Well, back to my weekly Monday Night Surf music exploration. This week is an interesting promo that I picked up last summer. There is not a lot of information on this group and the nice fake British accent just adds to the mystery. Surf music and British bands were hot stuff in 1965 so I guess it made sense to someone to meld the two. It appears that this group was from Tucsan Arizona and this song is on a Tucsan compilation put out by Dionysus records. I found a website that has speculated that Harry Nilsson was a member of this band. I could not find anything official in any Harry Nilsson biography regarding his membership in the Ric A Shays but it does make sense. In 1963, Harry Nilsson started writing songs with John Marascalco, who was a well known song writer and a producer. I found a reference in the June 5, 1965 Billboard Magazine issue that identified that Atlantic Records had signed a long term deal that John's label Lola would be distributed by Atlantic and the first release would be "Turn On" by the "Ric A Shays". And finally Rockin Records by Jerry Osborne lists Harry Nilsson as a member. Regardless if true or not, this is a nice slice of Surf music so Turn On Govner.
Ric -A- Shays- Turn On