The Ravens: History

The Ravens History: 1964
by John Anthony

The beginnings of the group that became The Ravens started in the summer of 1963 in New Fairfield, CT. For me it began one day when I heard electric guitars playing across the road from our home. I followed the sound up to the top of what's called Joyce Hill and found a band playing outside a house. I was happy to find that I knew one of the guys from school, the drummer, Jeff Annunziata.

The band, called the Delray's was made up of Jeff, his brother Bob, Jay Beck and Hans Hirshauer. Every time I heard the band practicing at Hans' house, I made my way up Joyce Hill and listened intently. Hans sensed my zeal for their music and took me under his wing. He got me started playing chords on an old guitar. I practiced hard, got pretty good and was invited to join the band that fall when Jay left the group.

The Tor-Ks Are Born

We changed the band name to the Tor-Ks and played local jobs that went well. We played mostly instrumentals by groups like The Ventures, The Chantays, and The Pyramids. We also started doing songs with lots of vocals by a new band from England called The Beatles!

Hans was from the Bronx and came up summers to the Candlewood Lake area of New Fairfield, CT, like many New Yorkers did. Over the fall and winter we played gigs when Hans came up and kept on playing through the summer of 1964.

We had three guitar players and needed a bass player. We drew straws and I won, or lost, depending on your viewpoint. I bought a new Fender Jazz bass at Manny's in NYC and was soon adding some bottom to our sound.

Hans had to go back and stay in the city at the summer's end and Bob wasn't keen on playing much anymore. Jeff and I wanted to keep playing and began searching for a rhythm guitar player and lead guitar player. Soon after that we found and teamed up with Richie O'Connor and Les Brent who were also band-less at the time.

We Become The Ravens

We played together for the first time in Jeff's garage in Candlewood Hills. It was apparent from the outset that we jelled well together. Soon we were practicing regularly. We settled on a name for the group and The Ravens took flight.

The British Invasion that began with The Beatles in February was in full swing and provided an ample supply of great songs to learn and play! Seemed like everyone liked the English music. We played and sang well which made us recognizable among local area bands.

Bert Clark who was our age, became our manager. Toward the end of the year Les decided he wanted to move on. It came down to a mismatch in goals and we all moved on without hard feelings.

Bert found a great replacement in Bruce Boege who had just been let go by the Blue Beats from Ridgefield. Bruce was an excellent lead guitar player and singer. With his arrival our ability to do harmony expanded and singing became a bigger part of our sound. All the better to do the great harmony-packed songs that came out as fast as we could learn them.

The Ravens Head South

Not sure where this idea came from but we decided to drive to Florida between Christmas and New Years and see if we could find a place to play. After 24 hours of straight driving we hit Daytona Beach. We got out and weren't on the street a minute before the police stopped us and wanted to know who we were and what we were doing.

We all had long hair which was not common on men at the time and it made us look very out of place. We explained we were a band from up north, which immediately won us more popularity points. However, after showing some band photos and our IDs the police let us go.

Bert found us a couple nights work playing at a night spot called The Bikini Club. We earned just enough to cover our trip expenses and made it back just in time to play a New Year's Eve job!

Go To: 1965