Joe Walsh's Measles on the Kent State Commons Back in 1966

By Jason Prufer

I have been researching and writing about the legends, icons and rockers who have graced the soils of Kent, Ohio for quite some time now and one of the biggest challenges in compiling these stories was nailing down some kind of real piece about legendary rock & roller Joe Walsh. In an earlier piece I put together, I documented all known prime-sourced material dealing with Joe Walsh in Kent (which you can read here) but for my own writings I had yet to really be able to put together an authentic story about the man.

What triggered this specific story was several months ago I was working with local artist, archivist and entertainer Richard (Ritch) Underwood on a digitization project dealing with many of his long unseen slides and photographs. I've never in my life encountered such an awesome collection of authentic images showing the likes of Paul Simon, Carrie Fisher, Steve Martin, Bryan Ferry, Stephen Stills, Chuck Berry, Diana Ross and like 1000 other major stars that Ritch had encountered and photographed over his lifetime. While leafing through an old photo album dealing with his early days in Kent I stumbled upon a set of 5 photos with a date stamp of October 1966 showing a really young Joe Walsh performing outdoors for some kind of daytime performance at Kent State.

I asked Ritch, "What are these?" and he responded, "Oh, those are photos I took up at KSU of Joe Walsh's first serious band, the Measles, just before I joined." I had to know more. What did Ritch remember about taking these pictures? How did Ritch know Joe Walsh? How was this gig booked? How long had the Measles been together when the photo was taken? What songs were they playing on this day? Ritch was more than happy to answer my questions and this is what he told me about that day, his photography, the Measles and his friendship with Joe Walsh:

--

Richard Underwood --

"All through the years and ever since I started playing in bands I always took pictures. When I moved out here to the Kent area in 1965 is when I really got into it and I just liked documenting the daily things that you go through. What I've noticed from getting back in touch with all of my old friends through Facebook is that aside from myself, not a lot of people really took the time to document and catalog photographs like I have done through the years. Photography back in the 1960s was a lot different than today. Most people didn't really carry cameras around. And if you did have a camera you could only get like 12 pictures on a roll plus there was processing, printing and whatnot.

The Measles facing the old University Commons behind the
Engleman Hall dormitory at Kent State in the fall of 1966.
From left to right: Bobby Sepulveda, Buddy Bennett,
Joe Walsh, and Larry Lewis. Photo by Richard Underwood.

"These photos are just like a diary entry to me. What I did that day – I have to give you some set-up to really give you the reason why I went up to Kent State to take these pictures where you see Joe Walsh playing with the Measles. At the time I took those photos I was in the process of changing bands and I was with a group called the Styx (not that Styx.) We were the house band at JB's and we started down there in March of 1966 and by this fall here, I was getting some draft notices and things were starting to get iffy with me musically. I didn't know if I was going to be playing in bands or if I was going to be in the service and in the midst of all that I was also a student at KSU.

"Back in this time, after the gigs at JB's and the Fifth Quarter the different members of the different bands would all meet up at Lujan's (which is now Rocknes on East Main) for coffee or a sandwich or something and just talk and share ideas. Often times we talked about what was going on with the different bands or the ins and the outs of the business at the time.

"I think by this time both the Measles and the Styx were playing at the Fifth Quarter. Originally my band the Styx was the house band at JB's and the reason we went up to the Fifth Quarter is because we had an offer from them to play for more money and Joe Bujack who ran JB's just blew it off because even though we played to a packed room every night he didn't care. He just thought it didn't matter what band he had in there because he was still going to pack the club every night and in those days he was right. Back then everybody was doing extremely well. During that period lots of people went out to hear bands all the time.

The Measles facing the old University Commons behind the
Engleman Hall dormitory at Kent State in the fall of 1966.
From left to right: Bobby Sepulveda, Larry Lewis,
Buddy Bennett and Joe Walsh. Photo by Richard Underwood.

"So as we're all meeting up at Lujan's on one of these nights, I was talking to Joe Walsh and I had mentioned that I had planned on leaving the Styx. So because of this, the Measles were talking about having me come into their band – I remember Joe Basile was kind of like their manager or booker or whatever – he kind of handled the band and he asked me if I would consider joining. At the time I did really like the Measles mostly because I really liked Joe Walsh – ya know he was an excellent guitar player. For that period of time and up to that point he was one of the best guitarists that I'd seen outside of some professional acts. Also the Measles were our competition so I figured if I joined them there would be no more competition.

"So the reason I was up at this outdoor campus gig was just to get familiar with some of these songs that they were playing plus just to get some pictures of them in an atmosphere where it was away from the club where I didn't have to use a flash. The only camera that I had at that time was an Instamatic. It wasn't a really good low-light camera so I figured I could get some nice shots outside. There wasn't even any kind of big crowd there or anything. It was just some mingling. Just kids hanging around and stuff like around the lunch hour and the band was playing. I can remember distinctly that day they played 'Drive My Car' and they probably played 'Under My Thumb', 'Good Lovin',' pop songs. Just probably whatever was out in 1966.

"The reason I was asked to join the band was because they needed a lead guitar player for when Joe played keyboards and you can see in these photos Joe is playing keys. They had Larry who was a great rhythm guitarist but he wasn't really a lead player. Plus at that time the Yardbirds were a really big band and there were some songs that we did where we did a similar two-guitar thing.

"When I first met Joe, he was an extremely good player. There's a lot of stories out there that he only learned to play when he got to Kent State and all this stuff – that is incorrect he was a good player before he ever even showed up around here.

