Artist:The Peppermint Rainbow
Song:Will You Be Staying After Sunday
Album:Hard to Find 45s on CD Vol. 11: Sugar Pop Classics
The 1969 single Will You Be Staying After Sunday was the highest charting of two hits by The Peppermint Rainbow. They only recorded one album and then split up. My guess is most listeners thought this song was by Spanky and Our Gang. The two groups sound alike. The group was called New York Times when they formed in Baltimore in 1967. Bonnie Lamdin was the lead singer and her sister Patty Lamdin along with Doug Lewis on guitar, Skip Harris on bass and Anton Corey on drums. Bonnie wrote the arrangements and they all sang harmony. They were playing local clubs when Mama Cass of The Mamas and the Papas saw them and even joined them on stage. She got them a manager. And he did a showcase for record labels in New York City. Decca Records signed them and brought in producer Paul Leka. He produced similar acts like The Lemon Pipers (Green Tambourine) and Steam (Na Na Hey Hey Kiss him Goodbye). Leka changed the group name to The Peppermint Rainbow. They wouldn't have been able to use New York Times anyway for copyright reasons. They recorded the 1969 album Will You Be Staying After Sunday. The title song was the second single and it reached #32 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written by the Brill Building songwriting team of Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn. They went on to win Oscars for The Morning After from the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure and We May Never Love Like This Again from the the 1974 film The Towering Inferno. A second single Don't Wake Me Up in the Morning, Michael also charted. But the album didn't sell. And I think they sounded too much like Spanky and Our Gang to be successful. You can get Will You Be Staying After Sunday on this Eric Records various artists comp. I guess there were plans for a second album. But after a couple of unsuccessful singles, The Peppermint Rainbow called it quits in 1970. Apparently their manager was ripping them off. Here's The Peppermint Rainbow performing Will You Be Staying After Sunday on a 1969 episode of the game show The Generation Gap. Apparently this was a trivia show hosted by Jack Barry. I never saw it.
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