IOTA

Iota was a Northeast El Paso band. On the west side of Mt. Franklin there was hardly anyone that knew this surprising band. So I ran across them by chance. I had been recording Wailing Wall; Iron Butterfly (later to be called Lode Star) and frankly I didn’t give much thought to this loose band from the Northeast. They had a good singer who played bass and a commercial type guitar player. Iota was different in that they had an organ player. I listened to them and decided to record them in spite of the fact that I was interested in the careers of these other bands. Bill Taylor Sparks was getting ready to move to Memphis, TN and our studio was somewhat of a question for the two of us.

I took a liking to this rough hippie-type band and recorded a lot of songs at the upper valley studio. I subsequently moved to Memphis to work at Royal Studios and brought Iota along. For a while they lived in their yellow school bus behind Phyllis Wickhams’ house. She was a writer for Record World Magazine and always seemed to care for the underdog groups . That old school bus had “IOTA” painted on the side and it always was breaking down. I guess they got it from a school that had run it to death and put it out to pasture to die a peaceful death. We found them a funky apartment in a rough neighborhood and started recording them at Royal Studios in the old eight-track room starting at mid-night working until early morning. They stuck it out for a long time , we released the two singles and got them a booking agent that didn’t find them a lot of gigs so two of them worked as garbage collectors bringing home 100 rolls of discarded Xmas paper, times were tight for money but they never complained. They were a different sounding band for the Memphis area and it was hard to find good paying gigs for them. They had a real good live presence and had a killer light show.

Nick Pesce, Hi Records pres. loved one of their songs” Within These Precincts” and that helped to get their records out there but as it turned out the local top forty stations felt that Iota was too heavy for their stations. What a shock, I felt that Iota was the most commercial band we had dealt with for a long time. Both Bill Taylor Sparks and myself produced these guys. Their first single was “Love Come Wicked” and “Within These Precincts” (Hi 45-2200) 1971 . The second record we felt needed to be on a different label because Hi had a reputation of being an R and B label so we put their second record on M.O.C. (MOC-678)1972. The titles: “R.I.P. and Sing For You”

Carl Neer was the songwriter, bass player and lead singer for this Doors- type- band and seemed to be the major force behind the band. He wrote dark protest tunes and was a serious man with dark long hair and even though he had a commercial voice his lyrics were a little much for the conservative commercial radio. I remember bringing a Program Director (WHBQ) to the studio to hear the latest cuts on Iota and he said how much he personally liked them but they were too much for his station. How strange to have a fan that could do something for the band and just had no backbone to help them out.

Mark Evans played guitar for Iota and was a pleasure to work with. He was always open to the needs of the song. I think you will notice some excellent guitar work in these tracks. He wasn’t the fastest or shredder-type that you expect from a recording band but he was one of the most musically thoughtful players I have ever recorded.

Rick Ramaka played drums for Iota and was the morale leader of the group. He was a real nice guy who played drums okay, one of those members you keep because they hold things together when the times get rough.

Steve Phipps played organ and added a different sound to the band. Typically, El Paso groups consisted of two guitars bass and drums. El Paso was after all was a Texas town so the addition of an organ gave Iota an out of town sound .

There is a wide variety of songs recorded in Texas and Memphis; I hope you enjoy this unique band. Four songs were released on Hi records and some were in the can and some were recorded in El Paso, so this will be the first time to hear some unreleased stuff. Enjoy

TO PURCHASE HC-109 "IOTA"