It's the final episode of The True Story of The Fake Zombies and the jig is up. Legendary Rolling Stone writer Ben Fong-Torres, who broke the imposter band story in 1970, shares details of Delta Promotions' downfall. Later, we come face-to-face with "Veronica" from Delta's Fake Archies, a real version of a cartoon band.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and never Mind Media. Back
(00:21):
in nineteen sixty nine, when the real Zombies were at
their lowest point, two guys in rural Michigan dreamed up
the Fake Zombies. It's a strange business to get into.
Jim Atherton and Bill Keho, the bosses at Delta Promotions,
thought they'd found a loophole. They caught win that the
(00:42):
Zombies had broken up, and bought the rights to the
name the Zombies, or at least they claimed they did,
and assembled their own version of the group. Then they
assembled another one. Delta Promotions invested time, money, and a
lot of effort into supporting their bogus bands and making
them seem legit. They took promotional photos and gave them
(01:02):
high end amps and tour buses, all to capitalize on
the success of a Zombie song racing up the charts.
Time of the season set off Delta's Great rock and
roll swindle. But this was not an isolated incident. Another
British invasion band with songs and the radio fell into
a similar sort of limbo as the Zombies broken up
(01:24):
but still in demand. Delta Promotions once again saw dollar signs.
They started a fake version of the Animals. But it
wasn't the fake Zombies or the fake Animals that would
lead to the downfall of Delta. That would come from
their version of a group that never really existed in
the first place, The Fake Archies, a fabricated version of
(01:46):
a cartoon band.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Do you know the song Sugar Sugartada? Ah? Honey, honey.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
This is the final episode of the true story of
the Fake Zombies. I'm Daniel Ralston. Hiring young American musicians
to impersonate British rock bands may not have been ethical,
but when Delta Promotions started doing just that, it wasn't
technically illegal. Bill Keho, the businessman behind Delta, wasn't afraid
(02:24):
to take on the record company's management, companies, bands and
lawyers who would inevitably come beating down his door. He
happened to know a ton of extremely talented, equally impressionable
young musicians through his business partner Jim Atherton. Why not
take a shot at becoming the next big industry locals.
Delta laid claim to the unused name the Animals, just
(02:46):
like they did with the Zombies, and hired another group
of young guys, also from Michigan, to tour America. Every
English band, from the Zombies to the Beatles and Stones,
owes a huge debt to American blues music. Every Mick, Keith,
John Paul, and Ringo started out trying to sound like
the black artists who invented what we now know is
(03:06):
rock and roll. Of all the British Invasion bands that
hit it big in the States, nobody tapped into that
sound like the Animals. Their first big hit was a
cover of an old Blue standardsan.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Misery in the House. Otherise it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Like the Zombies, the real Animals were done after conquering
America with songs like House of the Rising Sun. Their singer,
Eric Burden was bored with his British Invasion past, and
by nineteen sixty nine he was breaking new creative ground
in his next project, War That was Delta's in for
(03:47):
a brief period of time, as the sixties became the seventies,
the Fake Animals and two fake Zombies tour in America,
performing for unsuspecting fans, and this might have continued on
had it not been for these words written in the
pages of Rolling Stone Magazine.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
None of the groups being hunted down is real. They're
all phonies, tenth rate bands using names of well known,
technically non existent groups to pull the wool over the
public's collective eyes and ears.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's Ben Funktorres, the man who wrote those words back
in nineteen seventy, and his story would mark the beginning
of the end for Delta Promotions. Ben was on to
them here.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Ten miles from Saginaw and one hundred and twenty or
so miles north of Detroit, Delta Promotions makes phone calls
to booking agencies in smaller towns, telling them in certain
tones about the existence and availability of groups they handle.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
When he wrote his story, Ben actually spoke to people
who'd been duped by Delta's fake bands. These small town
concert bookers were given a line by Bill Keho.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Those promoters who are aware the Animals and the Zombies
both disbanded a couple of years ago are told that
the groups have reformed, built around Nuclei, composed of several
original members. What this means is Delta went to the
trouble of claiming a copyright on an unused band name
for their own packs of musicians.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
When he learned about the fake animals. Eric Burden was
understandably pissed. He sent his business partner after Delta. It
was later reported in Rolling Stone the Burden and a
few of his friends and the Hells Angels showed up
at a fake animals gig with I quote, subpoenas and
baseball bats. The fake zombies and the fake animals may
have upset Eric Burden and the generation of people who
(05:37):
read Rolling Stone, but Delta continued to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
The animals are closely linked to the pony zombies. Delta
even pulled a double stunt last Easter Sunday in Duluth, Minnesota,
building both groups in concert and drawing twenty four hundred
unsuspecting customers at five dollars ahead to witness the masquerade.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The business side of the Delta partnership went on the
defensive when Rolling Stone reached out.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
As for Delta, the word there is no comment. Keho
would tell Rolling Stone no more than I'm ticked off you.
People haven't answered my letters and dared Rolling Stone to
come up with proof of their activities. Rolling Stone is
gathering up a healthy collection of contracts, come on offers,
and promo material, all linked to Delta and its associated firms,
(06:29):
Delta Promotions has the next move.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
The imposter groups could have continued caught up in trademark
claims over the name of the Zombies and the Animals
for who knows how long, but Delta's next act would
bring everything to a screeching halt. They started a fake band.
There was already kind of a fake band.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
They handle the Animals, the Zombies, and the Archies most prominently.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
If you don't instantly know the name the Archies, you
almost definitely know their biggest hit, Sugar Sugar. But the
Archies don't just play music. They've also starred in a
comic book for the past eighty odd years. They even
(07:20):
have a couple of TV shows. Any Riverdale Heads out there.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Ronnie, you know in your heart I'm right about this.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
It just hurts to admit it.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Don't you make me say goodbye to you?
