Dennis Tufano: Yes, one time — I think it was when he was going to retire from being a musician and get a regular job to support the family. I was about five years old when my mom took me to this little steakhouse where his quartet was playing and I got to see him up on stage.
It was really a shock to me to see my dad in that environment, but I was really impressed, and from that point on I knew my dad was musical. In addition to playing standards for you on his saxophone, your dad would play music in your home including recordings by Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and Connie Francis.
As a kid, did you enjoy that kind of music? Oh, yeah. So I just took everything that I heard coming in. My parents would put on records and I would sit there listening and I got the input; I got inspired. How did that come about? So you got busted? Yeah, I got busted!
What was it about that song that appealed to you? It just seemed accessible. One reason I heard it so much is because we used to go to this little lake in the summertime and, at the lake, they had a little shop — a little kiosk — where they sold drinks and hot dogs and stuff. They had a big loudspeaker on the top of the building and they used to play records while people were at the lake. I learned the words to it immediately and I was singing along with it every time we went there.
So, yeah, that Elvis record was one of my first, and I listened to it over and over and over again at home. What would you say was your strongest musical influence? I think they all had the same sort of effect on me because I was always attracted to good harmony, lyrics, and melody.
There was just something about all those genres back then that did that for me. I learned about harmony by listening to their records.
And, really, all the music from that period had an effect on me. The first musical group you were a part of was an a cappella group. Can you tell us about it? Yeah, we kind of threw that together around my last year of high school. It was four guys. We used to sing together at parties and stuff and we thought we sounded pretty good together. Then, we would take our little song list to a dance and when the band came off the stage we would run up on the stage, grab their microphones, and do our a cappella stuff.
Was that group called The Darcels? And that group is actually where I learned, most importantly, to listen. Yeah, my last couple of years of high school I was kind of majoring in architectural drawing and I was really fascinated with architecture, so I was planning on becoming either an architect or something in the graphic arts world like that.
So how did you transition from becoming a graphic artist to becoming a professional musician? I got an apprentice job at an art studio in downtown Chicago; they used to do catalog work, and newspaper ads, and things like that.
For a year while I was still testing music, I was working at the art studio every day punching a clock. Also, I felt that I was making about the same amount of money on the weekends so why should I go downtown all the time and do that? So, yeah, I kind of transitioned into the music. And the group you mentioned was called The Pulsations. What kind of songs were you playing on the show at the time?
We would do a lot of Beatles songs and some Roy Orbison — whatever was popular that week; the producers would just tell us what they wanted to hear and then we would work up the songs and do them live.
It started out that we were to do the show for 12 weeks. This was , of course, and it was pretty primitive as far as technology was concerned, but it worked out pretty well because WGN was a big station in the Midwest and it went out to about six states.
Would you like to look at a list of names I thought you might want to call your band? We looked at his list — and there were some great names on it — but the one that jumped out to us was The Buckinghams. Yeah, Jim Holvey wrote four hits for The Buckinghams, and we actually did more of his songs on our first album, too; I think we did three or four other originals of his, which were nice songs.
This is great! So, yes, The Mob was influential for a lot of bands that came out of Chicago. They were like a cult band at the time; they were all over the place. Then they were done.
I recently spoke with Dennis Tufano, the man whose golden voice rocketed all those Buckinghams hits to the top of the charts. REBEAT: As is the case with many groups, there are different stories about the Buckinghams: how they got started, who sang what, and where the people performing their music now fit in.
That band became the Pulsations, which was a good name considering how often we played at drag strips and car shows and things like that. They asked us to change our name to something more English because the British Invasion was in full swing at the time, and we were fine with that, because other than locally, nobody really knew who the Pulsations were anyway. The members of the group had been evolving over time.
Eventually George got drafted, and I became the lead singer by default. A DJ also noticed and told us we should think about making a record. We thought about it and agreed maybe it was a good idea. Carl told him to listen to our band and see if he had any material that might work for us. Bonafede dragged him upstairs to the hotel room and pulled out a little reel-to-reel and told him to play his song with an acoustic guitar so he could hear it.
So the label released you after the single came out? They dropped us before they knew how big the record would be. Then our keyboard player left because he thought it was over, and so did our manager.
Open it up! We have no keyboard player, no manager, and no label, but we have the 1 record in the country. So much for the wisdom of record companies. We started the search for the missing pieces. Adler renamed them "Tufano and Giammarese" and gave them exceptional freedom to create their own music and a generous share of the publishing rights. Three albums and several years of touring, sharing the bill with Carole King, Bread, and Cheech and Chong, were rewarding.
Both decided to focus on their individual interests in the late s. Giammarese found his solo voice and launched a productive career as a studio singer for national TV and radio advertising producers. Nick Fortuna immersed himself in rhythm and blues, exchanging his signature Hofner bass for a funkier Fender Precision bass.
Fortuna later started his band, Crystal, with Billy Corgan, Sr. Until his passing in , John Poulos continued to be involved in managing and producing musical acts, including The Boyzz from Illinoizz and other groups, whose music would benefit from his dynamic personality and knowledge of the record industry.
The Buckinghams' impact on the music scene didn't end when the band broke up. The musical trend they started in the s was a prelude to shaping other legendary hits. In , Guercio took his experience from The Buckinghams to become a staff producer for Columbia, crafting Blood Sweat and Tears' 1 album.
At the encouragement of The Buckinghams, Guercio signed the group "The Big Thing," or as they were renamed, "Chicago," and produced their first 11 albums. The Buckinghams' creativity and talent inspired an award-winning musical legacy that includes three groups and spans four decades. In , the word again went out to find The Buckinghams.
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