True garage fans braved the cold snap to hear an insane night of music in Williamsburg last Friday.
Dinos of WHRB Boston (listen to his show every Tuesday evening 10-midnight [EST] at www.whrb.org) played a box full of 45s including many U.S. obscuros and Greek groups like the Charms and Zoo. Marty Violence treated us to Virginia 45s and LP cuts you just never hear – a track from Skip and the Creations album on Justice among them.
The Children of Darkness were an obscure band until recently, when I learned the band was from from Newark, Ohio. “She’s Mine” was written by John Hull. The flip is “Sugar Shack”. The Royce label is from the little town of Oblong in southeastern Illinois, near the Indiana border. This seems to be the only release on it.
Anyone have a photo of the group?
buckeyebeat.com now has a page on this group plus photo:
http://www.buckeyebeat.com/childrenofdark.html
Lead singer and bass player was Howard “Byrd” Bartram and Mike Hopper was on organ. Sadly both have passed away now. I can’t remember what John played and there was a Jim Ford in the band too. BTW I named this band. Hey, it seemed cool at the time!
Jim Ford was rhythm guitar player John Hull lead guitar player Terry Lanning the drummer. Curley Hankins ran the Sugar Shack and was also their manager. Curly wrote the song Sugar Shack a go go.He was also an old time country music singer and Bluegrass singer. I Am Jerry Hankins, curley,s son. would love to get a hold of one of the band members.