"But like I said I was out there checking them out to get a grip on what tunes they were playing plus I wanted to see how they were playing. I was also listening to see how another guitar player could fit in. If I play with another guitar player I don't want to be playing exactly what he is playing which is what I see with a lot of bands. I want to be able to play something different that compliments. That's what made the Beatles so great. They really complimented each other on guitars not just their voices. For being untrained musicians they were incredible and Joe and I both loved The Beatles. The Measles were an extremely good harmony band too. Joe, Larry and Bobby sang extremely well together. Buddy who was the drummer didn't sing in the band but when I came in it added another voice to the group.

"The one thing most longtime musicians will recognize in these photos is the Farfisa mini compact organ that Joe is playing. That was the kind of keyboard that everybody started with. Also you can see the Fender amplifiers in this picture. Those were Showman amplifiers which were the biggest Fender amplifiers that were out at the time. The speaker cabinet behind Joe in the pic where he is sitting behind the organ was made by Joe Basile of Basile Sound and they were labeled Supermeasles like the Superbeatle amps. Joe Basile built those cabinets which I think had a bunch of 8-inch speakers in them or something. They were neat to look at but they weren't much to play through. They actually weren't that great of a speaker.

"PA systems in this time for most bands were Bogan PA Systems with fiberglass horns on poles. They had no bass bins or mixers or sound people – really basic systems. The only thing going out on the PA's are the voices which is why you needed bigger amplifiers for outside because they needed to carry that sound of the instruments – which is actually why a lot of those groups pushed to get bigger amps because as you will notice now, a lot of bands have those smaller compact amps because PA systems have improved so much since 1966.

Rephotograph of the Measles facing the old University Commons behind
the Engleman Hall dormitory at Kent State in the fall of 1966.
From left to right: Bobby Sepulveda, Larry Lewis,  Buddy Bennett and
Joe Walsh. Photo by Richard Underwood. March 2014 photo by Jason Prufer.

"Even though when I took these photos I was not in the band I was still really good friends with Joe Walsh. We used to hang out and play guitar together wherever we would happen to be. We played guitar and worked on tunes at the Fifth Quarter, and sometimes over at my house in Stow. We used to actually play guitars together right down the road from JB's on this little ledge on North Water Street. The building is still there, I think it's an insurance office now. I remember we sat out there a couple times just playing guitar.

"My previous band the Majestics and then later the Styx were pretty much like Animal House when we played JB's. We would never just stand up there like statues and play, we would climb up on the speaker cabinets and walk out into the crowd and do what-the-hell ever. The Styx were just about having fun. The Measles was different. The Measles was pretty much straight laced – we weren't fooling around though Joe Walsh towards the end started to show a little more showmanship. When I joined the Measles it added another level of audience communication which I brought with me from the Styx. One of the things I brought to the band was that I would change the words to songs and make up stories. For example we used to play 'Gloria' and I would always change the song so it was about Gloria getting laid. I'll never forget that it was after this that Joe Walsh added this bit with a story about a king and his daughter's fiancé where he would take a glass of water and pour it on himself because he was told by the king to never drink from the opposite side of the glass.

March 2014 wide shot of the old University Commons
at Kent State showing where Joe Walsh and the Measles
performed 48 years prior. Engleman Hall at the center
and Oscar Ritchie Hall at the left. Back in 1966
Oscar Ritchie Hall was the Student Union.
Photo by Jason Prufer.

"This period wasn't all fun and games. When we were playing places there were constant fights. A lot of it you were aware of and a lot of it you weren't aware of because you were playing. But it was the jocks and the longhairs. Go back to those photos of the band on campus. You don't see long hair on Larry and you don't see long hair on Bobby. Joe has the longest hair in the photo. When we were playing, the bands would have the hair a little longer but the crowd would come in with those buzz cuts. Those jocks would just start fights with people. Just over bullshit about nothing.

"I was probably a full-time member and playing gigs with the group only a week or so after I took these photos and by the following March (1967) -- just like 5 months later the original group broke up. I ended up briefly joining a Cleveland group called the Selective Service but by the end of May 1967 I had joined the Navy.

"Joe Walsh left the Measles because he wanted to do more like a blues thing which I thought was weird because the next thing he did was some filling in with the Chancellors who were a pop band. It's also during this post-Measles period where you see Joe playing with the Goldthwaites out at The Barn and when you see me, Joe, Don Goldthwaite and Gary Slama performing in the Richard Myers film Akran – that material from the Gerry Simon photos. That was just a month or two after the March 1967 breakup of the Measles. Though after the original Measles broke up things get a little hazy as far as what happened when.

Fall 1966 photo showing Joe Walsh handling
his Guild Starfire V guitar with
the Measles at Kent State.
Photo by Richard Underwood.

"I remember when I was taking those pictures that I was thinking that this was a really good band. Larry, Joe and Bobby were just good singers. Bobby and Larry were the main singers though. Joe sang on some tunes but he wasn't like a--ya know how Joe's voice is. He was never any kind of great singer but he made songs fit the style of his voice which is what made him for years. I think that's what actually brought him out with the James Gang.

"Looking closer into those photos it looks like Larry is playing a Rickenbacher 360. That guitar was basically like Roger McGuinn's from the Byrds only Larry's was a six-string. That was originally Joe Walsh's guitar but by the time of this gig Joe was playing a Guild Starfire V. Larry originally had an old Gibson gold top which I'd die to have now because it's a really collectible old instrument. Bobby got the short end of the stick on all this stuff because where does that bass come from? It kind of looks cool but it was horrible. It was like a Japanese bass and I think it was called a Cl
ara bass. Just a crap thing.

