Rock Icon Carmine Appice drops by to chat about Vanilla Fudge history and their local tour dates in the NorthEast in May! Carmine was in various bands after Vanilla Fudge, including Cactus, Beck, Bogart and Appice, Rod Stewart, King Cobra, Blue Murder and even toured with Ozzy Osbourne!
Vanilla Fudge was one of the first American groups to infuse psychedelia into a heavy rock sound to create “psychedelic symphonic rock” an eclectic genre which would, among its many offshoots, eventually morph into heavy metal. Although, at first, the band did not record original material, they were best known for their dramatic heavy, slowed-down arrangements of contemporary pop songs which they developed into works of epic proportion. Originally, Vanilla Fudge was a blue-eyed soul cover band called The Pigeons, formed in 1965 with organist, Mark Stein, bassist, Tim Bogert and drummer, Joey Brennan, and guitarist, vocalist and US Navy veteran, Vince Martell. They built a following by gigging extensively up and down the East Coast, and earned extra money by providing freelance in-concert backing for hit-record girl groups. In early 1966, the group recorded a set of eight demos that were released several years later as “While the World Was Eating Vanilla Fudge.”
In 1968, Vanilla Fudge headlined the Fillmore West with Steve Miller. The group then performed “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” on The Ed Sullivan Show, and released their second album, “The Beat Goes On.” Despite its avant-garde conceptualization and execution, the LP was a hit and climbed into the Top Twenty. That summer, Atco reissued “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” and the second time around it climbed into the Top Ten. It was followed by Renaissance, one of Vanilla Fudge’s best albums, which also hit the Top Twenty. The band had three albums in the Top One Hundred, two of which were in the Top Twenty and one in the Top Five Single. The band toured with Jimi Hendrix, played dates equal billed or headlined with groups such as Cream, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, among many others; late in the year, they toured with the fledgling Led Zeppelin as their opening act.
For more on Vanilla Fudge click on the link
https://vanillafudge.com