Reunited Bonding in a Marquette dorm
COVID-19 pandemic inspired a Milwaukee band to reunite, 50 years later
The COVID-19 pandemic took so much away from all of us.
It also brought musicians Gregory Samuels and James Finn back together.
As Marquette University students, they both auditioned for the band the Messengers, and when they didn’t make the cut, decided to start their own soft rock band, the Gregory James Group.
That was 54 years ago. Finn was required to leave the group in 1971 to attend Marquette Law School, coming back in 1974 and playing in some spinoff bands from there.
Samuels left in 1972 and never played in the band again.
Until this week.
Samuels, Finn and other members of the Gregory James Group and their spinoff bands over the decades are reuniting for a couple of free shows this week on their old stomping grounds: the Marquette University Ballroom on Friday, and in Burlington’s Echo Park Saturday.
“Our kids are married or moving on with their lives, and it gave us the time to be able to do this,” Finn said. “There’s no better feeling in the world than to make people happy.”
Finn and Samuels, both 74 now, were practically kids themselves, living in Schroeder Hall when they bonded over being rejected by the Messengers, a group that went on to sign with Motown Records.
But their own band — initially a trio, with Finn on keys, Samuels on drums and James Biese on sax — became popular in their own right, honing their chops at rehearsals at a fraternity house on North 33rd Street and West Highland Avenue, Finn said.
“We played five to six nights a week almost immediately, if not at Marquette functions, then in the summer in Burlington at a couple resorts and Chicago at a couple resorts,” Samuels recalled.
“We made at the time $60 per gig and $20 a guy,” Finn said, playing covers of Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Sergio Mendes, Carole King and the Beatles in the early years. “In 1967, that was a lot of money.”
By 1968, the band included bassist Tom Lovrine and singer Penny Babcock when they flew out to Los Angeles to compete in a band competition on the national TV program “Your All-American College Show.”
They became increasingly popular around town, frequently playing sinceshuttered club Someplace Else on Water Street and opening for Ramsey Lewis at Summerfest in 1970. By that year, the initial trio had turned into a sevenpiece band, with the Ross sisters Lynn and Barbara on vocals, Rich Kayser taking over on bass, James Furman on guitar and David Ebley on trumpet.
By then, Fiese had left the group, and Finn and Samuels would soon enough follow him. While Finn returned to the fold in 1974 after law school, Samuels never did after graduating from Marquette’s dental school in 1972. Samuels served in the Navy for two years as a dentist at a base in North Carolina, then was a dentist for 40 years in Madison before he retired in 2014. Finn is still a practicing lawyer in Milwaukee, and plays in his church band every Sunday.
“I never had the closeness and camaraderie like I did in the Gregory James Band,” Finn said.
Getting the band back together
A couple of tragic events prompted Finn to reflect on those band years. One was the passing of one of Samuels’ successors, Billy Riggs, from Alzheimer’s disease, in 2019.
The other was the COVID-19 pandemic. Finn himself contracted COVID last November.
“I was in the hospital for three days,” Finn said. “I could have died but came out OK. We all know people who have been pretty adversely affected by it.”
Once he recovered, Finn reached out to Samuels in March with a wild idea: What if the band got back together?
It started as a Zoom reunion of members that played in the original band or its spinoff acts. Samuels reached out to 12 people — and to his surprise and delight, all 12 responded back and met up for the virtual get-together.
“It went on for an hour and a half. I thought if it never goes any further than this, it will be worth it,” Samuels said. “Touching base with people after 50 years, it was like we never left.”
Now the old bandmates are gearing up to meet together, and play music together, in real life, including Rich Kayser, now based in Chicago, who has worked with his old bandmates to recreate setlists from decades ago. Finn said there’s even been some talk about a possible new spinoff band.
“I do have some fear and hesitation,” Samuels said of stepping on a stage for the first time in 50 years. “But this was probably some of the most fun that many of us had. … Going back to this episode in our lives was too good to pass up.”
Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
Piet also talks concerts, local music and more on “TAP’d In” with Evan Rytlewski. Hear it at 8 a.m. Thursdays on WYMS-FM (88.9), or wherever you get your podcasts.
Piet Levy