In the heart of Times Square, B.B. King Blues Club is packed. Patrons cluster at the bar, and tables are crowded with die-hard fans who dance during their favorite tunes. Bayonne native Mark Stein wails on the organ, infusing “Ruby Tuesday” with the heavy rock-and-roll sound that Vanilla Fudge is famous for. Stein takes a classic song and makes it his own, displaying his skills on the keyboard, the organ, and as a vocal front man. The band also plays its original songs.
Stein shares the stage with founding members Carmine Appice, Vince Martell, and bass player Pete Bremy, replacing Tim Bogert, who retired. Together they evoke the Spirit of 1967, while galvanizing legions of today’s fans.
In 1967, the band’s debut album, Vanilla Fudge, peaked at number six on the Billboard charts. The group achieved headliner status early and toured all over the world. Vanilla Fudge has influenced the likes of Deep Purple, Yes, and The Who and shared the stage with Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin.
In the 1970s Stein took a hiatus from Vanilla Fudge to concentrate on his writing and performing. He did solo work and joined The Tommy Bolin Band and later Alice Cooper. He made recordings with Dave Mason, including work on the album Old Crest on a New Wave, where he sang with Michael Jackson. How did a rocker from Bayonne end up making music with the king of pop?
“One night while in the studio circa 1980 in Hollywood, California, I was working on an album with Mason,” Stein says, “and Michael Jackson was working down the hall in a separate studio with The Jacksons. I went out for a break and saw Michael by the soda machine and introduced myself. I asked him to join me in the session to hear some tracks, so, low and behold, he did. We put up a track called “Save Me” which had a cool feel like something akin to the Off The Wall album he recorded. He totally got into it. Before you knew it, I got him to go sing on the mic and scat a bit. So there he was with the earphones on singing and grooving to the tune. You can hear me singing with Dave Mason and Michael Jackson, how crazy is that?”
The Bayonne Beat
The musical journey that led to that moment is pretty crazy. “I used to listen to my Uncle Bill play the piano at his home on 31st Street and the bay,” Stein recalls. “I must have been 6, maybe 7 years old. I started to pick out melodies at an early age.” Music came easily to him. His family took notice of how quickly he learned the piano and encouraged him to broaden his scope. “My dad got me into the accordion, a popular instrument for the times,” he says, but he needed coaxing when it came to practicing. As much as his father loved the accordion, Stein hated it. “I got bored with it as my lust for rock and roll took hold of me,” he says. “When I was 11 a friend nearby had a guitar, and I used to pick it up and quickly taught myself some chords. To my dad’s dismay, when he got home from work, I wasn’t practicing accordion, I was singing and playing Buddy Holly songs on guitar.”
Rock was thriving in Bayonne at that time, and for Stein, there was no turning back. “The Jewish Community Center was a melting pot on most Saturday nights back in the early 1960s,” he says. “Kids blended there for a dance where local rock-and-roll bands from Hudson County would play. Bayonne was a great community, a good place to grow up.” He performed at the JCC and various Bayonne taverns throughout his youth. After gigs at the JCC, they’d go to Dido’s on 50th and the Boulevard for pizza.
While attending Bayonne High School, Stein played in bands with fellow students before he founded Vanilla Fudge. “The Dynamics is a high school band that comes to mind,” he says. “Vinny Ochino on guitar, Ronnie Czarnecki on drums, Paul Golubiewski on bass, and Glenn Herrick on sax. Another band during senior year was the Valets. Also, Larry Morreale and Ray Block were kids from Bayonne High School that sang with me in various vocal groups like the Valitors along with the late Percy Fair.”
Stein played the organ with The Dynamics.
“We played at a college party at Yale University, of all places,” Stein says. “I was singing and playing guitar at the time, when Czarnecki, our drummer, spotted a portable organ on the side of the stage and shouted out to me to play it. I fired it up, everybody dug it, and the rest is history.”
Nothing Vanilla About It
Vanilla Fudge came together soon after. Stein’s bandmates came from other towns around the New York area. Stein’s jams on the organ and magnetic stage presence captivated audiences. Vanilla Fudge’s psychedelic, hard-rock rendition of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” launched the band to fame. Their first single, it reached number 6 on the Billboard.
Even as their popularity grew, Vanilla Fudge still made time to play in Bayonne. In March 1967, Bayonnites were excited to converge on Marist High School to see the hometown band that they’d been hearing on the radio.
In the next year Vanilla Fudge would play on The Ed Sullivan Show and tour with Jimi Hendrix. Their second album would earn critical acclaim and many new fans.
Stein wrote a biography called “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” that chronicles his life as a musician. He gives readers an in-depth perspective on rock-and-roll history that includes his personal recollections of time spent with some of his iconic peers.
But the story of Vanilla Fudge isn’t over yet. The band has reunited and recorded new music that was just released this spring. They have been touring to support the album and still put on an energetic show, with Stein commanding the room from behind his Hammond organ.
“The new album, Spirit of ’67,is an effort of music we do best,” Stein says. “Great songs from 1967 interpreted in our own way. We’re excited about the arrangements and performances as well as the production.”
The album is loaded with heavy-rock reimaginings of classics from the past, but the final track is an original new song written by Stein called “Let’s Pray for Peace.” The moving piano ballad shows that despite Stein’s long career in music, he still has plenty to say, and fans in Bayonne are listening.—BLP
For more information about Vanilla Fudge and Mark Stein visit vanillafudge.com, and mark-stein.com to order an autographed copy of Mark’s book You Keep Me Hangin’ On.