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Or Chianrews.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Apart from the occasional foray into live action teenage soap operas,
the Archies are usually fictional animated characters. Juughhead, Betty, Reggie, Veronica,
and of course Archie their high school students, and together
they have a band called the Archies. Archie comic dates
back to nineteen forty one and has had a massive
(07:57):
stranglehold on popular culture for generations. Never was that more
true than in nineteen sixty nine. People lost their shit
when Sugar Sugar, recorded by the Archies hit the airwaves,
like really lost their shit, not just in America, all
over the world. I implore you to go online and
see how many countries the Archies went to number one.
In Okay, it's twenty seven. Here in America, Sugar Sugar
(08:20):
sat at number one for four straight weeks in nineteen
sixty nine. We tend to imagine this era the Vietnam era,
with a heavy soundtrack full of protest songs and mind
expanding consciousness raising protest anthems Creeden's Clearwater Revival, led Zeppelin
sly Stone.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
We're obtaining a list.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Of the one hundreds of American prisoners held by the
North Vietnam Ease. Well, apparently the Pentagon has found that.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
The best selling act in America in June of nineteen
sixty nine was actually a five piece band made up
of cartoon characters from the Archie comics universe. So how
did a cartoon band end up with the number one
song in the world. They had a really good manager
named Don Kirshner. If Bill Keho knew deep down at
(09:09):
some point he was going to have to face consequences
for his imposter band operation, he could not have come
up against a worse opponent than the man who decided
to turn the teenagers in Archie Comics into the Archies.
Kirshner got his start in music publishing, helping to launch
the careers of songwriters and performers like Carol King and
Neil Sadaka while he was still in his twenties. By
(09:32):
the time he started the Archies, he was a certified
kingmaker in the music business, with the rolodex of world
class songwriters in his publishing stable. But ironically, it was
a different, prefabricated band that would make Kershner a music
industry legend.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I had a song in my possession called Sugar Sugar,
which I felt, after I'm a Believer, could be one
of the biggest songs of all time. And I gave
him always the money, which they took, and I gave
him the goal Records played him Sugar Sugar.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Mike and Peter.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Said, it's a piece of junk. We're never going to
do this song, Mike proceeded to put his fist through
the wall at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And you know,
as we say, the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
That's Don Kirshner talking about the band he helped create,
The Monkeys. Don picked their songs in the early days
of the band. As the Monkeys grew more popular, the
band wanted to write their own songs. Don wanted them
to sing bubblegum pop hits. When the Monkeys passed on
Sugar Sugar, written by Canadian songwriter Andy Kim, Kirshner hired
(10:41):
studio musicians to record the song. The lead vocal was
sung by longtime Kirshner hired gun Ron Dante. None of
the people who played or sang on the song are
credited on the record, It simply reads the Archiees. According
to Tony Wine, the female vocalist on Sugar Sugar, Kirshner
Peter dozen Roses for her services on the most popular
(11:02):
bubblegum pop song of all time. When Delta started a
(11:31):
fake Archiees to capitalize on the success of Sugar Sugar,
just as they'd done for Time of the Season, they
crossed an invisible line while in theory, it should have
been easier to duplicate a group with no actual members.
That was not the case. The Zombies and the Animals
were just bands, but the Archies were a business, a
(11:51):
big business. Delta found a piece of the Archie's action
in Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Let's put you're a little bit closer to the micro
from sir, should lean forward. Yeah, we called it eating
the mic. My voice should be prominent now, Okay, my
name is Joanne lef I'm a SAG actor, and as
(12:18):
a SAG actor, my name is Joanne rolt r Alt.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I've been looking for Joeanne for a long time. Today.
She's an actor and jazz singer living in New York City.
Back in nineteen sixty nine, she was Veronica in the
touring version of The Archies assembled by Delta Promotions. She
ended up in the Archies for a very teenage reason.
She wanted to make a guy jealous.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
I fell in love with this guy who couldn't see
me for dust. He wanted this blonde buxom whatever, and
he was from Rutgers and I was at Boston University.
So I said, I'm going to become a star. I'm
going to become famous, and then he's going to be
very sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
On campus at Boston, you Joe Ann learned that a
local folk rock group called Bluesberry jam Or holding auditions
for a female singer.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I went on this audition, and they wanted me to
sing Somebody to Love? Don't you want Somebody to Love?
You know the Gray Slick Jefferson Airplane thing that was
happening in the I guess sixty eight, sixty nine, whatever
it was. I didn't know the song. I was listening
to Laura Nero and Judy Collins and you know other people.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Heavy rock and roll music like Jefferson Airplane wasn't joe
Anne's thing still isn't. But she wanted the job. She
had a guy at Rutgers to impress.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
It was my turn.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I got up there, I bent my knees a little bit,
grounded myself and sang it with all I had, shaking
the mic because I was nervous. They cleared the room
and said, who are you? You didn't know this song
and you sang it like that.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
There was no second audition. She killed it. Joeanne was
now the lead singer in a rock band.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
They hired me on the spot, and that was the
Bluesberry Jam.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They played all over Boston, becoming a favorite of the
college age class, cutting hippie set.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
We would be at the Boston Common, which was, you know,
sort of a big lawn that was like, you know,
endless the day of the locust of people, and I
would look at them and they would say, go ahead,
go ahead, go on, Joe. And so my first song
singing with them was people get Ready by the Chambers Brothers.
(14:38):
And then I was doing led Zeppelin and all kinds
of things that I knew nothing about. I just listened
to the record and sang it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
My coincidence, Bluesberry Jam just happened to feature a tall
blonde guy, a short guy with olive skin, a thin,
dark haired guy, and a beautiful blonde woman. Now they
had Joe Anne a brunette front.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
We all looked the part of the Archies, but I
wasn't thinking about that.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Then a few months into her tenure in Bluesberry Jam,
an offer came their way.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What happened was Craig, who was the drummer. He told
us one day that we're going to audition for a
higher paying job. He didn't say very much about it.
