Monocled Alchemist

Article published in a ’60s teen magazine | (edited) Rev-Ola CD liners

The Love Generation | Under The Spotlight | “A part of today; reflecting the feelings of today . . . this is THE LOVE GENERATION.” All six performers know “where it’s at” and mean to pass the word — by way of their music. Their first disc “Groovy Summertime” caught on with everybody, and their newest release “Meet Me At The Love-In” is climbing fast.

Spokesman, John Bahler, was born in N.Y.C. Besides doing vocals, he composes and plays trumpet, piano, bass and trombone. Since arriving in L.A. in ’66, he has spent most of his time working with groups.

The two girls of the group are Marilyn Miller and Ann White. Born in Long Beach, Cal., Marilyn began singing and playing a ukulele at age 12. She sang with The Good Time Singers, and was the singing voice of Sally (Gidget) Fields on TV.

Ann moved from Oklahoma to Venice, Cal., and has been singing for as long as she can remember. She loves to walk the beach with her black Hungarian Sheep dog, Jansci.

Jim “Little Flower” Wasson sings and composes and also plays the trumpet and flute. A native Californian, he really got lots of experience touring Europe with vocal groups.

Besides singing, Mitch. “The Count” Gordon plays trombone, trumpet, drums and guitar. Born in Pennsylvania, he’s appeared with many groups, but is happiest with The Love Generation.

Youngest member is John’s brother Tom. He sings, plays, and wrote “Groovy Summertime” and 6 other sides on their LP. ‘The Love Generation is’. (a ’60s teen magazine)

The Love Generation | Under The Spotlight

Of all the L.A. aggregations to blossom out of the so-called “Summer of Love,” few are as deserving of a retrospective anthology as The Love Generation. Their brief but prolific output—three LPs and six singles in a span of less than eighteen months—puts the current crop of slacker pop artists to shame. Perhaps the true joy to be derived from the music of The Love Generation is due to the effervescent nature of the material. Their music can almost literally take the listener away to a place where everything is indeed “love and sunshine.” And what’s wrong with that?

The Bahler brothers formed The Love Generation. John reflects: “It’s hard to remember how we were signed. Kenny Rogers may have helped out. I do remember that Imperial came to us, which was very unusual. That just didn’t happen very often.”

John and Tom quickly recruited Jimmy Wasson, Marilyn Miller (then wife of former Mousketeer Carl “Cubby” O’Brien), Annie White and John’s navy pal Mitch Gordon.

John explains: “Mitch was a drummer, trumpet player and guitarist in addition to being a great vocalist. He was a monster talent and worked in the studios a lot.”

The Love Generation | Under The Spotlight

With the vocal group now in place, work commenced on finding the right first single. Tom explains: “I wrote ‘Groovy Summertime’ with my college roommate Dick Ross. He was an English major and fraternity brother, and had never written a song before in his life. He had an idea for a song called ‘Groovy Springtime.’ So we wrote the tune and took it to our producer Tommy Oliver, and he said, ‘That’s a hit song, but you’ve got to change the title to “Groovy Summertime.”

“Groovy Summertime” went on to be a mild national hit for the young sextet, peaking at number seventy-four in the Billboard Hot 100 and number eighty-one in Cashbox in July of 1967. The song was also featured on their first, self-titled long player. Lack of promotion may been the cause for the group’s lack of commercial success. Various band members were reluctant to travel. It was a tall order to break a group without touring, but The Love Generation managed to make appearances on several television programs, including “The Steve Allen Comedy Hour” and “The Joey Bishop Show.”

John adds: “Our contract was a two-year deal for three albums. The label did as much as they could for us, considering we wouldn’t travel. They got the records played on the air. What could they do at that point? We never blamed them for our lack of sales.”

Their hastily assembled second LP ‘A Generation of Love’, featured a jacket photo culled from the same photo session as their first album cover. Despite being half-comprised of routine current hits, the album featured some of their best material, including the stunning Tom Bahler and Jimmy Wasson-penned ballad “Leaves Grow Grey.” Again, however, significant commercial success eluded the band.

The Love Generation | Under The Spotlight

By the time the third and best Love Generation LP ‘Montage’, was released, the group was essentially reduced to just Tom and John. The cover of Montage—a double-exposure close-up of Tom and John, with the rest of the group walking off into the distance—aptly illustrated the state the group had reached by this point.

John explains: “The group started fading away before that album, really. Even though I loved them as people, I never was really satisfied with the abilities of the group members except for Mitch and Tom. I wanted more, something better and was young and naive and what I wanted was a group of perfect people. I expected everybody else to live up to the same standards that I expected from myself. On the song ‘Montage,’ it’s just Tom and I.”

The Love Generation | Under The Spotlight

Tom reflects on an incident that happened around the time ‘Montage’ was released: “I really loved that record. I remember hanging out with Jimmy Webb at a big old house that he rented in Hollywood. John and I were sitting around with Jimmy, talking music, and he said, ‘Hey, I want you to hear a new song that I just wrote.’ As soon as he played the opening melody, I said, ‘Well, that’s a hit.’ The song was ‘Wichita Lineman.”

Tom recalls: “With the ‘Montage’ album, we went back in the studio and re-cut a lot of the vocals that the group had done before. There was never an argument, never an unkind word spoken. We all loved each other and kind of realized that the group wasn’t going to make it without us making it a real group. We were all busy doing other things and it just sort of faded out.”

The demise of The Love Generation didn’t slow the Bahler brothers— it led to one of the biggest highlights of their respective careers: The Partridge Family.

Tom says: “We were hired to work on The Partridge Family music before Wes Farrell got involved.” A re-recording of a Montage track, the Carole Bayer (Sager)-Neil Sedaka tune “Let The Good Times In,” was featured in the show’s pilot episode. After that, according to Tom, “They didn’t record a note without us. Either John or I wrote the vocal parts, but John wrote most of them.”