Tygers' follow-up record was 40 years in the making

Releasing a solid debut album is one of the tougher accomplishments in the music industry. The only thing more difficult, it seems, is making a good sophomore disc. The old saying in the recording industry holds that bands have "a lifetime to make the first record and six weeks to make the second."

The Tygers broke that mold ... and it only took 40 years.

Formed in the late 1960s by Milwaukee teenagers Tony Dancy and Dennis Duchrow, the group parlayed a popular single, "Little by Little," and a strong regional following into a national record deal with Herb Alpert's A&M Records. The group's debut record, released in 1968, failed to gain traction and the record deal evaporated.

Duchrow left for the Vietnam War, two other members left for personal reasons and the remaining four members -- Dancy, Craig Fairchild, Lanny Hale and Fred Euler -- kept up the fight for a few years, only to find frustration.

Hale was accepted into medical school and became a successful ophthalmologist. Euler left to pursue a career in hotel management.

Dancy and Fairchild headed for California, where they created music for "The Brady Bunch" and "The Flintstones." Dancy reformed The Tygers -- with new and old members -- for shows in the 1980s and ‘90s.

About a year ago, Dancy and Fairchild gathered at Hale's home studio and began working on the long-awaited follow-up record, "The Second Album."

OnMilwaukee.com talked to the group about their history and the new record, which is available on iTunes.

OnMilwaukee.com: The perception among bands today is that in that there were so many more places for bands to play in the 1960s -- dances, CYO events, union halls -- than exist today. Was that the case? How could you tell when bands were "getting big" back then?

Craig Fairchild: (It's) hard to specify exactly why the number of places dropped, but the greatest likelihood, in my opinion, is that it was economic. There is risk associated with running live music. Competition came from a number of sources, including the ones mentioned above. Access has to be another possibility. YouTube, for instance, allows us to see bands much more easily today without paying a dime. Back in the day, you couldn't see the real thing as easily, so the best bands were the ones who could most accurately portray the real thing. Nowadays, cover bands don't carry anywhere near the cache they once did.

Tony Dancy: Yes, it's true. One could actually make a decent living as a musician in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Milwaukee had probably a dozen nightclubs that ran live music six nights a week, not to mention those CYO dances that ran every weekend at just about every church hall in town, plus the teen clubs and school dances.

As for bands "getting big," the main factor was airplay. Before ravenous corporate maws like Clear Channel gobbled up all the nation's radio stations, local radio really was local. A sympathetic DJ would simply add a band's record to his play list. In our case, that sympathetic DJ was Bob Barry at WOKY, and I give him almost full credit for making "Little By Little" a local hit.

That could never happen now because local radio is not local and a local DJ has no leeway as to which records he plays ... In the '60s, that airplay on the big Top 40 station in town would lead to more gigs and to TV appearances and write-ups in the Journal and Sentinel and pretty soon the band was "big" -- in Milwaukee, anyway.

Fairchild: I think a mark of prestige -- i.e. "making it big" locally, was having a back-up band open the show. Two 45-minute sets was the limit. If you had to play three hours to make the point, you definitely hadn't made it. Having a record was, of course, required for success, with the grail being a hit record. To rank at the top of the local radio charts was better for realizing adolescent dreams than it was for making money, but money was not the big motivator as much as crowd size, reaction, and general demand for the band.

OMC: What groups influenced The Tygers? A lot of bands of the time felt that Beatles/Stones divide. Were the Beach Boys an influence on you guys, because of the vocals? 

Lanny Hale: We were heavily influenced, as were most musicians, by the incredible success of The Beatles and their music. From there it became clear that The Tygers were a vocal group and those groups with big vocals became our focus.

TD: I'm not sure if I was aware of a Beatles/Stones divide; we covered just about anything that was on the Top 40 charts at the time, though I was partial to The Beatles because of the high level of sophistication in their musical construction, i.e. melodies, harmonies and chord changes. And they were so fresh and new, no one had heard anything like them before

As for the Beach Boys, yes they were an influence, and it must be noted that Brian Wilson's primary influence in vocal arranging was The Four Freshmen, so in my being influenced by Brian Wilson in my arranging, I was also influenced by The Four Freshmen, though I didn't know it at the time. The Association was another influence, along with The Fifth Dimension, even The Four Seasons.  A little later I was influenced quite a bit by Richard Carpenter's style of vocal arranging.  Much later, I discovered The Hi-Los; how I wish I would have discovered them sooner.

CF: All things vocal: The Fifth Dimension, The Association, Beach Boys, Crosby Stills & Nash, The Esquires, Friends of Distinction.

OMC: Lanny left for medical school and other key members went to California. How tough was that decision? Was the split "mutual?" Was there acrimony? I guess I'm asking what the relationship was like during the years before the "reunion."

CF: No acrimony, no drama -- kind of like slowly letting the air out of a tire. It went flat and stopped rolling. Tony and I never lost contact and worked on a number of projects in the intervening time.

