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Spanky is part of our gang
By Dan Craft
dcraft@pantagraph.com
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Believe it or not: Spanky McFarlane, who grew up in Peoria and Bloomington-Normal, has never sung a song within Twin Cities limits.

A couple times in Peoria, yes (including a show last weekend on the Peoria riverfront).

But never here.

Until now.

Spanky and her latest gang -- sibling harmony trio Boomsauii -- are the opening act Friday night for Don Rickles at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum in Bloomington.

She promises a musical journey around an epic career arc that encompasses no less than two American pop institutions: her own band, Spanky & Our Gang, and The Mamas & The Papas.

To hear Spanky's dreamy contralto floating over the harmonies of '60s pop classics like "Like to Get to Know You" and "Lazy Day" is to hear the essence of a musical era.

To hear her tell her life story is like getting a crash-course in the history of that era.

For the record, she begins, "I didn't want the name Spanky, but I accepted it. Originally, I thought, 'OK, I'll keep it until we think of a better name.'" Then they became famous almost overnight, and there was no turning back.

The name was applied to the singer born Elaine McFarlane by a fellow musician.

It was back in the era when the '30s "Our Gang" comedies were a daily afternoon TV fixture under their new name, "The Little Rascals." One of the tot squads' ringleaders was chubby little Spanky McFarland.

With her own version of that name, McFarlane, already in place, the "Spanky" nickname was practically preordained, she agrees.

Her fascinating saga began in Peoria, where she was the youngest of eight children. "I think my parents were kind of worn out by having kids by the time I came along. I wasn't really allowed to do anything."

Which might explain "some trouble" she got into, which led to her becoming a ward of the court, which led to her being placed with a foster family around the age of 15 -- Bloomington's John Baldini family of Lucca Grill and McLean County Democratic Party fame.

While here, she spent her junior and senior years at Trinity High School (now Central Catholic), graduating in 1960.

Spanky's Catholic schooling started her on the path to opera, "and I think I was pretty good, but I moved around too much to be an opera singer."

Following graduation from Trinity, she moved to Chicago with a group of THS classmates to take typing lessons, all the better to dive into the State Farm secretarial pool back home. Needless to say, "I never came back."

Blame the Fickle Pickle.

The Fickle Pickle was a little near-North Side coffeehouse where Spanky began singing. She was heard by several of Chicago's blues institutions, including Little Brother Montgomery, Willie Dixon and Booker Washington.

"They took me home with them to the South Side, and we would sing and play, even though I couldn't pronounce the words. I learned to make the sounds of a blues singer."

But not as a soprano: The combined effects of having her tonsils removed at age 17, followed by taking up smoking and drinking, sent her timbre tumbling.

Things began happening fairly quickly thereafter: She joined a group called the Jamie Lynn Trio, which she described as being comprised of "me and two gay guys -- we were all looking at the boys." She then joined the folk-favoring New Wine Singers, a fixture at the Rising Moon on Wells Street.

The Rising Moon was torched under suspicious, mob-related circumstances ("they wouldn't take a juke box"). Says Spanky, "Out of the ashes came Mother Blues on the same site."

To escape the bitter Chicago winters, Spanky and a friend went to Florida, where a hurricane was brewing, along with a "three-days-and-three-nights hurricane party." Both women attended and were, so to speak, blown away. It was at the party that Spanky crossed paths Nigel Pickering and Oz Bach, who became instant Spanky fans, and vice versa.

The pair eventually turned up in Chicago, and Spanky & Our Gang was born, featuring Spanky and her two hurricane buddies, with Mother Blues their prime showcase.

Besides singing, Spanky kicked in on the instrumental front with washboard and jug. "We sang some show tunes, a little Andrews Sisters, a little rock 'n' roll. We were pretty eclectic, kind of a jug band that sang.

A fourth member was soon added, guitarist Malcolm Hale, followed by a fifth, drummer John Seiter. The first Spanky & Our Gang album was born, with soon-to-be-signature-hits like "Lazy Day" and "Sunday Will Never Be the Same."

The lineup shifted again, when Oz Bach departed and was replaced by two new members, Kenny Hodges and Lefty Baker, whose membership resulted in the "classic" Spanky & Our Gang configuration for the band's short but intense heyday of 1966-68.

The now-six-part harmony carried the group through a string of sunny Top 10 hits that helped define the whole "Summer of Love" era, with 1967 the Gang's greatest year.

"It was the Summer of Love, and we had the choice of playing the Monterey Pop Festival or 'The Ed Sullivan Show,'" Spanky sighs. They chose Ed. "Who knew Monterey would be such a big success?"

Tragedy struck in 1967, when Hale died unexpectedly of bronchial pneumonia on the eve of what a Pantagraph story reported as the group's first-ever Bloomington gig -- a homecoming concert at Illinois Wesleyan University.

It's taken Spanky 40 years to make good on that homecoming.

For the '70s, the band turned country, touring with the likes of Willie Nelson, who kept the Gang supplied with his preferred brand of beer.

Following a brief retirement, Spanky joined the tempest-tossed pop group The Mamas & The Papas, a relationship that wound up lasting a dozen years (1981-1993) through the thick and thin of the band's storied misfortunes.

Today, Spanky considers herself officially retired to her home in Humboldt County, Calif.

"I've been very, very lucky," she says. "I know that Spanky & Our Gang was a fluke ... that we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I mean, it's really kinda wacky. But I've been totally blessed to have been able to do what I've wanted to do all these years. What's not to love?!"

At a glance



What: Spanky McFarlane, opening for Don Rickles

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: U.S. Cellular Coliseum, 101 S. Madison St., Bloomington

Tickets: $25 to $45

Box office number: (866) 891-9992

Take a look
Famed '60s pop chanteuse Spanky McFarlane, who grew up in Peoria and Bloomington, returns home for her first-ever Twin Cities performance as Don Rickles' opening act Friday at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum.
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Reader comments on this story - 9 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

remember? wrote on Oct 3, 2007 3:19 PM:

" should read... was Spanky, not what Spanky... sorry "

remember? wrote on Oct 3, 2007 11:35 AM:

" need to know... what Spanky as good as she was in the concert she did in the 1980's at Braden auditorium? "

Show wrote on Oct 2, 2007 5:22 PM:

" Spank was good. Don Rickles was great,what I could hear. Sound was dreadful quiet.................................. "

plaid braisley wrote on Sep 29, 2007 11:40 PM:

" she also sat in and sang with timothy p. and the r.r.3. at a green gables sweatfest in the 90's. i guess that's actually lake bloomington.her brother john"pops" mcfarlane played bass in a bunch of locally prominent bands thru the 60's 70''s and 80's(the jam factory, hurricane ruth, pork and the havana ducks). "

remember? wrote on Sep 28, 2007 2:56 PM:

" being accurate in the media is very important... "

to: remember? wrote on Sep 28, 2007 12:52 PM:

" does it really matter?? "

remember? wrote on Sep 28, 2007 7:25 AM:

" what? no "we goofed and the premise of our article was all wrong; she HAS performed here!" "

remember? wrote on Sep 27, 2007 4:12 PM:

" spelled Association... sorry, but any way one spells it, this article is wrong... she HAS performed here... think Mr. Craft needs a fact checker "

remember? wrote on Sep 27, 2007 3:46 PM:

" Hi All... does anyone else remember the concert Spanky gave in the 1980's at Braden Auditorium? It was the Happy Together tour with some other people such as Flo and Eddie from the Turtles, Gary Puckett, some of the Assosication??? I believe that was her first concert in the twin cities. "
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