Over the years there had been talk of a show together, but it never happened.
“Elliot Lurie and I have been talking for probably 16 years about doing a show together, and it just never worked out,” said Bo Donaldson, founding member of Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods.
Until now.
Donaldson and The Heywoods, known for hits including “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” and “Who Do You Think You Are,” will perform at 8 p.m. Aug. 28 at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles as part of 70s Pop Fest. Also performing are Elliot Lurie of The Looking Glass, Tim Corwin of The Ohio Express, 1910 Fruitgum Company and Kyle Vincent of The Bay City Rollers.
“This lineup is a special show for the Arcada,” Donaldson said. “We’ve done some shows with Ohio Express and 1910, but never the four of us together.”
While Donaldson and Lurie talked about performing together, they only just met in person at a recent rehearsal.
“It was just email and phone. Once the lineup was set for the show, I emailed Elliot and said, ‘It looks like we’ll finally work together,'” Donaldson said.
With Lurie’s “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” and “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” on numerous ’70s compilation albums together, “I always thought it would be a natural affiliation of the two of us together,” Donaldson said.
During the 70s Pop Fest audience members will also hear hits including “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and “Chewy Chewy” by The Ohio Express and 1910 Fruitgum Company’s “Simon Says,” “Indian Giver” and “1,2,3 Red Light.”
Although it’s been years since the songs topped the charts, they are among the fan favorites.
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“I think that great pop songs have a great chorus and melody. Of course ‘Billy Don’t be a Hero’ and ‘Brandy’ are both story songs,” Donaldson said. “And Dick Clark always told me that people enjoy songs that have stories in them.”
Donaldson’s band recently released the CD “Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods: Absolutely the Best of the 70s.”
“We re-recorded ‘Billy Don’t Be a Hero’ and ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and some of the other hits from the 70s,” he said.
Like many albums today, it is available as both a physical CD and digitally — something Donaldson would not have imagined when he was first starting out in the business. Seeing the transition from 45s to 8-tracks, to cassettes, to CDs to digital downloads has been an amazing one.
“My first recording, I was 15 years old, I went into King (Records) studios in Cincinnati where I grew up and I recorded ‘In the Midnight Hour’ and ‘Hey Joe’ and I never would have — who would have — thought the evolution of music and electronics?”
Donaldson was about 14 when he first started playing with the Heywoods, right around the time the Beatles and Rolling Stones were making their mark in the U.S.
“The first songs that we learned and played as a group were purely first and second albums of the Rolling Stones,” he said.
Donaldson and high school friend Harold ‘Corky’ Pickering started the band, although Pickering had another group that he also performed with at the time.
“We kind of became an offshoot of that group,” Donaldson said. “And it evolved over the years. Evolved to a six-piece group that started traveling for Dick Clark doing dances actually up in Wisconsin and Michigan.”
The band started opening for acts that included the Young Rascals and Paul Revere & the Raiders as part of Clark’s Caravan of Stars.
“Then we were asked to travel with The Osmonds,” Donaldson said. “We did 300 shows with them.”
While most parents at the time would have questioned their children going into the music business, Donaldson’s mother encouraged the group and helped them line up gigs, he said.
“She was our manager. She was actually the one who first suggested we record ‘Billy Don’t Be a Hero,'” he said.
The song went on to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1974 and was also awarded a Gold Record that same year.
At the time, Donaldson didn’t think he would still be performing the songs decades later.
“You think about the music today, will they be playing that music 40, 50 years from now?” he said.
He attributes the lasting nature of the songs to nostalgia.
“People always like to remember the good and happy times. I think that’s the thing today with the adults that are called Baby Boomers. They like to remember the good old times they’ve had in the past,” he said. “They like to remember maybe their junior high or high school days, or grade school days and remember what they were doing back then.”
Kathy Cichon is a freelance writer for the Beacon-News.
70s Pop Fest
When: Aug. 28
Where: The Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St., St. Charles
Tickets: $29-$69
Information: 630-962-7000 or oshows.com
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