Michael Lookofsky (later to
adopt the ridiculously unpronouncable "Brown") was born in New-York. His
father Harry, owned a recording studio and encouraged his son to play and
compose on the piano.
The Beckies were the latest
group incarnation of Michael Brown. You may remember him as the keyboardist
and mastermind behind the legendary Left Banke, whose stunning successes
with "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina" made Michael, at age 15,
something of a classical rock genius.
Some years later, after the
brief Montage episode, came Michael's real second group:
Stories, who
spent a few months charming audiences before releasing their first single "I'm
Coming Home" for their first national hit.
The other Beckies are Mayo
James MacAllister (who would play with Sparks on the Big Beat 1976
tour and with
Hilly Michaels on his wonderful 1980 LP "Calling All Girls"),
Gary Hodgden (who would change his name to Gary West with his next
outfit "Shooting
Star") and Scott Trusty. Mayo James and Gary have left behind them an
already long career as local teen idols with Kansas City's biggest group,
Chessman Square. It was Scott who brought them and Michael together to form
the Beckies, knowing that their musucical sensibilities and mutual sense of
fun could mesh in solid pop fashion. And it worked
The album has never been re-issued to this day on CD.
I did a transfer from my LP to cd-r in 2005 (with SoundForge
7.0), and i revamped the original
sleeve in order to get the pictures you can see
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