Thomas Dean Eubanks

Thomas Dean was actually Thomas Dean Eubanks, or Tom Eubanks, who had been a member of the bands CHRISTMAS FUTURE and ROCK CITY, both of which consisted of members of the later group BIG STAR, namely Christopher Bell and Jody Stephens. Tom was the co-writer of "My Life Is Right", one of the songs on BIG STAR's #1 Record. This song had actually been recorded almost two years earlier by ROCK CITY, with a very similar sound. In fact, for the BIG STAR version, the piano is Terry Manning's original, and the bass is Tom's original. Chris Bell reworked the ROCK CITY track with new vocals and some new guitars for the BIG STAR release. Terry got together with Tom in 1974 to record the two Privilege songs at Ardent Studios on Madison Avenue. Fred Prouty from the Ardent Record's group THE HOT DOGS was the drummer, Tom played rhythm guitar, and Bill Cunningham of The Box Tops played bass and arranged the saxophones. Bill brought in John Boyd and a couple of other Memphis State University students to play those wacky saxes. Terry Manning played lead guitar and produced and engineered. The record was released with some fanfare, and got plenty of radio play in various parts of the USA in it's first two weeks. But lack of followup, lack of records in stores and lack of proper promotion spelled disaster for chart aspirations. Copies which may exist could be either "store" versions, or "radio promo" versions, which would be marked "D.J. Copy (Not For Sale)". The label artwork used (designed by Terry Manning and Ron Pekar, the artist of the BIG STAR neon star) was the original green tree on white background with blue type. for all 3 releases on Privilege > check website