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The Last Words
I Symbolize You / It Made Me Cry - 7"
Columbia - 1966
Michael Panontin
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The Last Words got their start in Clarkson, Ontario, in what is now Mississauga, just as the fifties rock and roll of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Little Richard was about to give way to the Beatles and all those British Invasion bands. The five - singer Bill Dureen, guitarist Graeme Box, bassist Andy Krummins, pianist Noel Campbell and drummer Ron Guenther - played exactly two shows as the Beachcombers (for a whopping $5 and $10 per gig) before changing their name to the Nighthawks, which the guys admit netted them higher fees thanks in part to the popularity of Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks.
By 1964, the five had become a quartet of Box, Dureen and Guenther, with bass player Brad Campbell replacing his brother Noel and Dureen taking over the keys. But just like the Fab Four, there was a fifth Beatle so to speak, in this case Box' father. "Graeme Box's dad, Keith, was quite involved with the Last Words," Dureen explained to CM. "He helped us tremendously, financially and creatively. He was a prominent Toronto periodontist, and he actually came up with the band name during a group brainstorming session in his office." Box Sr also hooked them up with their manager Dave Marden (a.k.a. Jack London of Jack London and the Sparrows fame). "Dave had many contacts and was instrumental in placing the group in Yorkville Village, the 'hot spot' for Toronto in the sixties."
The Last Words recorded their first record for RCA International in 1965. The two originals, 'The Laugh's on Me' and 'She'll Know How', pretty well went unnoticed but at least managed to score the group some steady employment, most notably at the El Patio Coffee House in Yorkville.
But when a planned US tour fell through, the guys decided to ditch Marden in favour of Box's father, whose business acumen would come to serve them well. Box Sr. managed to secure a contract with Columbia Canada. He also offered the boys a bit of advice in the songwriting department. "After the RCA single, he suggested Graeme and I take credit as writers (a la Lennon and McCartney) on all future compositions," Dureen recalled. "And also start numbering each release, OP 1 etc. as another little gimmick. We thought, 'Cool, let's do it.'"
And so it was back into the studio for a second try. Box and Dureen's undeniably Beatlesque 'I Symbolize You', was issued in the early fall of 1966 and eventually shot all the way up to the #2 spot on RPM's Cross Canada list. Columbia even went so far as to take out a small ad in the November 5th issue of Billboard touting it as "an instantaneous hit!" (which, in hindsight, seems somewhat odd given that 'I Symbolize You' was never issued south of the border). Even better was the bottom side of the record. Those kids who were curious enough at the time to flip it over would have discovered the catchy, and even more blatantly Beatles-sounding, 'It Made Me Cry', surely making this a nifty little double-sider worth digging for.
Of course, the Last Words' career went into lift-off for a spell after the release of 'I Symbolize You', with the group scoring slots at Maple Leaf Gardens (as part of the massive Toronto Sound show in Sept. '66 and with the Ugly Ducklings, Chad and Jeremy and the Beach Boys that November) as well as at Massey Hall and the O'Keefe Centre. A third single was issued in early 1967 but by then things were changing pretty fast in the world of pop music, with Sgt Pepper's..., acid and free-form radio rendering bands like the Last Words as obsolete as straight-leg pants and Beatle boots.
Campbell was the only member to go on to bigger things, moving on to the Paupers in early '68. He and the Paupers' main man Skip Prokop eventually made the move down to New York, where they both found varying degrees of success. Prokop of course hooked up with Paul Hoffert and eventually formed Lighthouse, while Campbell would audition for Janis Joplin, plucking pluck bass strings for both the Kozmic Blues Band and the Full Tilt Boogie Band, right up to her death in October 1970.
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