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Artist
Little Phil and the Nightshadows
12+ albums
psychedelicexperimentalgarage
about
"The Night Shadows were originally organized in December 1956 as The Cavaliers. The spelling was changed to The Kavaliers in 1957 to avoid legal problems with another group using that name. After some personnel changes in the summer of 1959 the group became The Barons. In the fall of 1959 the lead guitarist wrote an instrumental he called Night Shadows that the bass player thought was the perfect name for their Blues group. Assuming leadership of the band and against everyone’s wishes, he changed their name to The Night Shadows on their business cards and quickly booked several months of gigs to make everyone relent. He also hired a front man for the group. From the fall of 1959 through 1961 The Night Shadows were primarily a Chicago-style Blues band featuring Bobby “Bones” Jones, a rowdy harp playing, skinny James Dean look-alike. Like the old-time blues men of the past, Jones went to prison for an alleged assault on someone with a brick mason’s hammer. He later lost three toes to frostbite passing out drunk in ten-degree weather on the bed of a pick-up truck. He still writes blues tunes as Sweet Papa Jones. In 1962 the group changed to a Rhythm & Blues show band featuring Little Erv (Barocas) & Judy (Argo), an Elizabeth Taylor look-alike, as headliners. For the next two years, the group became one of the one most popular R&B bands for Southern college dances and formals since Black R&B (or “Beach) acts were considered “crude frat party bands” by snobbish southern faculty a