He just said, we have to learn certain songs, bubblegum songs,
silly but cute. But I didn't care. I just loved singing.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
After getting their set in shape, they piled into a
van and headed west to their big audition, an audition
being held by Delta Promotions.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
We went to Detroit and we got the job. I
knew for sure that Delta Promotions were the business people
behind our work, and we found out that we were
going to be the touring of the Archies.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Because the Archies didn't actually exist, it made sense to
a nineteen year old Joanne that they'd need a touring version.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know, I didn't think anything of it. I knew
that I had nothing to do with the records, and
we all did.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Joanne got her wish for stardom. She became the singer
and one of the most popular acts on the planet
sort of.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We started touring the country as the Archies, and we
were elevated to like being stars. We would travel on
a Volkswagen bus or we would fly or whatever it is,
and we stayed in holiday inns and we would be
on stage whenever there was a gig, and it was
all children. Baronica, I love you. It was like, I'm
(16:49):
in Hellica. I have a resounding in my ear. Baronica, Baronica, Baronica,
we love you, we love you, and I would say,
just shoot me now. I kept saying to my bandmates,
these kids are like nine and ten. We're in hell.
(17:10):
We're like on an island with children. We love.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Joe Anne's Archies played for huge crowds and mostly children
and their parents. She was soaking up the spotlight and
giving every performance her all. It was a new experience
for Joanne and her bandmates to be traveling all over
the country playing music and getting recognized on the street
or in the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
We traveled around and through all the adventures and blow
into a city and they would be all these posters
the Arches are here. We looked like each of the
characters to a tea, which may have been the reason
why we got the job. We would go shopping and
people say, oh, yeah, the archiesus. So it was fun,
and we were getting paid one thousand dollars a week,
(17:58):
so that's two hundred dollars a person per week.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
They were living the lives of rock stars. I'll be
at fictitious ones.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Every one of us in the group were good musicians,
and what we did as the Bluesberry Jam was good stuff.
But what we did with the as the Archies was
very bubblegum and very bang Shang lang and Scooby Doo
and please don't touch my guitar, bicycles, roller skates and
(18:27):
you and of course the one and only Sugar Sugar,
which was number one in Malaysia. It would not die
after a show. We would go to the hotel, it
was still number one, playing everywhere, and we were like, God,
this song, what is it with the song?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Delta was very specific in their instructions for the Archies,
no deviations, just show up, play the hits and get
out of town.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
We were told to sing just like the record, so
we weren't permitted to do any improvisation, and you know
what is really creative music. We weren't permitted to change
the rhythm. I would have loved to have been able
to let go and just really make music because we
were musicians, you know, we just weren't permitted to and
(19:16):
the audience loved it just as it was.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
The audiences may have loved it, but Rolling Stone didn't.
When Ben Fong tore is this story on Delta promotions dropped,
the Archies were singled out.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It blew the lid. It blew the lid off of this.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
The Rolling Stone story brought Delta's Archies to the attention
of Don Kirshner and his team of lawyers, and the
Gigs dried up before they disbanded. Joe Ane's Archies try
to last ditch attempt to keep the band together and
to make the outfit above board.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Harry emanation Reggie. He told me, he said we wanted
to continue, and Craig had spoken to I believe it
was Don Kershner to try and have him legitimize us,
and we would split the proceeds with him. He'd make money,
and we would make money, and we would still be working. Well,
(20:08):
not fifty years later, but we would have worked for longer.
I had quit by then, you know, after a while
being on the road, it just had lost its luster
for me. But the thing is that Craig had evidently
approached Don Kirshner and said we ought to do this together.
(20:29):
Don Kirshner, as the story goes, he said, if you
sing one more song under the name the Archies, I
will sue you. He got crazed. He went off and
that was the end of that, so they broke up
the band. I had fun, and I love singing. I've
(20:50):
always loved singing. I mean, I don't know what went
on with other groups, but it wasn't a warm family
type atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
In the years after her stint in the Touring Archies,
Joanne's time as Veronica continues to follow her around, especially
Sugar Sugar.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
When I moved to New York, friends of mine would
pull me up on stage and ask me to sing
the song and they would do harmony with me. And
after a while I didn't even remember the lyrics because
that would that waned. But you know, I always know
the beginning to tell people, you know, do you know
the song Sugar Sugar d D D dah honey honey,
(21:34):
And by then they know yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah,
and that's all I have to sing.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
What does Joe Anne think of her time in the
Fake Archies now fifty five years later, Well, when you're.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
When you're nineteen or twenty years old, and you are
a singer, and you know that you're a good singer,
and you have an opportunity to do it professionally and
you understand that it's not that you were not involved
in the record making, but that's the way business runs.
And the takeaway is business is not always what it
(22:23):
seems to be. Delta Promotions didn't care what the kids
thought at all. Just be there, you know, And so
business and entertainment, it is show business and you have
to really love what you do, no matter what you do.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Joe Anne was a theater kid, joined a folk rock
band and ended up becoming Veronica in the Archies. She
was suffering from a broken heart, so she jumped at
a chance to become a rock star. For a while,
Joanne and her Archie bandmates would return to Boston. She
still continues to perform today and is most likely the
(23:07):
only woman in history to walk on stage and perform
as Veronica from the Archies. After the break, Don Kirshner
dismantles Delta Promotions. On June twelfth, nineteen seventy, Don Kirshner
(23:36):
and his army of lawyers filed the civil lawsuit claiming
trademark infringement on his intellectual property against Delta Promotions and
the Fake Archies group. Kirshner threw the book at Delta
a month and a day later, to avoid a lengthy
and likely very costly trial, a settlement was reached behind
closed doors by both parties lawyers. Kirshner had the kind
(24:00):
of money Keyho could only dream about. It was never
a fair fight. Face with the might of Kershner Enterprises,
Keyhoe folded his imposter bands operation and quit the music business.
Delta Promotions was done. Kirshner's legal victory over the fake
(24:20):
archies didn't even make it into the pages of Rolling Stone.
Delta's band stopped touring and returned to Texas in Boston
and Michigan. Delta Promotions a little music management company in
Bay City, Michigan that tried to break into the business
with a bunch of fake bands. Delta would become a footnote,
(24:42):
a name and address printed on a promotional photo. The
four guys from Texas who called themselves the original Zombies,
Delta's roster of bands played for thousands all over the country.
