Tag Archives: Frogdeath

The Imposters

Writing about Danny and the Counts has brought in a lot of information about the Coronado and Frogdeathlabels, so I’ll feature some more artists from these companies, starting with the Imposters.

The A-side is “Wipe In”, their take on the surf standard “Wipe Out” of course, with plenty of reverb and a deranged introduction. It was written by E. Teleheny, published by Conte Music. The flip is a standard blues, “Tulsa”, written by L. Miller.

I can’t find any info or photos of the band, if anyone has one, please let me know.

Although a DJ in El Paso, Steve Crosno’s Frogdeath label was based in University Park, New Mexico. At least some records were cut at his house. He usually put a witty quip on the label, this one has “Produced by Shteve [sic] Crosno”.

Thanks to Sam Stephenson for the scans and transfers of this 45.

Danny and the Counts

Danny and the Counts photo and article
Danny & the Counts featured in the KELP Paper shortly after their second single. From left: Eric Huereque, Joe “Bozo” Martinez, Joe Huereque, Danny Parra and Javier “Jaguar” Valenzuela

Danny and the Counts Frogdeath 45 For Your LoveDanny Parra – guitar and lead vocals
Javier Valenzuela – lead guitar and vocals
Eric Huereque – bass and vocals
Joe Huereque – drums
Joe Martinez – tambourine and vocals

Danny and the Counts “You Need Love” is a signature tune of the mid-60s, with its unforgetable buzzing guitar riff and opening “Oh, yeah!”. Not to mention the cool bending lick after the chorus, or the lyrics about seducing a rich girl. The b-side “Ode to the Wind” is slower and moody, again with good fuzz guitar.This was their second single, from 1966, on the Coronado label. Danny Parra wrote both songs. Chiyo Music BMI published many of Coronado’s releases at this time.

Danny and the Counts Frogdeath 45 It's All OverTheir first 45 was more sedate. “For Your Love” is the Ed Townsend ballad, not the Yardbirds song, and on the flip is another mellow one, “It’s All All Over”. KELP DJ Steve Crosno’s Frogdeath label released this single.

The band consisted of Danny Parra, the song writer and lead vocalist, plus the Huereque brothers and (I believe) their cousin, Javier Valenzuela, along with Joe Martinez on tambourine and backing vocals. They were from the Clardy neighborhood in the east side of El Paso, along Delta Drive. The article by Susie Dominguez in the the KELPaper states that the band formed two years before “You Need Love”, though I’ve also read that the band formed as early as 1960, originally performing soul and Tejano music. The article also says that both Javier Valenzuela and Danny Parra played lead guitar.

After these records, Danny Parra went into the Navy and Ken Prichard joined on lead guitar. I’ve also seen two other members listed, but don’t know the accuracy of these: Javier Venisula – organ (same person as Javier Valenzuela?) and Irene Porras – vocals.

Ken Prichard later joined Brand X. Danny Parra moved to California. Eric Huereque passed away in 2003 at the age of 56.

Danny and the Counts Coronado 45 You Need LoveSince first posting this I’ve heard from “Danny”, front man Danny Parra:

Although I was indeed interested in R&B type music back in the day, it was an absolute nightmare to put together and organize a large (8-12) R&B band in El Paso that could ever hope to compete with the likes of The Night Dreamers, The Valiants, The Premiers, etc. which were all fantastic bands in that genre of music in El Paso. One summer after a dismal year of trying to pull together R&B bandmates for rehearsals and even actual gigs to perform I’d pretty much gave up the quest for a large band with a powerhouse brass section.

My interests and my best friend Eric Huereque started to notice the music trends going on in England via the Beatles and Stones, etc. Not only was their music cool and different but their groups were usually only four or five guys! Much more attainable we thought ….. so we one summer Eric and I were jamming on guitars and we noticed Eric’s little brother Joe drumming in the corner of the room with a couple of yellow lead pencils …. and keeping pretty good time at that. We eventually enlisted (after much persuasion) him to try learning some basic beats for our jam sessions. Took a while but we encouraged him.

