Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds was a 1970s AM soft rock trio from Los Angeles. The original members were Dan Hamilton (guitar/lead vocal), Joe Frank Carolla(bass/vocal), and Tommy Reynolds (multi-instrumentalist/vocal), all of whom had previously played in The T-Bones, a 1960s band noted for the instrumental hit "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)".
The group first hit the charts in 1971 with "Don't Pull Your Love." Reynolds left the group in late 1972, and was replaced by keyboardist Alan Dennison -- however, the band still kept the name "Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds". This revised line-up scored the group's biggest hit, 1975's "Fallin' in Love".
Early group
Hamilton, Correro, and Reynolds came together as a result of Hamilton's brother, the musician/actor Judd Hamilton being asked by Liberty Records record producer, Joe Sareceno to form a "live performance" version of the producer's previous studio group, The T-Bones. In November 1965, Judd agreed and asked brother Dan to join him on lead guitar. Both of them had previously worked for and been mentored by The Ventures, who Sareceno also produced at that time. Two years earlier, Dan Hamilton had composed the Ventures' first Japanese instrumental hit "Diamond Head". It was not only the first successful rock and roll single in Japanese history, it was also reported to be the first million-selling single in the history of the Japanese music business. Once the Hamilton brothers officially became The T-Bones they rounded out their initial road group with three other L.A. musicians: George Dee on bass (aka Arnold Rosenthal), Richard Torres on keyboards/sax, and drummer Gene Pello.
New line-up
They hit the road in January, 1966 to promote their first single "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)", an instrumental piece that Sareceno had lifted from a then-popular Alka-Seltzer TV commercial. After two straight months of relentless one-nighters, radio and television promotion, Dee and Torres decided the road was not for them and asked to be replaced. A couple of weeks earlier, Dan and Judd Hamilton had seen Tommy Reynolds playing in a nightclub in New York City with a band called The Uncalled Four and they were blown away by his versatile musicianship, including vocals, keyboards, flute, guitar, percussion, drums, and strangest of all, steel drums within a rock and roll setting. The T-Bones shared a bill with The Young Rascals and another band Reynolds was playing with at Murray the K's new nightspot in Long Island in the old Lindbergh airplane hangar. Reynolds agreed to join the band.
As Reynolds joined the group, Hamilton had to unexpectedly return to Los Angeles. Reynolds quickly learned the guitar parts and the band carried on without missing a beat or date. About two weeks later the group were sharing a concert bill with the Mar-Keys (famous for their instrumental "Last Night") in Birmingham, Alabama, and Joe Frank Carrollo happened to be replacing their regular bass player that night. Judd liked what he heard and offered Carrollo the bass playing job if he could leave the next day. Joe was more than happy to join a band that had a hit single racing up the national charts. "No Matter What Shape" then went on to reach number 3 in the USA Billboard charts in March, 1966.
Once the band returned to L.A., Hamilton rejoined and this version of The T-Bones (the Hamilton brothers, Joe Frank, and Reynolds) would continue to tour the USA and Japan (where they enjoyed a couple more top-10 singles) and record together for another year. Although they would primarily be known as a one-hit wonder instrumental group, it allowed them to develop a strong vocal harmony sound within this demanding work and tour schedule. Sareceno was impressed and eventually allowed them to record vocal material for half of the next T-Bones album, "Everyone's Gone To the Moon". When this third (and last) album failed to crack the Billboard album charts, the band did a month-long tour of Japan and disbanded toward the end of 1967.
Big hit
Two years later ABC Dunhill Records producer Steve Barri found himself listening to a 4-song vocal demo that the now-former T-Bones had shopped around the L.A. music business prior to disbanding. According to the story, Barri had been holding a Dennis Lambert/Brian Potter song, "Don't Pull Your Love" for about a year looking to the right artist and/or group to record this potential hit. (Barri had first offered the song to the top act he produced at ABC Dunhill, The Grass Roots. They turned it down, only because they felt it was a bit light for their style. After it became a smash, they snapped up the next Lambert/Potter song offered to them, "Two Divided By Love.") When Barri heard Dan Hamilton's distinctive lead vocals and the group's tight harmony blend, he decided that he had found the right band to record that song. He managed to locate Dan Hamilton, with his brother Judd now living and working in London as an actor, Barri signed the other three former T-Bones to a record deal. In the fall of 1970, the Dunhill label brass came up with a new name, "Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds", and by the summer of 1971, "Don't Pull Your Love" was all over the USA radio airwaves, climbing to #4 on Billboard's USA singles chart and becoming the group's first RIAA-certified gold record. A couple more singles, "Annabella" and "Daisy Mae", were minor top-40 hits, but the 2 Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds albums on Dunhill and several other singles failed to register any significant chart action.
