The Tikis
14 videos • 159 views • by David Reed Watson This is my father’s band from 1962. The back of the album says this: Let me tell you about the first time I met the Tikis... You know, once there was a time when a guitar on your back meant... A. You were the last of the wandering minstrels. B. You were promoting a Gene Autry picture. C. You were Andres Segovia between trains. But all this has changed. Now a guitar on your back probably means that you’re an English Major with ten payments to go on your latter-day lute... But you have fun and you plunk your way through another semester. If this is true in most college towns, believe me, here in the Boston area with 43 colleges and universities and over 96,000 students it is indeed the case. Here a sleek foreign auto with a liveried chauffeur no longer indicates the wealth from Beacon Hill out for an airing... It is more often than not just another guitar merchant off for a day of outfitting the college students. Nietzsche and Leibnitz, once big men on campus minds, are now sharing space with Martin and Vega. And then, of course, there's the singing... Anywhere... Anytime... In Harvard Square, in coffee shops, on the bands of the Charles, above the roar of the MTA and on, Program PM. PM's a nightly two-hour feature show on Boston's WBZ. Since we like people and the things they do, we more or less threw our show open at the beginning of the '62 folk, er, I mean, school semester and let these burgeoning balladeers be heard. Well, they came. We had girls with long hair and boys with scrubby beards... In some cases, the situation was reversed. The ones from the city sang of the mountains of home and the ones from the country sang of their lost life in the city. In fact, we had so many in the office that I was thinking of installing an Expresso next to the water cooler. After listening to my 200th off key rendition of, Good News, I decided our PM Folk Song Period should come to an end, at least as far as the student talent was concerned. Then came a letter. "I've been listening to your show the past few weeks," it began, "and, if you really want to hear a top group, I suggest The Tikis from Holyoke, Mass. with Dick Watson." I was somewhat concerned with the authors objective opinion when I noted the letter was signed Mrs. Dick Watson. But, none the less, I decided to hear the act. They arrived at WBZ the week and I suggested they go into the studio to warm up... adding mentally, like for about four years. A little later when I passed the studio heading for an afternoon coffee... Never did install that Expresso, I noticed quite a group had gathered around the open door, and the sound swinging forth was that of the Tikis... The same exciting, vibrant, contagious sound you'll hear on this record. So, that's how I met the Tikis. You'll meet them on this their first recording... and I'm sure we'll both be hearing much, much more. Bob Kennedy Producer, Program PM WBZ, Boston