"Goat Talk" seems to confirm the record is autobiographical, with references to Solomon's crew of King Krule and Rejjie Snow slotted in among bars about bossmen and five-star Uber trips and lines of coke.
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Top Michigan bands such as the Bossmen, the Ones, and the Woolies played there regularly.
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Richard Allen Wagner (December 14, 1942 – July 30, 2014) was an American rock music guitarist, songwriter and author best known for his work with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, and KISS. He also fronted his own Michigan-based bands, The Frost and The Bossmen.
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In 1967, Jeff Keast left the group after just one year. Keast's parents disapproved of his involvement in rock and roll which they considered "the devil's music." Upon his departure Keast recommended a fellow O'Rafferty Hgh School classmate, Dave Pung, to be his replacement on keyboards. Dick Wagner, who Tonto and the Renegades had befriended on the numerous occasions his band, the Bossmen, and they had played at the Screen.
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They paid Art Schiell, the owner, $15 an hour to use the studios. In the first session, the Bells of Rhymny recorded two original compositions, "She'll Be Back" and "Don't Walk Away". The group returned in the fall of 1966 to record two more original songs called "Rich Man's Woman" and "Now I'm Free". Hoping to release a single, the band took four acetates to Dick Wagner, then a member of the group, the Bossmen.
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After the Canadian government demanded payment for their name, they settled on The Just Us in early 1965. In 1965, the group recorded its lone single, "I Don't Love You" c/w "I Can Tell", for the local Quality Records label. (Some copies list the group as The Ookpiks, some The Sikusis, and some The Just Us). Soon afterwards, Ross and new drummer Al Morrison left to take part in the formation of The Bossmen around singer David Clayton-Thomas.
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Born in Oelwein, Iowa, Wagner grew up in the Owosso, Michigan, area and graduated from Waterford Township high school in 1961. His first band, called the Bossmen, was a favourite in the Detroit area and scored radio play with the Wagner-penned composition "Baby Boy", "You're the Girl for Me" and others. Wagner formed his next band, the Frost, with Donny Hartman, Bobby Rigg and Gordy Garris, in the late 1960s and built up a substantial following in the Michigan area. The band featured the dual lead guitars of Wagner and Hartman.
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Before moving to New York City in 1967, Clayton-Thomas fronted a couple of local bands, first The Shays and then The Bossmen, one of the earliest rock bands with significant jazz influences. But the real success came only a few difficult years later when he joined Blood, Sweat & Tears. Clayton-Thomas's first album with the band, Blood, Sweat & Tears (which was released in December 1968) – despite its eponymous title, it was actually the band's second album – sold ten million copies worldwide. The record topped the Billboard album chart for seven weeks and charted for 109 weeks.
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Clayton-Thomas made his mark more forcibly with his next band, The Bossmen, one of the first rock bands anywhere to include jazz musicians. In 1966 he wrote and performed the R&B-driven; anti-war song "Brainwashed", which became a major Canadian hit, peaking at No. 11 on the national RPM chart. One night in 1966 after "sitting in" with blues singer John Lee Hooker in Yorkville, Clayton-Thomas left with him for New York. They played a Greenwich Village club for a couple of weeks; Hooker then left for Europe and Clayton-Thomas stayed on in New York City.
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When Jackson received his draft notice, he left the band, and Mark Farner replaces him on bass. Six of their nine singles made regional Top 40s throughout Michigan, Ohio and New York, with two of them – "You're a Better Man Than I" (originally by The Yardbirds) and "I (Who Have Nothing)" (a cover of a Ben E. King song) – reaching the national charts. "I (Who Have Nothing)" went to No. 46 and earned the band an appearance on Dick Clark's television program Where the Action Is. In the summer of 1966, Farner leaves the band to go join Dick Wagner’s band, The Bossmen, allowing Jackson to return to the group. Their debut album, Terry Knight and the Pack, was released in 1966.
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