Tommy Reynolds left the group in the latter days of 1972 to form a band called Shango, while Hamilton and Joe Frank Carollo continued recording and touring with various different session players such as Larry Knechtel on keyboards and Joe Carrero on drums, but the lack of any more significant chart success meant that by 1973 their Dunhill recording days had become a thing of the past. Based on the enormous radio play that "Don't Pull Your Love" continued to garner, and the addition of Alan Dennison on keyboard/vocals and their long time friend Rick Shull on drums, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds continued to make a decent living working the Las Vegas, college & one-nighter concert circuit.
Name change
In the latter part of 1974 they secured another recording deal with Playboy Records on the proviso that they retain the name "Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds", even though Reynolds had left the group, as the record company was concerned that what little name recognition & momentum they had would be lost with even a subtle name change.[1] Within another few months they had recorded and released their first USA Top 10 hit in 4 years, a soulful soft-rock ballad called "Fallin' in Love". This song (written by Dan and his then-wife Ann) proved to be the group's biggest hit, reaching Billboard's coveted #1 USA singles spot in the summer of 1975. It also became their second RIAA-certified million-selling gold record, and their first (and only) song to chart in the UK.
They followed this success with "Winners & Losers", which reached #21 in 1976, but their next few releases, "Don't Fight The Hands (That Need You)", "One Good Woman", and "Everyday Without You" failed to reach the Top 50.
For their 2nd Playboy album, the band convinced Playboy to let them change their name to the more-accurate moniker of "Hamilton, Joe Frank & Dennison", but in 1980 they once again disbanded, this time permanently. Hamilton continued to write and publish songs, and also wrote and recorded a couple of film themes.
In the winter of 1993 Dan became seriously and mysteriously ill, an unexpected turn for an apparently healthy, 3rd-degree black belt. He spent several months in the hospital while doctors did their best to figure out what was causing him to have the multiple physical complications that kept him from walking, playing, or singing his beloved music. Eventually he was diagnosed to have a rare adrenal condition known as Cushing's syndrome. He died in L.A. in the early hours of December 23, 1994, at the age of 48.
Pop culture
In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the characters jokingly discussed how difficult it is for the average person to determine exactly how many people were in the group. Without seeing the name written down, one could assume it was a quartet ("Hamilton, Joe, Frank, and Reynolds"), a duo ("Hamilton Joe Frank", and Reynolds), a trio (consisting instead of "Hamilton Joe, Frank, and Reynolds"), or even a quintet ("Hamilton, Joe, Frank, Ann, Reynolds").
"Don't Pull Your Love" was featured playing in the background of a diner set at the beginning of The West Wing episode In the Shadow of 2 Gunmen Part II. The song was also heard in When Harry Met Sally during the famous diner scene as Sally and Harry were leaving.
" Fallin' in Love" was recently heard in the re-make of The Hitcher .
A running joke from legendary radio personality Dan Ingram involved introducing the group as "Hamilton, Joe, Frank Reynolds and the entire Eyewitness News team" (A nod to the band and a nod to ABC news anchor Frank Reynolds during his tenure as co-anchor of World News Tonight).
The song was sampled in the hip hop song "Best I Ever Had" by Canadian rapper Drake
Discography
Singles
- 1971: "Daisy Mae" (US #41)
- 1971: "Annabella" (US #46)
- 1971: "Don't Pull Your Love" (US #4)
- 1975: "Fallin' in Love" (US #1, UK #33)
- 1976: "Winners and Losers" (US #21)
- 1976: "Everyday Without You"
- 1976: "Don't Fight the Hands (That Need You)" (US #72)
Albums
Compilations
- 1995: Greatest Hits
- 2005: The Playboy Years
