Category Archives: Stearly

Bill Hamilton’s Groovey Grooves Records and Hamilton Productions

Satyrs Spectrum 45 Yesterday's HeroHamilton Productions, run by Bill Hamilton in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, produced several garage singles with different label names including:

Sands of Time – ”Come Back Little Girl” / “When She Crys For Me” Stearly 8167, August 1967)
Satyrs – “Yesterday’s Hero” (C. Morrill, G. Williams) / “Marie” (M. Doerr, C. Merrill) Spectrum 2668, released 1968, Haddonfield Heights, NJ)
Groop Therapy with Gary Dial “I’ve Got To Leave This World” (Gary J. Dilllio) / “Ronnie Ronnie” (Lisa 6865, June 1968, Ripley Park, PA)

For more on the Sands of Time, see the separate entry for the band.

Exceptions Groovey Grooves 45 Baby You Know I Need YouHamilton also put out a number of singles, mainly soul, on the Groovey Grooves label starting in 1968, including the Exceptions “The Look in Her Eyes” and Phillies player Rich Allen and the Ebonistics doing “Echoes of November”.

Groovey Grooves discography
any help with this would be appreciated

Groovey Grooves 160 – Rich Allen and the Ebonistics “Echoes of November” / “Fannari”
Groovey Grooves 161 – Exceptions “The Look in Her Eyes” / “Baby You Know I Need You” (Hynes, Walker, Ellis, Jones, arr. by Bob Lowden)
Groovey Grooves 162 – Collectors “Cruel World” / “I Still Love You” (March, 1969)
Groovey Grooves 163 – Isthmus of Sound “River” / “Sweet Love”
Groovey Grooves 164 – Stone Dawn “Agent Promise Blues” / “What You Think Is Right” (both by Penny Stubbs, Assoc. prod Bill Hoy)
Groovey Grooves 165 – ?
Groovey Grooves 166 – Norwood Long “I’d Like to Have You” / “She Belongs to Me”
Groovey Grooves 167 – Exceptions “The Shagg” / “Danny Boy”
Groovey Grooves 168 – Great Compromise “Let The Evening Roll On” / “He Was A Man”
Groovey Grooves 169 – Les Stewart, Jr. “One Woman Man” / “Mind Your Own Business”
Groovey Grooves 170 – Fairwinds “She & Me” (J. Swank, R. Smith) / “Height in Funland”

Groovey Grooves 176 – Fantastic Soul-Locks “Come On Home Girl” / “Funky Prance”

The Exceptions recorded at Impact Sound Recording Studio on Castor Ave in Philadelphia, while Stone Dawn recorded at Baker Sound in New Jersey.

Groop Therapy with Gary Dial Lisa 45 Ronnie, RonnieFolsom Music, BMI published many of the original songs on Groovey Grooves.

Klemen Breznikar has an interview with one of the members of Stone Dawn at It’s Psychedelic Baby!. The piece doesn’t identify which member he interviewed but I believe it’s George Manney.

Thank you to Laurent, Max Waller and Mike Markesich for help with this post.

The Sands of Time on Stearly Records

The Sands of Time, circa 1967-8
The Sands of Time, circa 1967-8

Sands of Time Stearly 45 Come Back Little GirlThe Sands of Time came from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and recorded one single on Stearly Records 8167 in August, 1967.

“Come Back Little Girl”, written by Feliciani, has a catchy intro with a distorted treble guitar sound.

The singer breathlessly calls out the lyrics to the flip “When She Crys For Me”, written by Ellis, with more cool buzzing guitar between verses. Bill Hamilton of Hamilton Productions produced the single.

I didn’t know the members’ names or anything much about the band until I heard from Mike Marr:

The Sands of Time, early photo with Bill Ellis and Joe Feliciani
“Here is the earliest picture of the band, Bill Ellis (top right) and Joe Feliciani (bottom right). The accordionist did not stay very long with the band.”

At the time of this recording I was the bass player in the Sands of Time; the band members were:Joe Feliciani – lead guitar and vocals
Bill Ellis – rhythm guitar and vocals
John Furterer – drums and vocals
Art Bernie – organ
Mike Marr – bass

The original band members were all neighborhood friends. Back in the mid to late 60’s everybody wanted to play guitar. We would play in someone’s basement or living room. I guess you could say the band was officially organized by an older man named John Mullins who knew Joe Feliciani’s father.

Sands Of Time at Scanlon RecreationCenter, Philadelphia, May or June, 1967
Sands Of Time at Scanlon Recreation Center, Philadelphia, May or June, 1967

This was a picture [above] of our first playing job. It was at Scanlon Recreation Center in Philadelphia. I think this was taken May or June of 1967.

Art Bernie joined the band a few weeks after this picture was taken and he was from that neighborhood (Kensington) in Philadelphia.

The Sands of Time, circa 1968
The Sands of Time, circa 1967-8

We were ages fourteen to sixteen at the time of the recording. It was done at a studio in Camden New Jersey that was in a motel on Admiral Wilson Blvd. It was the Oasis Motel and the studio may have been named Palmer Studios.The name Stearly Recordings was chosen because it was the street where our crowd of friends lived and hung out. I don’t remember [producer] Bill Hamilton. It is possible that he knew and dealt with John Mullins who acted as our manager at the time.

That is a Vox bass. Later I bought a White Gibson EB3 (very rare color). I also had a fretless Dan Armstrong (clear body). The band evolved with other members as time went on but no other recordings were ever made.

The Sands of Time, circa 1967-8
The Sands of Time, circa 1967-8

These pictures [at right] show Art Bernie the organist but Joe Feliciani was no longer in the band and was replaced by Rick Sutcliff, and Bill Ellis remained for another year.This would have been Fall of 1967 and Winter of 1968. There was more evolution but this was the band at the time of the record recording and soon after.

Mike Marr

Sands of Time Stearly 45 When She Crys For MeThis band has no connection to the Sands of Time who recorded Red Light on Sterling Award records out of New York.