Mark Stein: The Long Island Sound, I think, was really started by The Vagrants. Influenced by such groups as The Vagrants and The Rascals, you once said the group tried to emulate the “Long Island Sound.” How would you describe that sound? Spotlight Central: And in 1965, along with guitarist Vince Martell and bassist Tim Bogert, you started a blue-eyed soul cover band called The Pigeons. He said, “Man, you sound amazing on that! Forget about the guitar, that’s your thing!” So that’s how it got started from then on, I became the keyboard player in The Dynamics. Ronnie Czarnecki was our drummer - I’m still in touch with Ronnie today he actually lives in Cincinnati - and he was freaking out. I put my guitar down while the band was playing and I ran over and just started playing it - I started jamming on it - and everybody looked over. There was this organ that was over to the side of the stage don’t ask me what type it was, but it was hooked up to some type of an amp. Mark Stein: I was playing guitar in The Dynamics - rhythm guitar- and I believe we were doing a college gig at Yale University. Spotlight Central: We’ve read somewhere that it was when you were performing with one of your early bands that you spied an “old beat-up organ on the stage and started jamming on it.” Can you tell us more about that? I joined the band and became friends with some of the guys and, actually, over a half-century later we’re still in touch with each other, which is awesome. The music they played included the hits of the day - The Ventures, and stuff like that. There was a band called The Dynamics that was a popular rock and roll band at Bayonne High School. Do you happen to remember the names of any of those bands and what artists and songs you played? Spotlight Central: You played in several bands in high school. Oddly enough, just yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of when the plane carrying those three musicians went down in 1959, which was “the day the music died.” So that was a hell of an event, but that music is what got me into playing rock and roll. I used to come home from grammar school and go in the living room and start playing old Buddy Holly songs, Richie Valens songs, the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace,” and all that stuff.
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He’d let me borrow his guitar, and I started to learn how to play chords on it. Yeah, my buddy, back in the late ’50s, lived down the block and he had an acoustic guitar. Spotlight Central: And that’s when you switched over to playing the guitar? I ran through all the music books really quickly but, to be honest, I got bored playing accordion music once I got bit by the rock and roll bug.
So my dad started me out taking me for accordion lessons and I got into it for awhile. The Lawrence Welk Show was really popular in those days - Myron Floren was a great accordionist, and Dick Contino was a killer accordionist back in the ’50s. My dad was also crazy for the accordion, so he kind of made me get into that. I guess I was born with a musical ear, so before you knew it, I started playing on my own. I used to be enthralled listening to him play all the hits of the day, and when he left the room I’d kind of sneak over to the piano and start playing these one-fingered melodies. He used to sit and practice, and he’d have sheet music up there - fake books - and he’d play from them.
He had a console piano in the living room, and he was really good. He had a house right by the Newark Bay there. Mark Stein: I used to go to my Uncle Willie’s house in Bayonne, NJ - I must have been three or four years old at the time.
What attracted you to those instruments?Īdvertise with New Jersey Stage for $50-$100 per month, click here for info Spotlight Central: We understand you began playing piano at the age of four and later attempted to play the accordion. So, yeah, they were both musical and definitely both supportive of me and my music from a very early age. Back in those days when he was growing up, parents wanted boys to play the violin and girls to play the piano, but he always had a great affinity for the piano. She used to sing, and from what I’m told, when she was a teenager, she sang on the radio - that probably had to have been in the early ’40s, I guess. Mark Stein: Yeah, I’m a Jersey boy! Actually, my mom and dad both loved music. Spotlight Central: You’re a Jersey boy who was born in Bayonne, NJ. Spotlight Central recently caught up with Stein and asked him about his musical childhood, his rise to fame with Vanilla Fudge, his work with other celebrated musicians, in addition to what he’s been up to lately. Mark Stein is well-known as a lead vocalist, keyboardist, composer, and arranger for the influential ‘60s-era psychedelic rock band, Vanilla Fudge.
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