They played on TV, They hustled, They packed their gear
into vans every night, traveling from city to city, each
(25:03):
one selling Keyho's dream to the world. The Michigan Zombies
who entered the Delta Promotions roster as a promising young
band called the Excels, were torn apart by the accusations
against them in Rolling Stone. They disbanded shortly after their
Zombies tour and left Michigan, never able to outrun their
time borrowing someone else's band name. That's how it went
(25:29):
for Mark Ramsey too. The Zombie's tour would be his
only time out on the road living the rock and
roll life. His dream faded, only showing up occasionally when
he was alone in a late night guitar solo. Seed Meta,
the Texas blues pioneer and the guy who brought the
Texas Zombies together, stayed out on the road, living hard,
(25:52):
before dying of cancer at just thirty years of age.
Seed's life was cut short, but the music he left
behind can still be found if you look hard enough.
The bass play the singer in the Texas Zombies, Dusty Hill,
(26:15):
passed away in twenty twenty one. He held down the
low end in zz Top for fifty one years. It
became a rock and roll legend. The only living Texas Zombie,
Frank Beard, remains unavailable for comment. Zz tops longtime publicist
Bob Merriless, something of an industry legend himself, forward in
(26:35):
my interview request to Frank, Bob told me not to
get my hopes up. He hasn't gotten an email from
Frank in twelve years. Bill Kehoe was a big fish
(26:57):
in a tiny pond. He had a part Jim Atherton,
but Big Jim was the same age as the bands
they managed on the Delta roster and worked for Sun
Amplifiers and Smoked Pot. Jim Atherton isn't named at any
legal proceedings that followed Delta's collapse. According to friends, Atherton
(27:18):
left Michigan and One on the road working for Son
and helped build the sound system at Woodstock. Bill Kehoe
was left holding the bag. He was a well respected
local businessman who raised money for charity and ran for
public office. He organized Bay City's first Saint Patrick's Day perade.
By nineteen seventy, he was a forty year old music manager,
(27:40):
called a fraud on the front page of Rolling Stone,
and had just been sued by Don Kirshner, one of
the titans of the entertainment industry. The world of rock
and roll seems like an odd choice of employment for
a guy like Bill Kehoe. He tried to follow a
playbook for success that dates back to the beginning of
the American music industry, one that was rich by guys
(28:00):
like Don Kirshner. Bill Kejo's messed up dream of managing
imposter bands lasted less than two years. He didn't know
it at the time, but he briefly managed two future
rock and roll legends, and he impacted the lives of
dozens of young musicians hungry for their big break. Keijo
(28:20):
saw rock and rolls a business from his teen dance
club in Bay City. He helped launch careers and helped
destroy them. Did Bill Keyho have any regrets about all this?
That's one question with a definitive answer. On June fourteenth,
nineteen seventy, two days after Don Kirshner filed suit against
(28:43):
Delta Promotions, a headline appeared in the Bay City Times
ban promoter quits blasts DJs mafia. Already in the opening quote,
Keyho was bringing the drama.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
If you ever hear of Dell to promotions, booking and
managing groups again, you can turn over in your grave
because we're through.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
I'm finished with this business. The reason he was done well,
you just don't succeed by being honest. Keiho agreed that
his Zombies, Animals and Archies were not the same as
the famous bands with those names, but said Delta never
represented to anyone at any time that these were the
same groups who made those records.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Well, obviously Delta wasn't super above board. Keijo was enraged
at the dishonesty of Rolling Stone, who's reporting he called.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
A lie printed by a group of people who couldn't
get me to give them twenty five percent of the archies,
so they decided to put me out of business.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Keho claimed it was local promoters who misrepresented who the
bands were, and Delta merely took ten percent cut for
any bookings. What's more, he claimed in two years, I
lost twenty thousand dollars in the business. One of the
groups wrecked a bus we bought for them, and some
didn't pay back the money we advanced them. He then
launched into a rant about how DJ's were immoral scam artists,
(30:11):
bands were ungrateful opportunists, and the mob were taking over music.
He had some memorable closing words for the readers of
the Bay City Times.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Regardless of what others, what have you think? At least
I can quit knowing I stayed honest.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
The true story of the Fake Zombies started in Bay City, Michigan,
when Bill Keho borrowed a song and a band name.
He found four guys from Texas and then five guys
from Michigan to live out this rock and roll fantasy,
and he borrowed the name The Animals and the Archies.
Key Hoosts stayed honest in a game where truth had
(30:53):
no value. He saw the bands he was copying as
ungrateful and the young bands he created as pawns to
be shuffled around the country if he thought of them
at all. In nineteen seventy, two years after the Fake
Zombies controversy faded, Bill Keyjo made one more attempt to
attach his name to the rock history books. You see,
(31:15):
there was another young band on the Delta roster during
those halcyon days of the late sixties. They were called
Terry Knight and the Pack. Terry Knight in the Pack
would turn into Grand Funk Railroad, one of the biggest
Michigan bands of all time. Grand Funk ruled the airwaves
in the seventies and sold millions and millions of records.
(31:36):
You've definitely heard their music like this their number one single,
We're an American Band. Bill Keho felt his time managing
a young Terry Knight in the pack entitled him to
a piece of the action. A Bay City Times headline
(31:59):
from July fifteenth, nineteen seventy two reads Bay City ensues
rock band for fifty six million in damages, the modern
equivalent of just under half a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Jams.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of Talkhouse, Nevermind Media, and iHeart Podcasts. Executive produced by
Ian Wheeler, Melissa Locker and Daniel Ralster. Produced by Anna
McLain and Nick Dawson. Written by Daniel Ralston. Score, original
music and additional audio engineering by Robin Hatch. Additional audio
(32:47):
support by Cooper Mall in Los Angeles and Scott Baker
in Bay City, Michigan. A special thanks to Gary Johnson
of the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum in Bay City.
We'll be back with two bonus episodes in the coming week.