TD: I don't recall there being any acrimony at all.  I think we all knew that the band had run its course and it was time to move on.

LH: I had informed the group when I joined in 1969 (when the original drummer Dennis went to Vietnam) that my plan was to go to medical school and that if we weren't "rich and famous" at the time I got accepted, if I did, I would be leaving. That's exactly what happened. I got my acceptance and informed the band I was leaving.

Unfortunately, we had a freshly finished single about to be released, and the manager pulled it claiming "if there isn't a band to go out and perform, he's not releasing the record." Tony and Craig had become increasingly disenchanted with the current configuration of the group (after adding the two female singers) and used the opportunity to pack up and head for California and the next phase of their careers.

The final residual original member, Fred, took off for chef's school and hotel management and now runs a huge Hyatt Resort and Conference Center in Florida.

There was no acrimony at all, as it had been discussed in advance, if anything sadness mixed with happiness for me, relief for them. Tony and Craig careers have been intertwined throughout their lives, with several periods of separation. I spent the next eight years in medical school/internship/residency. When I finally finished and went into private practice in 1979, I built a small recording studio in my garage and we got together to write and record tunes. The three of us practice some four-part tunes, pushing ourselves to try the most difficult four part songs ever done, those by the Hi-Lo's.

We added a bass singer named Phil for this project and actually recorded an interesting song named "My Romance" in a local studio, but just for ourselves on a very tiny budget. This was long before Carly Simon and James Taylor found the same song and recorded it for themselves. We practiced on Monday evenings at my house around an electronic piano. This was sporadic, however, and I didn't have the time to be in a band so the guys did what they needed to do to make their own livings.

During my Arizona/Wisconsin period, 1996-2007, I re-contacted Tony and Craig on several occasions trying to re-establish a connection and keep the relationship going, but I was never available enough to be consistent and I'm sure they thought I was just some busy doctor looking for an outlet. When I returned full-time to Wisconsin, I immediately refocused on what I felt to be "unfinished business" with the guys that had come close to stardom as youngsters.

Since then, we had written and recorded a new CD in my newly improvised recording studio, and are now trying to get people to listen to it. We feel it is the right blend between modern technology and the old-time feel of the ‘60-70s.

OMC: What was the recording process like for the new CD?

TD: With a technological twist or two, it followed the basic process of establishing bed tracks and then adding the sweetening and vocals. A number of the tracks were done with additional musicians who were not in on the foundation sessions.  

Technology came in with sharing the recording remotely. Saxophones were added to the tracks by sending Joe Turano the recorded tracks -- electronic files in this case -- via e-mail, Joe playing the tracks and adding multiple saxophones, then sending the whole thing back by e-mail.

LH: The process itself is exciting and trying at the same time. I personally find nothing more creative than the process of writing and recording music. We were able to use the Internet to transfer horn parts from Joe Turano, an old semi-original Tyger, who worked for years in Michael Bolton's band and is currently Al Jarreau's music director, keyboardist and sax man.

Most of the time was Tony and I working evenings and Saturday's, sometimes four evenings a week. Tony and I wrote the music for the album, with the exception of one song that Tony and Craig had written 40 years ago that seemed to fit the album. Tony and I would work out the musical structure of the song, write the lyrics, determine tempo, lay down foundation tracks of drums, keyboards, guitars, bass and other interesting solo instruments.

It took a lot of time as I was busy learning to be an audio engineer as we went, adding software, microphones, etc., as we went. When we were happy with what we had, we called in our professional drummer, someone much better than me, and recorded those tracks. We also had a bass guitar player for the album that Tony had found in a club one evening. Craig would do the big piano and B3 organ parts. Then, usually, the final sessions were the singing with Craig, Tony and I. Then began the mixing. I personally spent enormous amounts of time on this project at night and on the weekends. I'm sure it wouldn't have been as long if I had known what I was doing, but as with any profession it takes education and practical experience. Tony spent a fair amount of time also.

OMC: It's obvious from the sound that a lot of work went into the disc. How hard was it to fit that time into your work schedule?

CF: It was long. It took so long to finish this CD that we had to change the whole concept of the band from "The first group of guys in their 50s to have a top 10 record" to "The first group of guys in their 60s to have a top 10 record." We were all in Milwaukee during this time, so we did everything in Lanny's studio, writing and recording. We even have a special "writing table" down there. And a "beer machine." Put them together and you get a "hit record." We hope. Joe Turano recorded his sax parts at his home in Los Angeles and sent them to us via e-mail, but everyone else recorded in Milwaukee.

TD: It was a major time investment with a major sense of accomplishment.

LH: I could start all over again, make it even better. I have learned a lot. I might even open a studio someday. You can only mix music for several hours at a time as your ears go bad and start to shut out certain frequencies. So, many, many evenings and weekends, pretty much most of a year.