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We Five was a 1960s folk rock musical group based in San Francisco, California. Their best-known hit was their 1965 remake of Ian and Sylvia's "You Were on My Mind", which reached #1 on the Cashbox chart, #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The original group split after recording their second album in 1967, but a re-formed band produced three more albums between 1968 and 1977. The original group is probably best remembered for the vocal qualities of its lead singer Beverly Bivens .
BiographyFormation and organizationMichael Stewart formed We Five after graduating from Pomona Catholic High School and attending Mt. San Antonio College. He was the brother of John Stewart of the Kingston Trio and came from Claremont, California. When Michael was a student at the University of San Francisco in 1964, he formed We Five as a quartet, although it soon added another member. The group played adult rock 'n roll, pop jazz, Broadway show tunes, and Disney tunes. Stewart did all the arrangements, which ranged from These Are My Favorite Things, in a style which reflected Bach,
to Very Merrily Un-birthday. He put in several additional hours working on arrangements after the five band members worked together for five or six hours each day.
The ensemble played acoustic guitars, electric guitar and bass and multi-part sang harmonies. The original quintet line-up, which grew out of a band called the Ridgerunners, included:
- Michael Stewart (Baritone-Bass, 5-String Banjo, 6-String Acoustic Guitar, 9-String Amplified Guitar)
- Beverly Bivens (Low Tenor to High Soprano, Rhythm Guitar)
- Jerry Burgan (Tenor, 6-String Acoustic Guitar)
- Peter Fullerton (Tenor, Acoustic & Fender Bass)
- Bob Jones (Baritone-Tenor, 6-String Electric Jazz Guitar, 12-String Electric Guitar).
1965-1970The Herb Alpert owned label, A&M Records, responded to the new popularity of folk and rock music by adding new artists starting in 1965 to its existing line-up of middle-of-the road material turned out by Alpert's Tijuana Brass, the Baja Marimba Band, and Brasil '66
. In addition to We Five, Alpert's label released albums by Boyce and Hart, the Garden Club, Chris Montez, and the The Merry-Go-Round.
We Five's first album produced a major hit with the title tune, Stewart's re-arrangement of the Ian and Sylvia song "You Were on My Mind". Stewart made several changes to the original Sylvia Tyson composition, and the song went directly to the Billboard Top Five in 1965. In February 1966 We Five was nominated for a Grammy for Best Performance By A Vocal Group (for "You Were on My Mind"), against the Beatles among others, but they lost the award to the Anita Kerr Quartet. They were also the first commercial folk-rock artist to record music for Coca-Cola. The group added a touring drummer named John Chambers so that it could tour behind its hit.
After completing their second album, Make Someone Happy, later in 1966, lead singer Beverly Bivens decided to leave the group. The group nevertheless had a hit from this album in 1967 with its arrangement of the popular Kingston Trio folk tune "Let's Get Together," which reached #31 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and was later a Top Five hit and a million-seller for The Youngbloods as "Get Together"). To continue, We Five replaced Bivens with Debbie Graf Burgan (wife of guitarist Jerry Burgan) and added a full-time drummer in Mick Gillespie for live performances.
We Five was among the artists included in a preliminary injunction issued by the Los Angeles Superior Court in April 1968. The edict prohibited pirating of A&M artists, including the Tijuana Brass and The Sandpipers. The action was directed against Superba Tapes, Inc., of Lancaster, California. The company had copied tapes of the recordings and sold them to the public without paying royalties to the artists.
The group would record two albums with Debbie Burgan singing lead, 1969's Return of the We Five for A&M and 1970's Catch the Wind for Vault. Neither album came close to the success of the earlier Bivens material. In 1970, Stewart, Jones and Fullerton all quit We Five, breaking up the original band.
Subequent eventsAfter We Five split up, Debbie Graf and Jerry Burgan kept a version of the group going through 1977. This group recorded another album in 1977, Take Each Day as It Comes for AVI Records before also disbanding.
Various versions of the band featuring the Burgans have remained together for the next 30 years. The Burgans in March 2009 contributed an original song, "For Old Times," to an online-novel-with-music-tracks entitled "Alt. Country," scheduled to appear on the website of author Alan Rifkin.
Bob Jones is also a member of the current version of the band, which is now officially known as "We Five Folk Rock Revival." Later editions of the band also included Frank Denson, who went on to write music for television shows, including Magnum, P.I., Tales of the Gold Monkey, and Blossom, and 1968-70 We Five drummer Mick Gillespie.
Peter Fullerton left the music business in 1970 to minister to the homeless and needy: he is the founder of the California-based organization "Truck of Love." [Pete's Corner]
Michael Stewart appeared in occasional reunions with We Five from 1978 to 1989. He became a record producer (most notably for Billy Joel) and a pioneering developer of MIDI music software. He died on November 13, 2002 at age 57.[We Five Folk Rock Revival, Bios] Although his family initially reported that his death was the result of "a long illness", Stewart in fact committed suicide, and his son Jamie (vocalist of the indie band Xiu Xiu) has occasionally discussed the event in both songs and interviews.
In 2009, after many years of seclusion, Beverly Bivens sang at the opening of an exhibition, mounted by the Performing Arts Library & Museum in San Francisco, of the rock scene in the Bay area in the mid sixties to early seventies.
Discography- You Were On My Mind (1965) A&M LP-111/SP-4111
- Make Someone Happy (1967) A&M LP-138/SP-4138
- The Return of We Five (1969) A&M SP-4168
- Catch the Wind (1970) Vault 136
- Take Each Day as It Comes (1977) AVI 6016
Copyright Citations
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