About Me
MyGen
Profile Generator
The Magnetics were based on Seattle, Washington, and it seems that there were at least FOUR line-ups of this fabulous band.In the late 1970s, Tom Berghan was playing bass guitar with Sunnyland Slim, the great Chicago Blues, pianist. The drummer was Mickey Martin, a blues and jazz musician who had been very active in the 1930s and 1940s with the vocal group "Cats and the Fiddle." Tom brought Mickey (then in his sixties) out to Seattle and put a small jazz quartet together to back up Mickey (piano, guitar, bass and drums). Mickey played the piano and sang, and Tom played the guitar.
This combo was "Mickey Martin and the Magnetics" and they played swing standards.For a time, they became the backup band to Floyd Dixon ("Hey Bartender"), the great Texas Blues pianist. (Mickey switched back to drums during this time). After two years of playing the clubs and having a lot of fun, Mickey wanted to sing in a "big band" setting with lots of horns. Tom, who had been playing blues for years, was becoming more and more interested in Rockabilly. Tom and Mickey parted ways at that time, but they have always remained very close friends.
Tom was rooming with another blues guitarist and 78 blues record collector, Jeff Poskin. Tom asked Jeff if he would like to join his band "The Magnetics" (now without Mickey Martin), and play rockabilly.
Then there was the line-up with Tom Berghan, Freda (Ravenna), Jeff Poskin, Steve Grindle and Arnie Leinonen (on the drums). There were some problems and Arnie left the band just before they recorded for Ronny. Tom Svornich (he's on the "Rockabilly Fools" album) replaced Arnie on the drums. In Tom Berghan's words "he was the most technically trained drummer the band ever had"
Next there was another line-up: Dan Sullivan (slap bass), Darnell Kellman (sax), Freda (vocals), Bob Connole (drums), Richard Hogan (piano) and Tom Berghan (guitar). This was the lineup around their 2nd Rollin' Rock album ("Tennessee & Texas"), which was only distributed in Europe. Tom said to me: "Bob was a natural drummer. I always thought he sounded just like James Eaton from Sun records. Bob had a reverse shuffle that really rocked. He would save it up and then when things got hot he would flip into that and blow the roof off the joint! He was also one of the funniest guys in the world. He would have us in stitches on road trips. He could do the most incredible impressions of people. It was weird!"
The last line-up of the band featured Gregg Keplinger on drums, John Seberg on electric bass, Darnell Kellman on sax, Steve Flynn on piano, Tom Berghan on guitar and Freda.Unfortunately, Ravenna left us much too soon (she passed away in 1996 when she was only 42). All of their material (a couple of LPs and two more extra tracks) were recorded back in the early 80s at Ronny Weiser's studio in Van Nuys, L.A., before Ronny moved to Las Vegas in 1993.
I believe that Jeff Poskin had recorded with Bob Dylan, and wrote some music for movie soundtracks. Steve Flynn, the piano player in the last line-up, is now with "Jr. Cadillac", and has been since the breakup of the Magnetics.(sourced from The Magnetics Page: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/8244/Themagnetic
s.html)