Listen to the True Story of the Fake Zombies feed
wherever you get your podcasts. The True Story of the
Fake Zombies is a production of iHeart Podcasts, talk Hosts
(33:10):
and never Mind media. For more podcasts from iHeart Podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of iHeart Podcasts, Talk House and never Mind Media. Back
(00:21):
in nineteen sixty nine, when the real Zombies were at
their lowest point, two guys in rural Michigan dreamed up
the Fake Zombies. It's a strange business to get into.
Jim Atherton and Bill Keho, the bosses at Delta Promotions,
thought they'd found a loophole. They caught win that the
(00:42):
Zombies had broken up, and bought the rights to the
name the Zombies, or at least they claimed they did,
and assembled their own version of the group. Then they
assembled another one. Delta Promotions invested time, money, and a
lot of effort into supporting their bogus bands and making
them seem legit. They took promotional photos and gave them
(01:02):
high end amps and tour buses, all to capitalize on
the success of a Zombie song racing up the charts.
Time of the season set off Delta's Great rock and
roll swindle. But this was not an isolated incident. Another
British invasion band with songs and the radio fell into
a similar sort of limbo as the Zombies broken up
(01:24):
but still in demand. Delta Promotions once again saw dollar signs.
They started a fake version of the Animals. But it
wasn't the fake Zombies or the fake Animals that would
lead to the downfall of Delta. That would come from
their version of a group that never really existed in
the first place, The Fake Archies, a fabricated version of
(01:46):
a cartoon band.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Do you know the song Sugar Sugartada? Ah? Honey, honey.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
This is the final episode of the true story of
the Fake Zombies. I'm Daniel Ralston. Hiring young American musicians
to impersonate British rock bands may not have been ethical,
but when Delta Promotions started doing just that, it wasn't
technically illegal. Bill Keho, the businessman behind Delta, wasn't afraid
(02:24):
to take on the record company's management, companies, bands and
lawyers who would inevitably come beating down his door. He
happened to know a ton of extremely talented, equally impressionable
young musicians through his business partner Jim Atherton. Why not
take a shot at becoming the next big industry locals.
Delta laid claim to the unused name the Animals, just
(02:46):
like they did with the Zombies, and hired another group
of young guys, also from Michigan, to tour America. Every
English band, from the Zombies to the Beatles and Stones,
owes a huge debt to American blues music. Every Mick, Keith,
John Paul, and Ringo started out trying to sound like
the black artists who invented what we now know is
(03:06):
rock and roll. Of all the British Invasion bands that
hit it big in the States, nobody tapped into that
sound like the Animals. Their first big hit was a
cover of an old Blue standardsan.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Misery in the House. Otherise it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Like the Zombies, the real Animals were done after conquering
America with songs like House of the Rising Sun. Their singer,
Eric Burden was bored with his British Invasion past, and
by nineteen sixty nine he was breaking new creative ground
in his next project, War That was Delta's in for
(03:47):
a brief period of time, as the sixties became the seventies,
the Fake Animals and two fake Zombies tour in America,
performing for unsuspecting fans, and this might have continued on
had it not been for these words written in the
pages of Rolling Stone Magazine.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
None of the groups being hunted down is real. They're
all phonies, tenth rate bands using names of well known,
technically non existent groups to pull the wool over the
public's collective eyes and ears.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That's Ben Funktorres, the man who wrote those words back
in nineteen seventy, and his story would mark the beginning
of the end for Delta Promotions. Ben was on to
them here.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Ten miles from Saginaw and one hundred and twenty or
so miles north of Detroit, Delta Promotions makes phone calls
to booking agencies in smaller towns, telling them in certain
tones about the existence and availability of groups they handle.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
When he wrote his story, Ben actually spoke to people
who'd been duped by Delta's fake bands. These small town
concert bookers were given a line by Bill Keho.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Those promoters who are aware the Animals and the Zombies
both disbanded a couple of years ago are told that
the groups have reformed, built around Nuclei, composed of several
original members. What this means is Delta went to the
trouble of claiming a copyright on an unused band name
for their own packs of musicians.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
When he learned about the fake animals. Eric Burden was
understandably pissed. He sent his business partner after Delta. It
was later reported in Rolling Stone the Burden and a
few of his friends and the Hells Angels showed up
at a fake animals gig with I quote, subpoenas and
baseball bats. The fake zombies and the fake animals may
have upset Eric Burden and the generation of people who
(05:37):
read Rolling Stone, but Delta continued to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
The animals are closely linked to the pony zombies. Delta
even pulled a double stunt last Easter Sunday in Duluth, Minnesota,
building both groups in concert and drawing twenty four hundred
unsuspecting customers at five dollars ahead to witness the masquerade.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The business side of the Delta partnership went on the
defensive when Rolling Stone reached out.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
As for Delta, the word there is no comment. Keho
would tell Rolling Stone no more than I'm ticked off you.
People haven't answered my letters and dared Rolling Stone to
come up with proof of their activities. Rolling Stone is
gathering up a healthy collection of contracts, come on offers,
and promo material, all linked to Delta and its associated firms,
(06:29):
Delta Promotions has the next move.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
The imposter groups could have continued caught up in trademark
claims over the name of the Zombies and the Animals
for who knows how long, but Delta's next act would
bring everything to a screeching halt. They started a fake band.
There was already kind of a fake band.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
They handle the Animals, the Zombies, and the Archies most prominently.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
If you don't instantly know the name the Archies, you
almost definitely know their biggest hit, Sugar Sugar. But the
Archies don't just play music. They've also starred in a
comic book for the past eighty odd years. They even
(07:20):
have a couple of TV shows. Any Riverdale Heads out there.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Ronnie, you know in your heart I'm right about this.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
It just hurts to admit it.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Don't you make me say goodbye to you?
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Or Chianrews.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Apart from the occasional foray into live action teenage soap operas,
the Archies are usually fictional animated characters. Juughhead, Betty, Reggie, Veronica,
and of course Archie their high school students, and together
they have a band called the Archies. Archie comic dates
back to nineteen forty one and has had a massive
(07:57):
stranglehold on popular culture for generations. Never was that more
true than in nineteen sixty nine. People lost their shit
when Sugar Sugar, recorded by the Archies hit the airwaves,
like really lost their shit, not just in America, all
over the world. I implore you to go online and
see how many countries the Archies went to number one.
