The Schwartz-Fox Blues Crusade

Though believed to have been lost or to only exist in theory, the lone recording by The Schwartz-Fox Blues Crusade featuring Mr. Stress – consisting of Cleveland legends Glenn Schwartz (guitar/vocals), Jimmy Fox (drums), Bill “Mr. Stress” Miller (vocals/harmonica), Tom Kriss (bass), Rich Kriss (guitar/vocals), and Mike Sands (piano) – is finally being released for music fans to savor and enjoy. Taped one Sunday morning in the Spring of 1967, this piece of true Cleveland folklore that grew out of the Sunday jam sessions at the east side’s The Coffeehouse, this recording could be considered a soundtrack for University Circle when it became the center of the underground in Cleveland in the period of 1965 through 1968. Glenn Schwartz, Jimmy Fox, and Tom Kriss were three of the then five members of the James Gang who respectively played lead guitar, drums, and bass. By the spring of 1967 the James Gang were quickly becoming one of the most beloved bands in Cleveland and the surrounding areas. When Schwartz left the James Gang suddenly in late 1967 to eventually join Pacific Gas & Electric, his guitar pupil, Joe Walsh, took over for him and soon led the James Gang to international success. Guitarist Rich Kriss was between being a member of Chuck Bates & The Barons (whose drummer, Steve Nemeth, would go on to local fame as progressive Cleveland radio DJ Doc Nemo) and The Joyful Wisdom, led by the late Dave Griggs who, next to Schwartz and Robert Jr. Lockwood, was considered one of the finest blues guitarists in Cleveland. Blues harpist and vocalist Bill “Mr. Stress” Miller and pianist Mike Sands were members of an up and coming hard Chicago-style blues group called The Mr. Stress Blues Band which had formed in the late summer of 1966 and would soon become a long running Cleveland institution through which such luminaries as Chrissie Hynde, Peter Laughner, and Vito San Filippo would pass through.