"When I take pictures of bands I am always thinking about how to take the right shot so I make sure nobody has a microphone in front of their face and I make sure the person is looking towards the camera. Like a real picture. If you look at the photos I mostly have all four of them in it and I'm just trying to move around to get some different angles of those four people. You can see the Measle van behind them in the back and you can also see that Joe is playing basically straight through to his amplifier with one of those Maestro Fuzztones which was one of the first fuzztones that came out. Those things were great for songs like 'Satisfaction.' They give you a great attack but they had no sustain. The device that came out after that was a Fuzz Face. That's what Jimi Hendrix and that crowd used. That's another reason I was out there – to see what kind of equipment they used. What's great about these photos is that very few people have ever seen Joe Walsh pre-James Gang because even in the James Gang he mostly played guitar. The band is basically playing with a wall of amplifiers behind them which is really pretty amazing for that period.

Early 1967 photo of The Measles at the KSU Airport.
From left to right: Buddy Bennett, Richard Underwood,
Joe Walsh, Bobby Sepulveda and Larry Lewis.
Photo from the Richard Underwood archives.

"So later Joe made it with the James Gang and later with the Eagles and it's like 'hey man, we played together in this band.' It's so cool to have been able to work with somebody who became so famous like that. To this day it was an honor to have played with that guy.

"When you are talking about this era right here, 1965-1975, you're talking to me about one of the best. There were bands everywhere. Every place had live bands and the best thing was that students supported all of this. A big help too was that you could drink and get into these bars when you were 18. That helped immensely put people in those clubs.

"We were having a good time and life was good. I was making steady money, we had crowds every night and the Measles had crowds every night. It was just a great time period. Plus the musicians that came out of this like Joe Walsh, Chrissie Hynde and DEVO. It was probably happening all over the place but what made Kent different was just because of the exposure here and the venues that were available for people to come to. Kent was just a great place back then and getting to see so much live music in so many different venues in town is why I enjoyed that era so much."

---

At the end of our conversation, Ritch told me I needed to contact Larry Lewis if I wanted any more insight on what happened that day. Larry is shown in the outdoor photos wearing blue jeans, a white striped shirt and playing the Rickenbacker guitar. 

Larry is originally from the Kent area but after he joined the Navy at the age of 19 in 1968 he ended up in Groton, Connecticut and has lived there ever since. When I got a hold of him he was more than happy to tell me about what he remembered from that 1966 day on the University Commons and a lot more dealing with the Measles, the old Kent music scene and Joe Walsh. This is what he told me:

Larry Lewis -- 

"At the time of the formation of the group which was in late 1965 I would have been in my junior year at Field High School but when those pictures were taken in the fall of 1966 (that accompany this article) I was in my senior year since I graduated in 1967.

"The way that I became a part of the Measles goes back to the band that I was in before the Measles called The Embers and because of guys going into the military and whatnot, bands were breaking up all the time. So because of this The Embers split up and one day I got a call from Chas Madonio and he said there were a couple guys at Kent State that wanted to get together and get a band going and he knew that I was available. Because I knew Chas from the circuit of playing I said sure. So we met at Kent State in the old Student Union in the garbage room just off from the cafeteria and that’s when I met Joe Walsh and Buddy Bennett. They knew one another from school and I think they had met at maybe some audition for maybe some other band or something and they just decided to start their own band. Or something like that. I don’t really know the history of how Joe and Buddy knew each other but they had decided that they wanted to form this band.

"So anyway I met Joe and Buddy there and of course Chas was there and Chas was playing bass and I was playing rhythm guitar and we all hit it off well. We practiced for two or three weeks and then I believe Chas got an offer from one of the other groups to work five nights a week and because he was married and he needed the money he left the group early on. When he left he recommended or somebody else recommended that we go listen to this bass player in this other band up in Ravenna – so we all went to see this guy – and that’s how we got a hold of Bobby Sepulveda.

The Measles facing the old University Commons
behind the Engleman Hall dormitory at Kent State in
the fall of 1966. From left to right Bobby Sepulveda,
Larry Lewis,  Buddy Bennett, and Joe Walsh
(on keys.) Note the Larry Lewis and Joe Walsh
interaction. Photo by Richard Underwood.

"The Measles was a pretty serious band though I don't recall any thoughts about being the biggest band in the world but what I wanted to do was just like most all the musicians there in Kent – of which there was fierce competition – we just wanted to work. 

"It was clear from the very beginning though that we had a very particular sound and we were quite good together as a group. Our harmonies were far better than any we'd heard before and we just melded together. So early on we knew that we were quite good but our ambitions were no more than anybody else. We just wanted to work and we got some good breaks and we had some bad breaks. 

"But I'll tell you something else as well. After I'd been playing with Joe for about a year or so I knew that this man was gonna do something because he had to be the finest guitar player I had ever seen and he had a good business sense as well. So I knew Joe was gonna make it. I didn't know if the rest of us were gonna make it but I knew that he would make it.

"I remember being at Kent State for this gig that Ritch photographed and what I mostly remember is that stage. If you look at it, there's barely enough room to walk around. You could only just stand there. You couldn't take a step one way or the other. As soon as I saw the photo I said 'Oh god I remember that, I was so scared of falling off the damn thing.' I can't give you any particulars about it but I remember that day and I especially remember thinking 'you expect us to put all of our equipment on here?' And if you look you can see some of the equipment is even hanging off the side. The amplifiers don't even fit up there. 

"I am not sure how this gig would have been booked. We didn't really pick up anybody to manage us for a while. This may have been something that – because we rehearsed at Kent State and a lot of people knew us around there it could have just been that this got booked because of word of mouth about us by the organizers. They may have just thought 'let's get the Measles.' Really though I don't recall how this came about.

