The Surfriders (5)

Kansas City folk group that started as a launching point for the careers of Gene Clark and Mike Crumm (aka Michael Crowley). The Surfriders, like a lot of folk acts at the time, were modeled after the three voices of the Kingston Trio and inspired by Harry Belafonte's calypso music. The group was formed at a small midwestern university with Vic Ehly on bongos and bass fiddle and C.E. Lear on lead vocals and guitar. In September of 1960, Mike Crumm came to the same university and joined on guitar and the trio was formed. The group made pocket money playing at civic clubs and youth groups in small towns and big cities across the Midwest. They were discovered and brought to play at The Castaways Lounge in Kansas City, where their first release, a 7-Inch EP was recorded. Later the same trio recorded a 45 on Kansas City's Brass label which included a Harry Belafonte song. Castaways Lounge was where Gene Clark first saw the group and he was hired as a replacement in 1963, along with Jim Glover. Randy Sparks, the entrepreneur behind The New Christy Minstrels, stopped off at the Castaways to hear The Surfriders and hired all three members of the group. Sparks, a Leavenworth, Kansas native, founded The New Christy Minstrels in 1961 and his idea was to take folk music out of the confines of duos and trios and embrace a large variety-show approach. Sparks picked Clark to go immediately to The New Christy Minstrels. Crumm (Crowley) and Glover, meanwhile, were to go to the Minstrels farm team called the The Back Porch Majority and The Surfriders were no more.