Flashback time: The Young Rascals -- known as the Rascals after they ditched their Little Lord Fauntleroy outfits in 1967 -- were the quintessence of "blue-eyed soul." They were, in fact, so convincingly soulful that their music was played at black clubs and they even opened for James Brown at his Madison Square Garden debut in 1966. And their obvious love of black music extended to their commitment to racial equality. When the band toured, they demanded that a black musical act appear on the same bill.
Cavaliere was the foundation upon which the band was built, his signature Hammond creating as distinctive a "Rascals" sound as Jim (Roger) McGuinn's 12-string Rickenbacker created for the Byrds. Along with Rascals frontman Eddie Brigati, Cavaliere also carved out one of the most distinctive vocal and songwriting tandems in pop music in the mid-1960s. Drummer Dino Danelli kept razor-sharp time and Gene Cornish provided a solid bottom to the sound with his tasteful guitar.
From their first single in 1965, "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore," until "People Got To Be Free" and "A Beautiful Morning" in 1968, the Rascals were continuously at or near the top of the Billboard charts. Their first number-one hit was "Good Lovin'" sung by Cavaliere and, in the next two years nine more top-20 hit singles would join the charts, including "You Better Run," "(I've Been) Lonely Too Long," "Groovin'" (another number one), and "A Girl Like You." They switched gears with their two underappreciated albums, Freedom Suite (1968) and Search and Nearness (1970), and still scored a few more hits. In short, Cavaliere's appearance in Meriden is a rare chance to see one of the rock legends, who also happens to be a true gentleman.
About the Rascals' heyday, Cavaliere said, "I just had a plan in those days that worked. I remember when I had worked with the Beatles prior to anyone seeing them over here in the States. I'd worked with them in Germany and Sweden, when I was a sideman for Joey Dee [and the Starlighters]. I was a classically trained musician so I could see what they were doing. I was not aware of their songwriting capability yet, but I knew what they were doing with their own music was unique, and what they were doing with our music, meaning American music, was just so-so. I decided what I would do when I got back over here was to find the best musicians that I could, which meant I stole the frontman from a bunch of other groups." (Drummer Dino Danelli was a teen prodigy, having played in various R&B and jazz bands, including Lionel Hampton's and Little Willie John's; singer Eddie Brigati and Gene Cornish had also been in Joey Dee's Starlighters.)
The high-maintenance personalities of the four Rascals made for exciting music but planted the seeds of their downfall. "It meant we had four Alpha males in the same group," said Cavaliere, laughing. "That was the problem, everybody was a leader, everybody was strong. It was a very powerful band because of that.
"What we needed, and I hate to knock our manager ( their manager was Sid Bernstein, who'd organized the Beatles' Shea Stadium concert and whose idea it was to dress the Rascals in those silly suits, which they quickly ditched), but what we really needed was a powerful leader from the business aspect, somebody over 21, and we would have been fine," said Cavaliere, who grew up in New York and lived in Danbury for a while after the band broke up.
Sadly, the original Rascals have not gotten along over the years, though they did reunite for one tour and performed together at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Interestingly, Steve Van Zandt's induction speech for the Rascals turned out to be his audition for "The Sopranos," whose producers were in the audience.
"It was a great speech," said Cavaliere. "What he was saying was that the Rascals were so powerful in his life that his date would get ticked off because he wasn't making out with her ... instead he was listening to the radio. How cool is that? She's over there on the front seat going, 'Hey, what about me?'"
