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Even with a hometown in
Narragansett, Rhode Island,
these guys qualify for inclusion in the Boston
Rock & Roll Museum,
if solely for the amount
of sets they played,
long before being
famous, in long gone
clubs, like KKK Katy's,
Bunratty's, and The
Groggery. Just as The
Beatles left home for
months at a stretch and
went to the Reperbahn
in Germany, working nightly
and sometimes 8 (eight!)
sets on any given
Sunday, they had no
reason not to become
a personally close, and
musically tight-knit
unit. The Beaver Brown
guys worked together
for over a dozen years,
gigging night in and
night out, 6 and 7 night
club gigs, 2 and 3 sets
a night, and deserved
the ultimate success
that came their
way.
In 1972 the band began
by playing the usual
covers in the usual
local clubs and
colleges. They worked
themselves into a better
band and took more and
more
"road-work" on
Cape Cod, the Jersey
Shore, ski-resort
country and in Boston
proper. Along comes
Antunes about 1977 and
the band tours all of
New England.
In 1980, the boys record
a single, "Wild
Summer Nights/Tender
Years," which got
some airplay along the
Eastern Seaboard and got
the kids a showcase gig
at New York's
prestigious Bottom Line
club.
In 1981, veteran
producer Kenny Vance,
who sang with Jay &
The Americans during the
sixties, took movie
director Martin Davidson
to see one of their
shows. Davidson offered
Cafferty the job of
writing the music for
what was to become the
film Eddie and the
Cruisers. The
Beaver Brown single was
naturally added to the
score. The movie was
released in the late
summer of 1983 to decent
reviews but a tepid
(some say seasonal) box
office.
However, when
the flick was showcased
on TV's movie channel,
HBO, during the summer
of 1984, the soundtrack
began selling in large
quantities. This
resulted in a renewed
interest in the band
that recorded the sound
track (but did not
appear in the movie
itself). The boys found
themselves in big
demand. Ironically, John
Cafferty and the Beaver
Brown Band came to the
forefront of the pop
music scene, eclipsing the actors who starred
as Eddie and the
Cruisers.
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