The Measles facing the old University Commons
behind the Engleman Hall dormitory at Kent State in the
fall of 1966. From left to right Bobby Sepulveda,
Larry Lewis, Joe Walsh (on keys,) and Buddy
Bennett. Photo by Richard Underwood.

"I remember a lot about three of the guitars I had from this time period but I don't remember much about that Rickenbacker you see in the photo. I didn't have it for more than maybe about six months and I finally bought and had for two or three years before we broke up a Gretsch Tennessean that I just loved. That was the guitar I ended up with before I went into the Navy. Just before I left though, I sold it off and bought an acoustic. 

"In the photos, do you see that van behind the band? That's our van that we eventually got and that's what we rode around in – much like the stories of the Beatles – all piled on top of one another riding from gig to gig. Also look at those amplifiers we are using. This has got to be well into our playing days because we didn't start off with all this equipment. We had been playing together for quite a while – and when I say quite a while I am saying at least a year, year and a half because in the early days we didn't have this much equipment and we certainly didn't have the van. 

"If you look at the photo that is front on, you see that big amplifier? The big one to the right there with the 'JBL Measles'? That's Joe Basile. He was in the business of building electronics like that and he built those amplifiers for us. So I know another reason that we are well into our career here because Joe Basile ended up being our manager and he's probably managing us at this time because he built that piece of equipment. I think JBL is Joe Basile Limited or something like that. He actually made one bigger than that and called it a Super Measle because the Beatles had the Super Beatle amplifier so we had a Super Measle and it was huge and it was the one Bobby used for his bass. It was bigger than Bobby. 

"We actually became pretty popular and one of our biggest achievements was being one of the resident bands playing to big crowds at the Fifth Quarter over on Depeyster Street in Kent. That place was packed all the time when we were there. We really enjoyed that. I also got a taste of being on the road with this band. We did this tour once that was about 20 shows in 16 different cities over 20 days. The tour was over all Ohio, southern Ohio and into Pennsylvania a bit and I really didn't like that life. I didn't like it at all. We'd play then we'd drive through the night then we'd get a room and we'd sleep till mid-afternoon and then we'd show up for soundcheck. Then we'd go and get dinner and then we'd do the show and break down and do it over again. It was just that, over and over and over and I just don't know if I was cut out for that. I'm sure for successful groups it's a little bit easier but still it's a grind to be out on the road and playing. I'm much happier just recording in the studio which is what I do now.

Circa 1966 photo of the Fifth Quarter on South
Depeyster Street in Kent. This is the current site
of Bricco. Photo by Richard Underwood.

"The Measles was pretty much a top 40 kind of group. We played what was popular. We played an awful lot of Beatles. We did some Lovin’ Spoonful and we did some Rascals. There were specific songs that I enjoyed playing. We did the Beatles 'You're Gonna Lose that Girl.' That was one that we did very well and that most people requested over and over.

"I remember one time we were playing at some big thing and one of the huge radio DJs – Bob Ansell or something like that – I remember him getting up and saying something about our ability to recreate the sounds of the Beatles and the harmonies and being exact. Of course I never played lead guitar but occasionally Joe would let me play something and we used to do 'Mustang Sally' and I would do the little guitar riffs in that. And we did some classical stuff – we did 'On Broadway.'  We also did a couple of Smokey Robinson tunes with nice smooth harmonies. But again it was mostly top 40. We played what was popular and we played it well. 

"Certainly Ritch Underwood would have the specifics on these photos and also the specifics about him getting hired into the band a lot better than I would but I do remember a conversation that Joe had with the group and we all sat down and discussed it. Joe felt that we needed to expand our sound a little bit and he was very interested in playing keyboard. He didn't want to always play guitar but he didn't expect me to jump in and play lead guitar because I wasn't a lead guitar player. I prided myself on playing excellent rhythm. But he wanted to play more keyboard and get a different sound for the group and just expand a little bit. I remember Joe saying to us 'what do you think about us bringing in another guitar player?' and I just went along with it. I said fine. No big deal to me. But that's about all I remember – because Joe started playing keyboard a bit in certain songs that we did. And with the advancement at that time of all the synthesized sounds you could get on a keyboard, it did create a lot more sound for us because as time was going by we wanted to explore some more musical depth. But I don't recall any specifics and I don't recall the first day that Ritch came in or how much rehearsal we had but Ritch did come in and was with us for a while.

"Having grown up in the area I would say that band’s like the Measles and the Styx represented the first generation of any kind of band scene in Kent. That I can remember there were no bands locally until the Beatles and they don't show up till 1964. Before then – the first group that I was in, we just played Ventures – ya know instrumentals. And then people started forming little groups right after the Beatles invaded America. That's what caused the band scene in the area was the influx of the British groups. Man they just started popping up everywhere in Kent. Everywhere you turned there was great great talent. And ya know being a university town there was certainly plenty of people to play for and everybody was hopped up on rock & roll. It was a great time to be a young musician, I'll tell you that. 

Circa 1966 photo showing lines to get into both
JB's and the Kent Kove on North Water Street.
Photo by Gerry Simon.

"Ya know I do not have a single recording or photo from that time other than what has been put out there on the Internet like Ritch's Facebook posts and the likes. At that time I was in the band I didn't think that was important to document and now I regret it very much that I don't have some sort of an arsenal of photos and recordings.

