Sunday, March 23, 2014

Chalets - Black & Blues - Anderson


Dateline 1964, Anderson, Indiana - the Chalets stick their toes into the music szene. Armories, VFW's, teen clubs, and school dances kept many bands working and doing well. Info about the vast majority of these bands is scarce, but that's why we do this!

The Chalets were:
Bob McDonald - guitar - lead vocals
Greg Kopko - lead guitar
Dave Robinson - drums
Rick Lundgren - bass

The Chalets don't come up often in the legends of 60's Indiana bands, although they are rumored to have competed and performed well in the Indiana State Fair battle of the Bands. I have to find that article.........

But as always it seems, the band members go their separate ways and the band is lost to time. Bob had other plans.


 1967, Bob McDonald regroups and forms the Black and Blues.

Bob McDonald - guitar - lead vocals
Craig Davis - lead guitar
Kim Kopko - drums
Gary Redick - bass

Yep, another Kopko, what's the odds of that? Kim is the brother of Chalets member Greg. The Black & Blues played in Anderson and hit the east and west coasts touring. And thankfully, they left two 45's for our listening pleasure!

Come To Me / Bye Bye Baby (Nov. '67?)

Candy Castles / Mid Summer Night's Dream (1968)

I'll go out on a limb and say the Bye Bye Baby was a Chalets tune since it is credited to both Greg and Bob. The remainder are penned by Bob. There may also be some connection between Kim and Steve Miller (Fly like an Eagle, etc) that needs exploring.





6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kim Kopko was with my father the day my sister was born. My Father's name is Tony Harless. I also know Dave Robinson. Dave has been a family friend all my life. Greg Kopko played lead on Bye bye Baby! You can tell the difference in players, but Craig was a great player too. The white Fender Tele in the picture was my father's on loan to Craig. I have practice tapes of the Chalets with Greg Kopko killing it on lead guitar.

Anonymous said...

Name spelling corrections...
Rick Lundgren not Lundgrew
Gary Redick not Redic
Mid-Summer Night's Dream is 1968 not 1969
Chalets started in 1964 not 1965
Bob McDonald is mostly now known as Keypashine Golesorkhi...his original birth name

Unknown said...

Great stuff to see! I knew Tony(and Billy) back when I was very young, they were good friends to a bunch of guys in the band, my brother Greg especially...and Dave Robinson helped me build my first set of speaker cabinets in the winter of '68. Watching Greg and Dave together was funnier that the Marx Bros....they were hilarious together. I'm happy people remember all of this music, and what an incredible time it was for those guys. Other than watching them practice in our basement, I only saw them play live once in Muncie around the summer of 1969. Heres a link I got from Gary with some old live recordings and a couple of newer things with Kim singing...https://www.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=8b70658c5e6271789fa1.

CPK

Dre's Day said...

Gary is my Father... I landed in Los Angeles with the band around 1971... I only just moved back to Indiana after 46 years in SoCal... thank you for sharing!!

Anonymous said...

Keypashine is my father. A couple of summers ago I discovered and re-recorded to digital format several B&B recordings. Pretty damn good for a bunch of Indiana boys.

Anonymous said...

I met your father when he came to USA. I was abt 14 or 15 at a sleepover. His sponsor was my girlfriends father. We were staying at her house for the sleepover. We got to hangout with him and we were all fascinated by his good looks and that he was a foreigner. He had a good time with us giggling girls.