Spurred on by by his potential and the knowledge that at least we could count on him showing up for practice we realized Eric’s cousin Javier Valenzuela was also an aspiring guitar player and that we might be able to recruit him if an audition proved him viable. Note that at this time the big draw of the eventual band’s members was that most keys guys were Eric’s family and therefore more dependable in contrast to the people we had been trying to recruit and pull together as a viable band from all walks of life and all parts of sprawling El Paso!

Danny and the Counts Coronado 45 Ode to the WindSomehow, after countless hours of practice (weeks, months, lifetimes it seemed sometimes) and many horrible and worse experimental gigs we started to focus more on the “English sound” and less on R&B. To make a name for ourselves with this new image and music direction was a herculean task in El Paso because we were all latinos. If you were a band with latinos it was expected that you played only R&B style music back in those days.

Up to this time we had a first record under our belt which was recorded on Steve Crosno’s Frog Death label. We recorded “For Your Love” / “It’s All Over” in a single live take in Steve’s home without a drummer! Unbelievable! The recordings were meant to be a dry run but Crosno decided to put them on vinyl since he could promote them on KELP airwaves where he pretty much reigned as the biggest disc jockey around in those days.

Interestingly, our “For Your Love” was released at the same time the Righteous Brothers released the same song nationwide and the two records were being played back-to-back on KELP. In short order, both records made it up to number ten on KELP’s top 20. KELP published a brochure listing of popular records and music events found all over town that I wish I’d kept a copy of!

Although we got some modest notoriety because of his help on KELP and numerous appearance on his TV “Crosno’s Hop” show, we ultimately made it clear to him [Crosno] that we wanted to pursue the English music trends as a group and abandon R&B. He wasn’t happy about this because his whole market niche was R&B …. so we had an eventual parting of the ways. We produced and recorded our next record “You Need Love” / “Ode to the Wind” using the Coronado label and our own funds.

I’ve seen many comments & references of people who liked our music but were not impressed by the “production” and/or “sound quality” of the tunes. Guess what? These have been very accurate statements since the songs were recorded as live single takes in a dumpy downtown El Paso recording studio for the princely sum of $75.00 (included master tape). The fee was for an hour of recording studio time with a very bored, spectacled, bald geezer that was truly bored out of his gourd during our session. Did he kick up our audio or segregate the instruments and vocals for a sweeter mix? Hell no! What you hear on those tracks was raw, one take, wham-bam-thank-you-maam sounds. We didn’t know any better and the audio engineer simply didn’t care squat or know any more than we did! He might’ve even been the janitor for all we knew.

Q. Is that you playing the lead guitar line on “You Need Love” or Javier?

It was Javier. Many have assumed over the years that the sound was a sitar but I can assure you that we didn’t even know what a sitar was in those days. I recollect that he used either a small glass bottle or lipstick cover on his finger as a “slide” to get that sitar-sound you hear. The fuzztone sound was one of the few guitar effects available back then … made trendy by the Rolling Stones on “Satisfaction”.

Our tape was sent through Steve Crosno’s contacts. He was a bit reluctant to help at first because we weren’t following his R&B recommendation on his FrogDeath label, but he was still cool enough to get it pressed for us with Coronado.

Ironically, I am astounded and flattered that our music seems to somehow endured through other band’s interpretations on their albums and through some compilation albums that you can still buy today that showcased much of the music happening in those days in Texas. There have even been some interesting video efforts (YouTube) made to fit our music. Hmmm, wonder where that audio engineer dude ended up after all these years?

I was drafted in late 1966 (Vietnam) and ended up serving eight years serving my country (Navy) all over the world …. including London, England. Moved with family to California, worked for years as an electronics engineer. Due to a layoff (1985) re-invented and established myself as a much published fashion and beauty photographer in L.A. and authored a book “Model Mystique Unraveled” in 1995-96.

I regret that I lost touch with the band after going in the service after 1966. But I heard that Eric (bass/manager) perpetuated the band for years in spite that I was obviously missing as the frontman!

Article scan from Rick Kern’s El Paso Musicians site, used with permission. Photos of the Frogdeath single courtesy of Danny Parra. A special thank you to Oktay for the scans and help with this article, and to Sam Stephenson for letting me hear “For Your Love” and “It’s All All Over”.