"I have a lot of memories of Joe Walsh from those days and that’s because Joe and I were probably the closest. We spent a lot of time together and Joe started drug use very early on. He was dropping acid pretty regularly and some nights we'd be out playing and he was high on acid and he'd go on a guitar riff and just keep goin' and goin' and goin' and I remember very specifically one night coming home from a gig in my car and he and I were stopped at a railroad crossing and when I put my parking break on the little light would flash on my dash. I remember he just leaned over and just got into that light and was goin' 'wow that's great' and he's looking at the flashing lights of the train and the crossing lights going up. And I told him 'get the hell back over there and sit back and relax.' because he really – it started early in his life – this drug business. Later in life he nearly died from drugs and he's drug free today but drugs and alcohol used to be a big part of his life. But I've said it before and I'll say it again. He's the finest guitar player I had ever seen. His command of the finger board is just amazing and look in the photos. Look how big the mans hands are. Seems like he could wrap his fingers around the neck twice. Joe was a good guy, he was talented I respected him a lot. He had a good head for business. He was a lot of fun and he was a crazy bastard. 
 
"I'll tell you one incident. We were traveling somewhere and we stopped at like a Denny's or something to have lunch and he says 'Hey, let's pretend that I'm blind' so he puts on dark sunglasses and we go into this place and so for the whole meal he's pretending like he's blind. So the waitresses are bringing him out pudding or something and he's pounding the table acting like he's trying to find it and he splats it all over the table. Later you can read about all the horrible things he did to hotel rooms with chainsaws and stuff like that. But he was a bit of a crazy bastard even way back then and he was a good guy and we were good friends. I was really proud when he became successful because he deserved it because of his talent. 

"After that first band broke up I saw him a couple of times in and out from the Navy and that sort of thing for the next couple of years when I was back home but then I didn't see him for 20 or 25 years until he came and performed at Foxwoods here in Connecticut in early 2001. I knew the guy who was head of entertainment there and I said to him 'when Walsh's people contact you, give him my number and ask him to call me' and some time later his road manager called me and I went up to see him. I went to the dressing room and we spent about a half hour with each other before the show and reminisced and it was great to see him. Before that I probably hadn’t see him since the early to mid-70s. 

"The first thing he said to me when I walked in was 'you got a hug for an old friend?' And we had this big hug and when we broke from that hug he looked at me and wiggled his nose and ears. And I said 'I can't believe that you remember that.' Back when we were in the Measles and we would be singing harmonies and the two of us would be in on one mic he would try to wiggle his ears and nose and try to crack me up. So when we met after all these years he tried to do that again and I thought that was a nice thing for him to do. Ya know, what do you say to somebody you haven't seen for almost 30 years. And the success that he had – I told him that I played a little bit of guitar still and that I was never in another group again. I asked him if he had still been in touch with certain people over the years. It's hard to relate when the last time you ever saw each other was when you were teenagers. In 2001 I was 52 years old. That was a long time ago. 

"Joe has never forgotten me or the Measles though. Those guys have tried over the years to have a reunion with us and I remember Buddy or Bobby telling me that Joe always insists that he won't even think about it unless I am going to be there. That's nice for him to say that. Maybe someday when I get back to Kent we can all get back together. 

(taking one last look at the photo) "Well we were awfully thin at the time weren't we? We're all playing a barred D chord so I can't imagine which song we're playing. I'll tell you what though, this picture of the front-on shot of us is one of the best photos from back then I've ever seen. It's a great shot."

---

At the end of my conversation with Larry he said that I really needed to talk to Bobby Sepulveda who is shown playing bass in these photos. Larry then gave me his email and after a few back-and-forths, Bobby accepted my request for an interview.

Bobby has actually never stopped performing live music since his days with the Measles and currently can be heard singing on select Tuesday evenings at the Water Street Tavern in Kent with Danjo Jazz Orchestra. He’s quite the firecracker and one of the most enthusiastic persons I have ever met. This is what he told me about those photos and about his days playing with Joe Walsh and the Measles:

Bobby Sepulveda --

"I've been singing for over 50 years – since 1958. For a very long time my philosophy for live performance was to play the top 40. Play what the kids wanna hear – what the kids listen to on the radio – keep current. I've done that ever since about 1964 which was when the Beatles really hit. That’s really when I started in a band. I was always lucky that I always played dance music and everyone enjoyed that and I did that all the way up to the mid-90s which was when things fizzled out completely for my band so since then I've just been jamming with different people and doing recordings at my house. 

"The way I came about being in the Measles was that back in September/October of 1965 I was playing with a group on a Saturday night right above where Woodsy’s music is now. There was a college event going on there and I was like 18 years old. There was a hall up there back then where they used to host parties. I don’t know what’s up there now – maybe apartments? But anyway there was just this party we were doing for one of the freshman classes or something and there were a lot of kids around – I was playing bass and as I was playing bass I was singing too. Back then I didn't know any bass players that could sing and play at the same time. It was just a gift I had. I could do it. So we were playing our first set and in about the middle of that I looked out and I could see these two guys watching. It was Joe Walsh and Buddy Bennett. Joe was kneeling down and Buddy was standing behind him and they both had long hair and they were just watching me.

"So I’m playing and playing and these guys are staring at me so I didn't think anything of it but then came a break and when I went to sit down with my girlfriend, Joe and Buddy came over and said ‘wow, we really like the way you play, would you be interested in starting a band?’ and I said 'no. I don’t think so' (laughs) and Joe said ‘ya know I’m from New Jersey – ‘ both Buddy and Joe were Jersey boys and they were telling me that they were freshmen and all that and they wanted to put a band together and I said ‘yeah yeah, I’m in a band, leave me alone.’

