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Jaye's Rayders
No Chance / I Still Love You - 7"
Award - 1968
Michael Panontin
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These Brantford ON lads - and I do mean 'lads' as they were all still in their teens - seem to have taken a page out of the Paul Revere and the Raiders schtick book. The Oct. 25, 1965 issue of RPM first makes mention of their "novel pirate outfits", adding that the group were "pleasing dance crowds across Ontario". But that is where the comparisons to Mark Lindsay and Co end. Jaye's Rayders, which existed from 1965 to 1969 in various incarnations, were essentially a blue-eyed soul band, filling those pleasing sets with many of the current R&B and soul hits.
By 1968, the band's line-up consisted of frontman Jaye Simms (ne Tim Simpson), guitarist Bruce Wilson and organist Bruce Hall, along with a backfield of Ted Kowal on bass and Rick Wheelton on the drum kit. The guys signed on to Robert Thomson's newly formed Award label, a local concern that also included fellow Brantfordians the Growing Pains on its roster. Thomson booked studio time at RCA Studios in Toronto, and the result was the hard-driving 'No Chance' with the more soulful 'I Still Love You' on the flip.
"We ranged in age from 15 to 19 years old," Hall explained to CM. "We did a gig with the British Modbeats at the then brand new Brantford Civic Centre. A packed house, which our promoter arranged. We played for free and the proceeds went to finance this record." Bruce Wilson, who was actually the youngest member of the group at just fifteen, wrote and arranged both sides, though Hall is quick to point out that "we all took part in the creation of both songs". The record, he adds, received plenty of airplay at CKPC in Brantford and at the larger CKOC in nearby Hamilton, as well as at "unknown Detroit stations that were playing the more soulful flip side".
'No Chance' is a feverishly paced corker of a tune with powerful vocals, tinges of organ and a wildly lysergic guitar solo. But it was nothing like the group's signature sound. "It was composed to be radio friendly for the commercial market," Hall notes, "but really was not representative of the band's live set." Wheelton, for his part, expressed similar sentiments in an email to CM: "We got offered a chance to do a 45 and had about three weeks to come up with two songs! Good, bad, ugly! It was an experience for young guys!"
(The few surviving copies of 'No Chance', which actually has the band's name misspelt as Jay's Rayders, have sold for as much as $150 USDs.)
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