In Okay, it's twenty seven. Here in America, Sugar Sugar
(08:20):
sat at number one for four straight weeks in nineteen
sixty nine. We tend to imagine this era the Vietnam era,
with a heavy soundtrack full of protest songs and mind
expanding consciousness raising protest anthems Creeden's Clearwater Revival, led Zeppelin
sly Stone.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
We're obtaining a list.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Of the one hundreds of American prisoners held by the
North Vietnam Ease. Well, apparently the Pentagon has found that.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
The best selling act in America in June of nineteen
sixty nine was actually a five piece band made up
of cartoon characters from the Archie comics universe. So how
did a cartoon band end up with the number one
song in the world. They had a really good manager
named Don Kirshner. If Bill Keho knew deep down at
(09:09):
some point he was going to have to face consequences
for his imposter band operation, he could not have come
up against a worse opponent than the man who decided
to turn the teenagers in Archie Comics into the Archies.
Kirshner got his start in music publishing, helping to launch
the careers of songwriters and performers like Carol King and
Neil Sadaka while he was still in his twenties. By
(09:32):
the time he started the Archies, he was a certified
kingmaker in the music business, with the rolodex of world
class songwriters in his publishing stable. But ironically, it was
a different, prefabricated band that would make Kershner a music
industry legend.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I had a song in my possession called Sugar Sugar,
which I felt, after I'm a Believer, could be one
of the biggest songs of all time. And I gave
him always the money, which they took, and I gave
him the goal Records played him Sugar Sugar.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Mike and Peter.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Said, it's a piece of junk. We're never going to
do this song, Mike proceeded to put his fist through
the wall at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And you know,
as we say, the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
That's Don Kirshner talking about the band he helped create,
The Monkeys. Don picked their songs in the early days
of the band. As the Monkeys grew more popular, the
band wanted to write their own songs. Don wanted them
to sing bubblegum pop hits. When the Monkeys passed on
Sugar Sugar, written by Canadian songwriter Andy Kim, Kirshner hired
(10:41):
studio musicians to record the song. The lead vocal was
sung by longtime Kirshner hired gun Ron Dante. None of
the people who played or sang on the song are
credited on the record, It simply reads the Archiees. According
to Tony Wine, the female vocalist on Sugar Sugar, Kirshner
Peter dozen Roses for her services on the most popular
(11:02):
bubblegum pop song of all time. When Delta started a
(11:31):
fake Archiees to capitalize on the success of Sugar Sugar,
just as they'd done for Time of the Season, they
crossed an invisible line while in theory, it should have
been easier to duplicate a group with no actual members.
That was not the case. The Zombies and the Animals
were just bands, but the Archies were a business, a
(11:51):
big business. Delta found a piece of the Archie's action
in Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Let's put you're a little bit closer to the micro
from sir, should lean forward. Yeah, we called it eating
the mic. My voice should be prominent now, Okay, my
name is Joanne lef I'm a SAG actor, and as
(12:18):
a SAG actor, my name is Joanne rolt r Alt.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I've been looking for Joeanne for a long time. Today.
She's an actor and jazz singer living in New York City.
Back in nineteen sixty nine, she was Veronica in the
touring version of The Archies assembled by Delta Promotions. She
ended up in the Archies for a very teenage reason.
She wanted to make a guy jealous.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
I fell in love with this guy who couldn't see
me for dust. He wanted this blonde buxom whatever, and
he was from Rutgers and I was at Boston University.
So I said, I'm going to become a star. I'm
going to become famous, and then he's going to be
very sorry.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
On campus at Boston, you Joe Ann learned that a
local folk rock group called Bluesberry jam Or holding auditions
for a female singer.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I went on this audition, and they wanted me to
sing Somebody to Love? Don't you want Somebody to Love?
You know the Gray Slick Jefferson Airplane thing that was
happening in the I guess sixty eight, sixty nine, whatever
it was. I didn't know the song. I was listening
to Laura Nero and Judy Collins and you know other people.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Heavy rock and roll music like Jefferson Airplane wasn't joe
Anne's thing still isn't. But she wanted the job. She
had a guy at Rutgers to impress.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
It was my turn.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I got up there, I bent my knees a little bit,
grounded myself and sang it with all I had, shaking
the mic because I was nervous. They cleared the room
and said, who are you? You didn't know this song
and you sang it like that.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
There was no second audition. She killed it. Joeanne was
now the lead singer in a rock band.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
They hired me on the spot, and that was the
Bluesberry Jam.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
They played all over Boston, becoming a favorite of the
college age class, cutting hippie set.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
We would be at the Boston Common, which was, you know,
sort of a big lawn that was like, you know,
endless the day of the locust of people, and I
would look at them and they would say, go ahead,
go ahead, go on, Joe. And so my first song
singing with them was people get Ready by the Chambers Brothers.
(14:38):
And then I was doing led Zeppelin and all kinds
of things that I knew nothing about. I just listened
to the record and sang it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
My coincidence, Bluesberry Jam just happened to feature a tall
blonde guy, a short guy with olive skin, a thin,
dark haired guy, and a beautiful blonde woman. Now they
had Joe Anne a brunette front.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
We all looked the part of the Archies, but I
wasn't thinking about that.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Then a few months into her tenure in Bluesberry Jam,
an offer came their way.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
What happened was Craig, who was the drummer. He told
us one day that we're going to audition for a
higher paying job. He didn't say very much about it.