"So then I went up to play for the second set – so I get up there and start playing and I look down and there’s Joe and Buddy again and they stood and stared at me that whole set – and I’m just playing and when I finished I remember them saying ‘what can we do to get you to come over and just listen to us? We swear to god if you come' – and I was thinking ‘man I don’t know these guys, I could get mugged.' So they said ‘we’ll meet you on a Sunday up at Kent State at Eastway Center at 12:00pm and there will be people around, you don’t have to worry, we’re not going to mug you, we’re not going to beat you up, we’re not going to steal your guitar’ and I said ‘ok.’

"So I went that Sunday and – I met Larry (Lewis.) I hadn't met him till that day so Joe, Larry and Buddy got their stuff together and they looked at me and said can you sing ‘You’re Going To Lose That Girl’ by The Beatles and I said yeah. I was asked to take the lead and the rest of the band would come in with the harmonies. Buddy then snapped his fingers 4 times and I started singing ‘You’re gonna lose that girl’ and then Walsh and Buddy came in with the harmonies ‘You’re gonna lose that girl’ and then when it came to the middle part ‘I’ll make a point of taking her away from you’ the three part harmonies blended absolutely perfect. Our voices were perfect. The way we sang the lines. When we finished singing the song I was like ‘I’M IN!’ And that was it. That was the beginning of the Measles!

"When I joined the group we didn't have a name. Someone mentioned Robin Hood and the Merry Men and I said 'I’m not going to be a Merry Man.' And then everyone else said ‘well I’m not going to be Robin Hood.’ So we said forget that name. Then I think it was the janitor who came up with or suggested the name The Measles. So that one was going around but I don’t know who made the final decision on that. I've heard people say ‘well the Measles was started before I was there' that may be true but the name didn't come till after I joined

"I do remember this day that the photos (on the KSU Commons) were taken but I hadn't remembered it till I was looking at them and started talking about them. As far as what I remember from this day, not too much but I do remember there weren't too many people out there to see us. We were kind of playing and that’s about it. That was so long ago. There was a bit of a mystery to one of these pics. This one. You can see Joe and Larry looking at each other and I was wondering what they were saying to each other. 

"This performance was probably booked through who we knew at Kent State. We were probably just asked to play out there for like $20 a piece. I was just getting out of high school and those guys were freshmen in college so we could do things like that.

"Right there (referring to the pictures) we were real serious because if you notice we just got new amplifiers. Those are Fenders. And that Measle amp used to be an amp that was made specifically for me and we had three of those. One for Joe, one for Larry and one for me.

"At this time I was living Ravenna, and I remember all of us, we all had an account at Click’s in Kent. It used to be a little shopping place there in Stow/Kent. That was where the band had its own account and I remember we would get $75 a week each for playing and we were playing 2-3 nights a week. Back then, once we got going we were making good money.

"That time period for us, fall 1966, we were doing so much with (Measles manager) Joe Shannon – he’s the one who really helped us a lot. We went from a nobody band to the number 2 band within a few months. The college kids did this poll and the number one group in the area was The Counterpoints who had been around for years and we came in second place and because of this rating we were used as the backup band for all these big acts like the Shirelles, the Vogues, and we even backed up Freddy 'Boom Boom' Cannon.

"I remember one trip we went to Manny's music in New York – it was me, Joe, Buddy and the drummer from the Counterpoints – we took that van you see behind us in that photo. We had just played a gig the night before and that kid from the Counterpoints wanted to drive but he couldn't drive stick. So while we were going down the turnpike on our way to New York we just switched drivers without even stopping the car – got out stood up and he just went in the drivers seat. So he’s driving and me, Joe and Buddy are sleeping on the floor in the back of the van and then I hear ‘hey guys, hey guys’ and Buddy says to me ‘go see what he wants’ and I get up and I tell Joe to go see what he wants since we were going over to Joe's place (laughs.) And I keep hearing ‘hey guys, hey guys’ and none of us wanted to get up because we were all tired. And I hear from the front seat ‘we’re coming to a tunnel’ and I said ‘so what’ and he says ‘and the traffic is stopped and I don’t know how to stop this thing’ and man we jumped up and we whipped him out of there and I think Joe jumped in the drivers seat and stopped the van. That was it. We were awake after that. We were actually on our way to Joe’s parents house on that trip. We spent the night there and we met his Mom and his brother. It was on that trip that we went to Manny’s in New York and we bought some guitars and stuff like that.

"At the time these photos were taken the Beatles were really big and we were playing a lot of their stuff as well as music by the Young Rascals – we did a lot of Rolling Stones, The Mama’s and Papa’s. On this day we probably would have played '19^th Nervous Breakdown,' 'Satisfaction,' we would have done some Yardbirds. We would have played a lot of Beatles because there were a lot of fancy guitar parts that the Beatles did that nobody could do but Joe could do. We did 'And Your Bird Can Sing' and Joe would purposely turn around so you couldn't see what he was doing because all the guitarists would come around and try to see how Joe played. We were doing things that other bands just couldn't do. Joe and Larry would just start putting things together and they would call me and tell me they were doing this and then I would learn the part ya know?

"One time we played at Chippewa Lake Park and there were 20,000 people there. Big concert. And the Young Rascals were there. And we all had quarters where we would sleep and we were bunking with The McCoys – ya know ‘Hang on Sloopy.’ So we’re sitting there and Neil Diamond was there. This was like 1966 and Neil and I are talking and we are watching the Young Rascals and I was talking to Neil Diamond and I said ‘Who’s your band?’ and he says ‘I don’t have a band’ I said ‘You don’t have a band? You are going to go out there and sing in front of 20,000 people and you don’t have a band?’ he says ‘no I just got my acoustic guitar’ I said ‘ok.’ He then went up by himself and he did that ‘Cherry Cherry’ song and a couple other songs that he had and people went nuts over it. And I looked at him and I said ‘someday that guy is going to be a big star.’