Frogdeath Discography – Steve Crosno

Any help with this discography would be appreciated.

Frogdeath (sometimes listed as Frog Death) was run by Steve Crosno, a DJ on El Paso’s Top 40 radio, KELP. He also had a TV dance show Crosno’s Hop on the local Channel 7 that ran from summer of 1961 into 1970. He obviously had a sense of humor, from the logo to the messages on the labels like “Do Not Write in This Space”, or “for best results use riaa curve (whatever that means)”. Crosno passed away in September 2006.

Early releases like the Imposters have a University Park address, by Las Cruces, New Mexico, the same location as the Goldust label.

Froth 1 – The Imposters – “Wipe In” / “Tulsa”
Froth 2 – Cain & Able – “Creí” / “La Bamba” (arranged by Rick Young) / A Moment of Soft Headedness
Froth 2 – Four Frogs* – “Think I’m Losing You” / “Mr. Big” (both by Colin Flannigan) (some copies with picture sleeve)
Froth 4 – Danny & the Counts – “It’s All All Over” / “For Your Love”

Froth 66/1 – The Night-Dreamers – “Mr. Pitiful” (vocal Sunny Powell) / “I Can’t Help It (I Just Do)” (James Brown)
Froth 66/2 – El Paso Premiers** – “This Is the Beginning” (Bobby Rosales) / “Let Me Call You Darling” (vocal by James Patterson)
Froth 66/3 – Mike Reynolds and the Infants of Soul – “When Will I Find Her” / “It’s Judy” (both written by Mike Rosen)
Froth 66-4 – The Astros – “Amarga Navidad” (Jose Alfredo Jimenez) / “I Love You Dear” (Hector Luna)

Froth 67-1 – The Night-Dreamers – “I Take What I Want” (featuring “the amazing ‘Sonny & Sam'” / “Wisdom of a Fool” (vocals by Al ‘Mr. Tears’ Sanchez)

There are two releases labeled Froth 2, but I haven’t found a Froth 3 yet.

* According to Doug Neal, the Four Frogs were Bert Peters, Claude Perilli, Colin Flannigan, Billy Withers with one other member.

** aka Bobby & the Premiers, who also recorded for C.L. Milburn’s Souled-Out of Texas label.

An earlier version of “When Will I Find Her” was released on a Las Cruces label.

I’ve heard there’s also an LP on Frogdeath by Mike Reynolds, but I haven’t seen it.

More info on Steve Crosno can be found at Lone Star Stomp (which also discusses the Four Frogs release) and Borderlands.

There was also a very rare LP titled Steve Crosno Day, July 9, 1967, Recorded Live at the El Paso Coliseum, but I’m not sure if that was released on Frogdeath or some other label. Anyone have photos, scans or a transfer of it? A CD release may have additional songs but the track list seems to be:

The (Las Cruces) Starliners
01. Instrumental
02. The One That’s Hurtin’ Is You
03. It’s Not Unusual
04. Tramp

The El Paso Drifters
07 – 09 Featuring Martha Sifuentes
05. Intro / Sweet Soul Music
06. Groovin’
07. Respect
08. Close Your Eyes
09. All In My Mind

The Las Cruces Majestics
10. Band Intro
11. Instrumental
12. Intro / Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag
13. Goin’ Back To Miami
14. More

The Impressions
15. Let’s Go Steady / You Are My First Love
16. I’ve Been Lonely Too Long

The Gene Willis Aggregation
17. Instrumental
18. Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag / Instrumental
19. James Brown Jam

The El Paso Premiers (Bobby And The Premiers)
20. I’m A Practical Guy
21. I Dig Girls
22. Hello Stranger
23. Put Me In Jail

Sonny Powell And The Night-Dreamers
24. Kind Of A Drag
25. Mr. Pitiful

Bernard Tanchester
26. Steve Crosno Tribute Presentation

Thanks to Ken Prichard for the Cain & Able scan and to Sam Stephenson for the Mike Renolds scans.