The Amboy Dukes

All Music Guide:

Best remembered for their 1968 acid rock classic "Journey to the Center of the Mind," Detroit's Amboy Dukes also introduced the world to the Motor City Madman, guitarist Ted Nugent. The group's roots date to 1965, a period when a teenage Nugent was living in Chicago; there he formed the first incarnation of the Amboy Dukes, borrowing the moniker from a recently disbanded Detroit band who themselves took the name from an infamous exploitation novel of the period. When Nugent returned to Southeastern Michigan in 1967, he assembled a new Dukes lineup including vocalist John Drake, his former bandmate in the Lourds, as well as rhythm guitarist Steve Farmer, bassist Bill White, keyboardist Rick Lober, and drummer Dave Palmer. Famed for its snarling closer, an incendiary cover of Them's "Baby Please Don't Go," the group emerged as one of the hottest attractions on the Detroit club circuit.

Still, when the Amboy Dukes' self-titled debut LP appeared on the Mainstream label in 1967, it was the group's originals that became the focus -- while Nugent handled the music, Farmer penned the drug-fixated lyrics, adding a psychedelic sensibility to an otherwise proto-metal sound. After a series of lineup shifts that saw White and Lober exit in favor of bassist Greg Arama and keyboardist Andy Solomon, in 1968 the Dukes issued Journey to the Center of the Mind, riding the title track into the U.S. Top 20. Vocalist Rusty Day replaced Drake in time for 1969's Migration, which failed to equal the success of its predecessor; Marriage on the Rocks, issued later that same year, was also a disappointment, and after 1971's Survival of the Fittest Nugent dismissed Day and Solomon after Palmer left the group to accept an engineering gig. After recording a handful of albums as Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes, he finally dropped the group's name altogether and mounted a solo career.

Wikipedia:

The Amboy Dukes were an American rock music band of the late 1960s and early 1970s from Detroit, Michigan, best remembered for their hit single "Journey to the Center of the Mind", and for launching the career of Ted Nugent. The band's name comes from the title of a novel by Irving Shulman about a Jewish street gang of the same name in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn during the 1940s. In the UK the group's records were released under the name of The American Amboy Dukes owing to the existence of a homonymous British group.

The band went through a number of personnel changes during its active years. Bassist Greg Arama died in 1979. The group contributed to the foundations of heavy metal and progressive rock.

Later careers [edit]

Steve Farmer currently teaches in Redford Township, Michigan. He also performs with backing bands at various venues in and around the Detroit area.

Rick Lober is a classically trained composer best known in the greater Detroit metro area for his frenetic style of keyboard playing. Since the early 1990s, he has been in and out of the studio, appearing as performer/songwriter on the Steve Farmer CD Journey to the Darkside of the Mind (Saint Thomas Records, STP0069) completed in 2000. He is currently working in the studio and performing live with local Detroit rock legend Jeffrey Faust and his band "The Woodsman", which performs throughout Michigan and Canada.

Band line-ups [edit]

1964 [edit]

The Nugent Amboy Dukes began in the Chicago area in 1964, and played such venues as The Cellar in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. They moved back to Detroit in 1968. The members included the following:

1967 [edit]

After a band shuffle for signing a deal with Mainstream Records of New York, the band members who released their debut album, The Amboy Dukes, were:

1968 [edit]

Journey to the Center of the Mind saw another member shake-up:

1969 [edit]

Migration saw another line-up:

1972-1973 [edit]

The Amboy Dukes saw another line-up:

2009 Reunion [edit]

The original Amboy Dukes performed April 17, 2009 at the Detroit Music Awards at The Fillmore Detroit. Their performance began with the song "Baby Please Don't Go", from their 1967 debut single. Followed by "Journey to the Center of the Mind", and ending with Mitch Ryder's "Jenny Take A Ride" (featuring original Ryder drummer Johnny "Bee" Badanjek). In recognition of the band's contribution to rock music history, they received a Distinguished Achievement award.