"So later we got up to sing after the Young Rascals and we did the Mama’s and Papa’s ‘Dedicated to the One I Love,’ Joe was singing the lead and we did our own version. So Joe just started out with ‘Each night before you go’ And everyone is looking at us like ‘that’s kind of corny ya know? Mama’s and Papa’s coming out of a rock band?’ and then all of a sudden Larry and I come in with the three part harmony ‘Each night before…’ and our voices were so perfect – the place went CRAZY. Everyone just went crazy on that.

"I do not remember any specifics about Ritch joining the band nor do I remember him taking these pictures but I definitely knew Ritch back in those days with the Styx -- we all knew each other -- the Turnkeys, the Majestics – everybody knew everybody back then. Ritch came in there towards the end and we had another guy come in at the very end because Larry got drafted but then I think Ritch quit – and then the next thing you know I got drafted and then that was the end of it. 

"Joe was always a nice guy. He used to always push me – I wasn't into the music as much as Joe was. Joe was really into it, 100 percent. Us guys were maybe 80 percent because we had other things that we were gonna do. I remember one time Joe and I sat together – I was working on my guitar so he sat down beside me and he grabbed his guitar and he ripped it all apart and he said this is how you do it, so I ripped mine apart all apart – all the electric wires and everything and we re-wired both guitars and he helped me do it.

Circa 1966 photo of Bobby Sepulveda in his
1957 Chevy Bel-Air in front of the Fifth Quarter
on Depeyster Street in Kent. Currently this
is the site of Bricco.
Photo by Richard Underwood.

"What I remember about the Fifth Quarter is the stage was really high. And I'm not that tall of a person, Joe and Larry were taller than me. Their head's were almost hitting the ceiling. And there was this odd telephone at the entrance of the club that you could get on that would broadcast through whole PA system. And one day we were doing the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Daydream' and Joe's singing and then Joe gets ready to do the whistling part, and the police officer Bob Diss – he's way on the other side at the entrance of the club and he would pick up that telephone and he pushed the button and started whistling. And we are all looking around like, 'who in the hell is doing that?' And it was Bob! He was over there whistling so from then on, every time we did that song we had the police officer do that. 

"The crowds were so big because we were playing dance music. You could dance to us. See that was our thing, you could dance to our music. We were doing The Who, the Guess Who, Paul Revere and the Raiders. We were doing stuff that was on the radio at the time. WHLO was the number one station back then -- on the AM dial. On the left end of your radio and Uncle Joe Cunningham and so many of those disc jockeys they had there -- the songs were hot back in the 60s. Bands were big, The Turnkeys, the Styx, everybody – we were just good musicians. Kent had a lot of good musicians back then. 

"One time I was at the Fifth Quarter and the guy who had WHLO – one of the radio announcers that was interested in us – he had a convertible and I remember he pulled into the drive-way in the front of the Fifth Quarter and he had those amplifiers (that you see in the 1966 campus photos) sticking out of his car and another car. And I’m going ‘what’s going on, is this for a different band or something?’ and as I walked up he said to me ‘we got you a new amplifier’ and I said ‘you do?’ and he said yeah, and I said ‘oh, how am I going to pay for that?’ and he said. ‘We’re just going to take $40 a week out of your check’ and I said ‘ok’ (laughs) I had two of those bottoms and that big top. I had probably the biggest system in Northeast Ohio.

Circa 1966 rephotograph showing a line to get
into the Kent Kove. 1966 Photo by Gerry Simon.
Bottom photo shows the North Water strip today
showing a hole in the block where the Kove was.

"There was a big group around Kent and the area before the scene that spawned the Measles and they were called the Counterpoints. They were the only really known group that predates this era and they go back to the late 50s early 60s. They were older than us and they were playing at the Deck which was underneath the Townhouse. It's now the Secret Cellar – and I actually got to sing at the Secret Cellar a couple months ago with a jazz band and it was kind of like going back in time. But yeah the Counterpoints was the band from back then, they had the big equipment. They had a big Hammond B-3 Organ which was so expensive back then. I remember them doing the Beach Boys and stuff like that. They were good. They were hot in the late 50s and going all through the 60s up until about maybe 1966 because then the Turnkeys, the Styx and us -- once we came around, we were the new kids on the block and that was a scene. That was a real scene with rival bands and big audiences. And we were part of what would be the first scene of bands in Kent and it was The Majestics, The Measles and the Turnkeys. We were the ones that started it all. And the clubs and the bars, JB's The Kove, The Deck, The Blind Owl, all those places. Anyplace they could put a band they were sticking bands in back then.

"But that time – when I see these pictures especially, it brings back a lot of good memories. It brings back a lot of funny things that we did. I could tell you stories – One time we were playing at the Thunderball in Canton and that was with Freddy 'Boom Boom' Cannon. So we got there and we walked into the club and I forgot the cord to my guitar. Well, we didn’t have any backup cords or any kind of backups on anything – except for the snare drum. Buddy always had another one because he would always break them. So I said – and this is in Canton – 'I’m gonna go home and I’ll be back in 20 minutes or so' (laughs.) So I got in my car and I came down rte 44 going 90 mph through all those towns and I had a 57 Chevy – I mean I was flying. And I came home to Ravenna, went in and picked up my cord, flew back at 100 mph and I think I did the whole trip in less than 35 minutes or something like that. By the time I got back it was time to start because when we initially arrived I had about an hour before we started. I used to do some crazy things.

