Vanilla Fudge! (Official Thread)

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While Vanilla Fudge may not have been the first heavy metal band, they were perhaps the first "heavy" band - slow and very heavy!

I'm a big fan of Vanilla Fudge now but I didn't like their first big hit single, "You Keep Me Hangin' On", when it hit the charts in 1968. I hadn't liked the track by the Supremes either although I'd found most of the hit singles of the Supremes rather catchy.



Neither did I like Vanilla Fudge's cover of "Shotgun" which Jr. Walker & the All Stars had previously turned into a hit.

But when I heard the band's cover of Donovan's "Season of the Witch", I took notice. The eerie organ playing, the way the tempo slowly built, the dark foreboding of the arrangement, whatever it was, it appealed to me strongly.


Then I saw Vanilla Fudge cover "Some Velvet Morning" on the Ed Sullivan Show and I was floored. The slow organ lead, the way the other instruments fell in to progressively build the mood, man, it was obvious that these guys were just as serious about their music as I was at the time. (I've learned to lighten up over the years and I'm now perfectly capable of listening to bands at which I would have sneered as a teenager such as Herman's Hermits and the Monkees.) What was also interesting is that Vanilla Fudge's performance that night seemed to have impressed my very old school father as well. This I know because he just watched rather intently with nary a disgusted comment.

As you may have guessed, Vanilla Fudge did a lot of covers. These included "Ticket to Ride" and "Eleanor Rigby", both of which the Beatles quite liked.

Vanilla Fudge consisted of these members before its breakup in early 1970:

Mark Stein - Keyboards, lead vocals.
Vince Martell -Guitar, vocals.
Tim Bogert - Bass, vocals.
Carmine Appice - Drums, vocals.

The four fellows released five studio albums before their breakup:

Vanilla Fudge



The Beat Goes On



Renaissance



Near the Beginning



Rock & Roll



A complete biography of the band can be found on the Barnes & Noble site:

Vanilla Fudge Biography

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