He just said, we have to learn certain songs, bubblegum songs,
silly but cute. But I didn't care. I just loved singing.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
After getting their set in shape, they piled into a
van and headed west to their big audition, an audition
being held by Delta Promotions.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
We went to Detroit and we got the job. I
knew for sure that Delta Promotions were the business people
behind our work, and we found out that we were
going to be the touring of the Archies.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Because the Archies didn't actually exist, it made sense to
a nineteen year old Joanne that they'd need a touring version.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know, I didn't think anything of it. I knew
that I had nothing to do with the records, and
we all did.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Joanne got her wish for stardom. She became the singer
and one of the most popular acts on the planet
sort of.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We started touring the country as the Archies, and we
were elevated to like being stars. We would travel on
a Volkswagen bus or we would fly or whatever it is,
and we stayed in holiday inns and we would be
on stage whenever there was a gig, and it was
all children. Baronica, I love you. It was like, I'm
(16:49):
in Hellica. I have a resounding in my ear. Baronica, Baronica, Baronica,
we love you, we love you, and I would say,
just shoot me now. I kept saying to my bandmates,
these kids are like nine and ten. We're in hell.
(17:10):
We're like on an island with children. We love.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Joe Anne's Archies played for huge crowds and mostly children
and their parents. She was soaking up the spotlight and
giving every performance her all. It was a new experience
for Joanne and her bandmates to be traveling all over
the country playing music and getting recognized on the street
or in the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
We traveled around and through all the adventures and blow
into a city and they would be all these posters
the Arches are here. We looked like each of the
characters to a tea, which may have been the reason
why we got the job. We would go shopping and
people say, oh, yeah, the archiesus. So it was fun,
and we were getting paid one thousand dollars a week,
(17:58):
so that's two hundred dollars a person per week.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
They were living the lives of rock stars. I'll be
at fictitious ones.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Every one of us in the group were good musicians,
and what we did as the Bluesberry Jam was good stuff.
But what we did with the as the Archies was
very bubblegum and very bang Shang lang and Scooby Doo
and please don't touch my guitar, bicycles, roller skates and
(18:27):
you and of course the one and only Sugar Sugar,
which was number one in Malaysia. It would not die
after a show. We would go to the hotel, it
was still number one, playing everywhere, and we were like, God,
this song, what is it with the song?
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Delta was very specific in their instructions for the Archies,
no deviations, just show up, play the hits and get
out of town.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
We were told to sing just like the record, so
we weren't permitted to do any improvisation, and you know
what is really creative music. We weren't permitted to change
the rhythm. I would have loved to have been able
to let go and just really make music because we
were musicians, you know, we just weren't permitted to and
(19:16):
the audience loved it just as it was.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
The audiences may have loved it, but Rolling Stone didn't.
When Ben Fong tore is this story on Delta promotions dropped,
the Archies were singled out.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
It blew the lid. It blew the lid off of this.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
The Rolling Stone story brought Delta's Archies to the attention
of Don Kirshner and his team of lawyers, and the
Gigs dried up before they disbanded. Joe Ane's Archies try
to last ditch attempt to keep the band together and
to make the outfit above board.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Harry emanation Reggie. He told me, he said we wanted
to continue, and Craig had spoken to I believe it
was Don Kershner to try and have him legitimize us,
and we would split the proceeds with him. He'd make money,
and we would make money, and we would still be working. Well,
(20:08):
not fifty years later, but we would have worked for longer.
I had quit by then, you know, after a while
being on the road, it just had lost its luster
for me. But the thing is that Craig had evidently
approached Don Kirshner and said we ought to do this together.
(20:29):
Don Kirshner, as the story goes, he said, if you
sing one more song under the name the Archies, I
will sue you. He got crazed. He went off and
that was the end of that, so they broke up
the band. I had fun, and I love singing. I've
(20:50):
always loved singing. I mean, I don't know what went
on with other groups, but it wasn't a warm family
type atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
In the years after her stint in the Touring Archies,
Joanne's time as Veronica continues to follow her around, especially
Sugar Sugar.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
When I moved to New York, friends of mine would
pull me up on stage and ask me to sing
the song and they would do harmony with me. And
after a while I didn't even remember the lyrics because
that would that waned. But you know, I always know
the beginning to tell people, you know, do you know
the song Sugar Sugar d D D dah honey honey,
(21:34):
And by then they know yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah,
and that's all I have to sing.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
What does Joe Anne think of her time in the
Fake Archies now fifty five years later, Well, when you're.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
When you're nineteen or twenty years old, and you are
a singer, and you know that you're a good singer,
and you have an opportunity to do it professionally and
you understand that it's not that you were not involved
in the record making, but that's the way business runs.
And the takeaway is business is not always what it
(22:23):
seems to be. Delta Promotions didn't care what the kids
thought at all. Just be there, you know, And so
business and entertainment, it is show business and you have
to really love what you do, no matter what you do.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Joe Anne was a theater kid, joined a folk rock
band and ended up becoming Veronica in the Archies. She
was suffering from a broken heart, so she jumped at
a chance to become a rock star. For a while,
Joanne and her Archie bandmates would return to Boston. She
still continues to perform today and is most likely the
(23:07):
only woman in history to walk on stage and perform
as Veronica from the Archies. After the break, Don Kirshner
dismantles Delta Promotions. On June twelfth, nineteen seventy, Don Kirshner
(23:36):
and his army of lawyers filed the civil lawsuit claiming
trademark infringement on his intellectual property against Delta Promotions and
the Fake Archies group. Kirshner threw the book at Delta
a month and a day later, to avoid a lengthy
and likely very costly trial, a settlement was reached behind
closed doors by both parties lawyers. Kirshner had the kind
(24:00):
of money Keyho could only dream about. It was never
a fair fight. Face with the might of Kershner Enterprises,
Keyhoe folded his imposter bands operation and quit the music business.
Delta Promotions was done. Kirshner's legal victory over the fake
(24:20):
archies didn't even make it into the pages of Rolling Stone.
Delta's band stopped touring and returned to Texas in Boston
and Michigan. Delta Promotions a little music management company in
Bay City, Michigan that tried to break into the business
with a bunch of fake bands. Delta would become a footnote,
(24:42):
a name and address printed on a promotional photo. The
four guys from Texas who called themselves the original Zombies,
Delta's roster of bands played for thousands all over the country.
