Before they were Skip & Flip, Clyde Battin and Gary Paxton played as The Pledges and then Gary and Clyde. It was when they were signed to Bob Shad's Brent Records that they got the moniker that stuck. Bob Shad was a producer and small label boss who worked across genres. He organized A 65-Piece Workshop, a Big Band Rock album as Bobby Shad and The Bad Men and released it in 1973 on his own Mainstream Records label.
Great song choices constitute an album of luxuriant covers played as big as the 65 orchestra pieces portend. Shad's comfort with an array of genres (jazz, blues, rock and roll, orchestral) and the arrangements by Ron Frangipane work together to keep the songs fresh and playful, if not nimble, as they are engorged with brass and strings, interludes and slick solos by some outstanding session players. The bass, about as heavy as the rest of the band put together (despite the brass's best efforts,) sets the album in contemporary funk and prevents the various sections from floating the album's conceit too far away from its rock and roll roots.
Here is Bobby Shad and The Bad Men's discography:
Bobby Shad and The Bad Men
"Pinball Wizard by Bobby Shad and The Bad Men
"Up on Cripple Creek" by Bobby Shad and The Bad Men
Pass the Headphones!!
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