The Four Epics Still Standing In The Moonlight - After All These Years (CD)

(JMX2) 31 tracks - 8 page booklet
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The 4-Epics got together in South Philly in the early part of 1959. The original group consisted of Jack McKnight-Tenor, Jim Mullen-Baritone, Mickey Neil-2nd Tenor and Bobby Riccobene-Bass. This line up lasted for three years until 1962. Bobby and Jack pretty much were the group's writers with Jack also being the musical arranger. We all could sing lead and many times we would switch parts depending on the material we were working on. Jack would team up with James Garson and Tom "Giggy" Digilio to  write most of the group's material through out their career.

Our original name was the "Bancrofts", a name we took from Bancroft Street. We cut our first demo, "Wonderful Girl" on 5/13/60 at the Original Recording Workshop before we changed our name to
the "4-Epics". We came up with the name "4-Epics" because our favorite group was the "4-Coins" on the Epic label, so we just took the labels' name.
We were in the studio again on October 26, 1961 to do background for Billy Lynn, a song Jack wrote "Spaceship Blues". It was released on Taba Records and Jack would rewrite the song for Rick & The Masters, "Here Comes Nancy". Billy was the brother of lead singer Rick AKA Tony Trombetta. Less than one month went by and the group entered AMS Sound Studio (partly owned by Artie Singer) to record 3 original tunes penned by Bobby and Jack "Mr. Weather", "Wedding Bells" and the lost tape of "Cabin in the Sky" on November 14; 1961.

Our backup band consisted of Artie Singer, Walt Gates, Al Gorgoni and Bobby Gregg. We were getting very serious and on March 7, 1962 we went back to AMS Sound Studio and record-ed "One Magic Moment", "Summertime Angel", "Girl in The Moonlight" and another song lost, our ver-sion of "Unchained Melody". If any of you Collector's out there happen to have this or any other demo we did, we'd love to hear from you. It was about this time that Bobby left the group and was replaced by Ritchie Lalli. This line up stayed together from 1962 to 1967. A local band called the Wanderer's backed us up.

Our fortunes changed when we met Jerry Ross. On 8/28/62 he took us into Bell Sound Studio where we recorded our first release "I'm On My Way" b/w "When The Music Ends" which Jerry released on his own Heritage label. We also did another version of "Girl In The Moonlight". We went back into Bell Sound Studios two more times, 12/28/62 and 1/3/63 (for over dubs) recording "Again", "(I Love You) Diane" and the "Sad One". On 3/26/63 in Frank Virtures Studio we recorded "Dance JoAnne", "How I Wish That I Was Single Again", (The Lost) "Mama's Boy", Jerry must have this somewhere, "For The First Time" and "Cover Girl". These sessions resulted in our two Laurie Record releases. As we continued to record material under Jerry Ross' supervision, "Congratulations to Someone", "My Future Just Passed" and "Tammy Ann" to mention a few, we would not only go through another personnel change but a group name change as well. This happened twice.From 1967 to 1969, George Daly and the ever-popular Johnny Greco of "Rocket Ride" fame replaced Ritchie and Mickey. The group would record and release one extremely rare 45 with Johnny on lead under the name Tony French "You Can't Measure Our Love" and "My Girl Valentine".

The group would go through personnel changes and from 1970 to 1972 Bobby "Buzzy" Shearin and Tony "Barney" Barbella replaced the 2 newest members. This group for one release on Swan Records became The Vespers. In 1972 the group was able to place an older master (from 1965) with Wand Records, a division of Scepter (the label made popular by the Shirelles) "M and M" and the medley of "Silhouettes/You Cheated You Lied" was released under the groups' new name "Exodus". The group would record, also as Exodus for Jamie Guyden Records. A 4 Seasons Medley was released with the groups "Zing/Tonight Could Be The Night" Medley on the B side featured here on this CD.

Also as Exodus they would record and release an album from which a single "You've Got Your Troubles" was released. In the early 80's an album on the 4 Epics was released for us by our friends at Crystal Ball Records. Throughout our career we were fortunate enough to do a lot of background work for Cameo/Parkway Records, Swan Records and for our producer Jerry Ross. We backed up such artists as Chubby Checker, The Dovells, Little Joey & The Flips, Mark Valentino, Rick & The Masters, Billy Lynn and Freddie Cannon to mention a few.

On our package we represent this period with "That's The Way Girls Are" with Freddie Cannon. We basically became the Dreamlovers when the group broke up and our manager took the Dreamlovers lead singer, Donald Hogen and the group's bass and put us together recording such tunes as "Amazons & Coyotes", "Together", "Mother", "Oh Baby Mine", "Calling Joan" and "These Will Be The Good Old Days". Jack and I had a terrible time trying to locate most of our material. With the help of some collector friends we were able to come up with the material necessary to release this CD of our group's history.

As youngster's we never thought much of what we were doing or the importance it might have in the years to come. Not only didn't we save our material, the material we kept wasn't kept in good condition. Although we felt some material was not clean enough for release, after discussions with fellow record collectors, due to the historic significance of the material we decided to release it for your enjoyment. This package now completes our groups history with almost 85% of our material being made available, most for the very first time.

The Four Epics (4-Epics)

US Vocal Group from Philadelphia

The Four Epics sang for Laurie and Cameo Records. They also did work at Heritage Records in New York.

At Cameo they were the label's backup group, performing behind Chubby Checker, The Dovells, The Dreamlover, and others.

(Mitch Rosalsky)