They played on TV, They hustled, They packed their gear
into vans every night, traveling from city to city, each
(25:03):
one selling Keyho's dream to the world. The Michigan Zombies
who entered the Delta Promotions roster as a promising young
band called the Excels, were torn apart by the accusations
against them in Rolling Stone. They disbanded shortly after their
Zombies tour and left Michigan, never able to outrun their
time borrowing someone else's band name. That's how it went
(25:29):
for Mark Ramsey too. The Zombie's tour would be his
only time out on the road living the rock and
roll life. His dream faded, only showing up occasionally when
he was alone in a late night guitar solo. Seed Meta,
the Texas blues pioneer and the guy who brought the
Texas Zombies together, stayed out on the road, living hard,
(25:52):
before dying of cancer at just thirty years of age.
Seed's life was cut short, but the music he left
behind can still be found if you look hard enough.
The bass play the singer in the Texas Zombies, Dusty Hill,
(26:15):
passed away in twenty twenty one. He held down the
low end in zz Top for fifty one years. It
became a rock and roll legend. The only living Texas Zombie,
Frank Beard, remains unavailable for comment. Zz tops longtime publicist
Bob Merriless, something of an industry legend himself, forward in
(26:35):
my interview request to Frank, Bob told me not to
get my hopes up. He hasn't gotten an email from
Frank in twelve years. Bill Kehoe was a big fish
(26:57):
in a tiny pond. He had a part Jim Atherton,
but Big Jim was the same age as the bands
they managed on the Delta roster and worked for Sun
Amplifiers and Smoked Pot. Jim Atherton isn't named at any
legal proceedings that followed Delta's collapse. According to friends, Atherton
(27:18):
left Michigan and One on the road working for Son
and helped build the sound system at Woodstock. Bill Kehoe
was left holding the bag. He was a well respected
local businessman who raised money for charity and ran for
public office. He organized Bay City's first Saint Patrick's Day perade.
By nineteen seventy, he was a forty year old music manager,
(27:40):
called a fraud on the front page of Rolling Stone,
and had just been sued by Don Kirshner, one of
the titans of the entertainment industry. The world of rock
and roll seems like an odd choice of employment for
a guy like Bill Kehoe. He tried to follow a
playbook for success that dates back to the beginning of
the American music industry, one that was rich by guys
(28:00):
like Don Kirshner. Bill Kejo's messed up dream of managing
imposter bands lasted less than two years. He didn't know
it at the time, but he briefly managed two future
rock and roll legends, and he impacted the lives of
dozens of young musicians hungry for their big break. Keijo
(28:20):
saw rock and rolls a business from his teen dance
club in Bay City. He helped launch careers and helped
destroy them. Did Bill Keyho have any regrets about all this?
That's one question with a definitive answer. On June fourteenth,
nineteen seventy, two days after Don Kirshner filed suit against
(28:43):
Delta Promotions, a headline appeared in the Bay City Times
ban promoter quits blasts DJs mafia. Already in the opening quote,
Keyho was bringing the drama.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
If you ever hear of Dell to promotions, booking and
managing groups again, you can turn over in your grave
because we're through.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
That's it.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
I'm finished with this business. The reason he was done well,
you just don't succeed by being honest. Keiho agreed that
his Zombies, Animals and Archies were not the same as
the famous bands with those names, but said Delta never
represented to anyone at any time that these were the
same groups who made those records.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Well, obviously Delta wasn't super above board. Keijo was enraged
at the dishonesty of Rolling Stone, who's reporting he called.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
A lie printed by a group of people who couldn't
get me to give them twenty five percent of the archies,
so they decided to put me out of business.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Keho claimed it was local promoters who misrepresented who the
bands were, and Delta merely took ten percent cut for
any bookings. What's more, he claimed in two years, I
lost twenty thousand dollars in the business. One of the
groups wrecked a bus we bought for them, and some
didn't pay back the money we advanced them. He then
launched into a rant about how DJ's were immoral scam artists,
(30:11):
bands were ungrateful opportunists, and the mob were taking over music.
He had some memorable closing words for the readers of
the Bay City Times.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Regardless of what others, what have you think? At least
I can quit knowing I stayed honest.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
The true story of the Fake Zombies started in Bay City, Michigan,
when Bill Keho borrowed a song and a band name.
He found four guys from Texas and then five guys
from Michigan to live out this rock and roll fantasy,
and he borrowed the name The Animals and the Archies.
Key Hoosts stayed honest in a game where truth had
(30:53):
no value. He saw the bands he was copying as
ungrateful and the young bands he created as pawns to
be shuffled around the country if he thought of them
at all. In nineteen seventy, two years after the Fake
Zombies controversy faded, Bill Keyjo made one more attempt to
attach his name to the rock history books. You see,
(31:15):
there was another young band on the Delta roster during
those halcyon days of the late sixties. They were called
Terry Knight and the Pack. Terry Knight in the Pack
would turn into Grand Funk Railroad, one of the biggest
Michigan bands of all time. Grand Funk ruled the airwaves
in the seventies and sold millions and millions of records.
(31:36):
You've definitely heard their music like this their number one single,
We're an American Band. Bill Keho felt his time managing
a young Terry Knight in the pack entitled him to
a piece of the action. A Bay City Times headline
(31:59):
from July fifteenth, nineteen seventy two reads Bay City ensues
rock band for fifty six million in damages, the modern
equivalent of just under half a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Jams.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
The True Story of the Fake Zombies is a production
of Talkhouse, Nevermind Media, and iHeart Podcasts. Executive produced by
Ian Wheeler, Melissa Locker and Daniel Ralster. Produced by Anna
McLain and Nick Dawson. Written by Daniel Ralston. Score, original
music and additional audio engineering by Robin Hatch. Additional audio
(32:47):
support by Cooper Mall in Los Angeles and Scott Baker
in Bay City, Michigan. A special thanks to Gary Johnson
of the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Museum in Bay City.
We'll be back with two bonus episodes in the coming week.
Listen to the True Story of the Fake Zombies feed
wherever you get your podcasts. The True Story of the
Fake Zombies is a production of iHeart Podcasts, talk Hosts
(33:10):
and never Mind media. For more podcasts from iHeart Podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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