Tuesday, August 3, 2004
By KATIE ORLOFF / The Press-Enterprise
In 1969 these boys from San Bernardino loved to play music.
They called themselves Lil' Lavair & the Fabulous Jades. They played weddings and other events. They won local Battle of the Bands contests. They cut a single and dreamed of making it rich.
Today they've scattered. They include two school district superintendents, a retired hospital manager, a casino technician, a rabbi and a corrections officer.
But they're more than that. They're classic funk. And for a long time they didn't even realize it.
The Fabulous Jades broke up in about 1970, after their record didn't take off and band members started to pursue other interests.
But the funk movement continued to grow. Unbeknownst to them, their record had gained momentum in the United Kingdom's funk scene. By the late 90s, it had reached the play list at a popular London nightclub, according to Now-Again Records, a company that re-released the group's song, "Cold Heat," last year.
Monday, a label manager with Stones Throw, Now-Again's parent company, met with seven band members at the Radisson Hotel in downtown San Bernardino to hear their story and pitch the idea of possibly including "Cold Heat" on a future funk compilation album.
For many of the Fabulous Jades members, it was the first time they'd seen each other in about 30 years. They laughed as they talked about not knowing their music had taken off.
"All your life, you're going about your business an you think you're accomplishing things. This comes back and pops up," said Ralph Payan, 65, a retired manager at Patton State Hospital. "This is like icing on the cake."
They remember how young they were. Most were in their teens when the band started in the early 60s. Some were younger.
Some – like Dennis Byas, today the superintendent of the Colton Joint Unified School District – played their horns in the Pacific High School Marching Band.
Others were simply music fans. Dwight White, today a rabbi at the Church of Yahweh in San Bernardino, remembers boasting that he could dance like James Brown and that his brother, Delbert, could sing like him.
Delbert eventually was given the name Lil' Lavair and became the lead singer.
Early on, they made about $7 or $8 each for playing events, weddings and corporate parties. They got popular in the Inland Empire music scene, which they said had a lot of funk and soul bands then.
Eventually they started pulling in $100 each for a show. They played at a club owned by Frank Sinatra in Palm Springs. They had a manager, who bought a van and painted their name on it. They'd thought they'd made it big.
When they cut the album, they convinced themselves they would earn $50,000 each for the effort. But no one remembers where the figure came from.
They didn't get the $50,000, though Byas remembers a royalties check for 37 cents. But on Monday they got admiration.
Eothen Alapatt, the record label manager, said he was considering posting signs around town to try to flush out the Fabulous Jades until a member contacted him. "Cold Heat," he said, packs all the elements of funk into a single, three-minute song.
"You guys were creating one of the pinnacles of it," Alapatt said.
This article appeared in the Inland Southern California Press-Enterprise, August 3, 2004. Reach Katie Orloff at (909) 806-3054 or korloff@pe.com.
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