"One time we did Ghoulardi, I think it was a Friday night that Ghoulardi was on and we did the show in the studio up in Cleveland and we played songs all night long in that studio while he was broadcasting – we were live on television with him. I remember he sat in front of us and we played behind him. I would love to find that video. I've searched the internet and there’s nothing. For one part of the show Ghoulardi turned around to us and he looked at Buddy and he said ‘hit that snare’ and Buddy goes ‘no.’ And me, Joe and Larry just looked at each other. And then Ghoulardi says again ‘hit that snare!’ and Buddy goes ‘NO!’ and Ghoulardi responded ‘Well kids, I cannot believe – k’niff this and k’niff that’ and then he says ‘we’ll be right back in about 20 minutes’ when he went on break, he jumped up, looked at Buddy and yelled ‘NEXT TIME I SAY YOU HIT THAT SNARE, YOU HIT THAT SNARE OR YOU GUYS ARE OUTTA HERE’ so Joe and I looked at Buddy like, 'you should really do what he says.' And Buddy indicates to us ‘ok.’ So we come back on the air and we play a couple songs and then Ghoulardi comes back on talking like he was doing and then he goes ‘HIT THAT SNARE’ and Buddy again comes back with ‘NO!’ – And I remember thinking ‘ooooh shit, we’ll never be asked back on this show’ – and our agents are out there sitting in their lounge chairs and they’re looking through the glass at me and I’m like ‘I don’t know’ and then Ghoulardi again says ‘COME ON HIT THAT SNARE’ and once again Buddy goes ‘NO!’ So then he started something else, and then we did a song and then when the break came he said ‘YOU GUYS ARE FIRED, YOU’RE NEVER COMING BACK HERE’ he was piiiisssed. And he walked out.

"I remember that night when I was taking a break from Ghoulardi I ran into Dorothy Fuldheim in the hallway. I was coming back towards the studio and she’s walking up and I remember this – it was around 11:00pm and she goes ‘you’re in the band that plays rock & roll’ and I said ‘yeah’ and she says ‘my name’s Dorothy’ and I said ‘my name is Bobby’ and she says to me 'I’ve got a question for you. How long do you think rock & roll will stick around?’ I’ll never forget that and I said ‘well Dorothy, I think it’s going to be around for a long time, it might change but bands are going to be around for a long long time’ she goes ‘I just wondered about this new phenomenon, the Beatles and all that stuff, it’s really different’ I remember she wasn't very tall. That was kinda neat for me because nobody else got to talk to her except for me. 

"What I remember about the end of the band was that I was really sad to see everything fall apart but ya know there was nothing I could do about it. When you've got the military calling you, you’re gone. As a matter of fact, if I remember right, Joe was trying to get me out of the military obligations. I kept getting letters from Joe even when I was in Vietnam and then finally I got a letter saying 'there’s nothing more that we can do, we've already spent $6,000 we’re just going to let it go' so that was it. And then I never heard from Joe anymore, Buddy, Larry – I didn't hear from anybody till I got out in October of 1969 and then I saw Buddy who was still playing. He was the only one that was around and I think Joe had started with the James Gang then.

Early 1980s photo showing Joe Walsh and
Bobby Sepulveda at a party thrown by
Joe Shannon. Photo courtesy of Bobby Sepulveda.

"I caught a couple of those early James Gang shows and we talked and all that. I actually used to run into them at the City Bank around that time. Then the next thing I knew the James Gang started really taking off.

"The last time I saw Joe was – there’s a picture I have upstairs – Joe Shannon had a party in the 80s and we went over and Joe and I talked and I brought a couple people that he knew – and we weren't supposed to bring any people but these were musicians who had played with him in California and stuff like that so he was glad to see Mary DeLaney who sang with him on ‘Midnight Man.’ She was from Windham but she was living in Ravenna then.

"As far as what I took away from my experience with the Measles was – well #1 I got to play with Joe Walsh. Not too many people can say that. We knew each other real well. We played very good together. I enjoyed that time, the memories of that group and those people. Like Buddy – Buddy and I are still very close and he lives in Cape Coral, FL. He's got a business – a restaurant. He's got a couple restaurants. We're still friends and I still talk to Larry. I have a house in Florida and Larry comes down in the winter time and visits. I keep telling him, he's gotta come down more often. He doesn't come down enough.

"We were lucky. When the four of us got together – that was the best Measles right there. The four of us that you see in these pictures. That's the one that – our biggest crowds and our loudest crowds were a later version of the Measles from when after I got home from Vietnam. Buddy kept the name the Measles and I sang as a part of that later version of the band which finally ended in 1977 – but the original four that you see in these photos. That was the best. That was the best Measles."

-

In recent years on nice fall days bands will sometimes perform outdoors on Kent State's Risman Plaza over the lunch hour for the students who spend that time at the current Student Center. Back in 1966 the Student Union was over at what is now Oscar Ritchie Hall and on nice days students would spend their lunch hours enjoying nice whether on the University Commons which was just behind that building. I can only speculate, but maybe on this day in 1966 it was the Measles who were booked to just be one of those lunch hour bands.

Even almost 50 years later Ritch, Larry and Bobby could vividly recall their experiences with Joe Walsh. He clearly left some kind of an impression on them as he must with so many people he's encountered over the years. Personally I am blown away by how cool it must have been to have been a part of this first band scene in Kent back in the mid 1960s and how cool it must have been to follow the Measles. In closing, I am going to leave you with some vintage Joe Walsh...

Big thanks to everyone who helped me on this story including Richard Underwood, Larry Lewis, Bobby Sepulveda, Chas Madonio, Cory Walter and Gerry Simon.