The Cascades were born in 1960 aboard the U.S.S. Jason AR-8; a ship home-ported in San Diego and when overseas, in Sasebo, Japan. This group, then known to many of the servicemen and the local inhabitants as The Silver Strands were playing at local venues all around town. Their friend, John Gummoe, also aboard the Jason was their biggest fan and soon began acting as their manager. John had the band playing 5 nights a week before long and had also been working up some duets with Dave Wilson which the group eventually had David and John do on stage as part of their performance. This was the beginning of a group which would soon go on to be The Cascades and they would eventually have the third largest selling record in the world in 1963.

The group soon changed it's name to The Thundernotes and Len Green wrote a song called "Thunder Rhythm" which turned out to be the groups first record release for Bob Keene's Del-Fi Records. This was an instrumental song and on the flip side was a song called "Pay Day" which was also penned by Len Green. This first venture was not successful, but whetted the groups' appetite to do more. At this point, the group was becoming more and more vocally oriented and singing was taking over the direction of the group. At this point, Art Eastlick left the group and Dave Stevens joined the group playing bass and another guitarist was added, Mr. Eddy Snyder. So we now had Len and Eddy on guitar, Dave Stevens on bass, John Gummoe on vocals and percussion and keyboards, Dave Wilson on drums and the dynamic David Szabo on vocals and keyboards. Just prior to signing with Valiant Records though, Len Green left the group to persue other avenues. Len loved country music and eventually went on to be a staff writer with Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville and was once nominated for a CMA award, but his web site speaks well for him so after visiting here, go and learn more about this talented man.

In our pursuit of a recording career, we had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Don Blocker at Liberty Records. Don told us about a young man in San Diego who taught guitar, but he was looking for a talented group to manage and Don suggested we look him up as he lived in San Diego. His name was Andy Di Martino and shortly after performing for Andy and playing him an audition tape with many of our original tunes , Andy found us a home in Hollywood. This turned out to be Valiant Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. run by the very talented Barry De Vorzon and Billy Sherman.

Barry De Vorzon had already had great success in the music business as a composer penning "Dreamin" for the late, great, Johnny Burnette and on Valiant had had a hit with the lovely Shelby Flint and her great composition, "Angel on My Shoulder". Valiant also had some great writing talent; among them Body Chandler and Perry Botkin, plus Barry and they were soon to write some great songs for The Cascades to go along with tunes that the group brought to the label.

Next came our first single; a song written by John Gummoe called "There's a Reason". Released in the summer of 1962, it was only a regional hit on the west coast, but served to introduce the radio stations to the sound of The Cascades. This first record on Valiant paved the way for the release of "Rhythm of the Rain" in November 1962. Early in 1963, the record had a regional break-out in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and quickly began to pick up steam across the nation. It hit the Billboard charts at #80 with a bullet and jumped 20 points at a time until it rested comfortably in the top ten. It went to #2; kept out of the magic #1 spot by "Walk Like a Man" by Franki Valli and The Four Seasons. But before too long, "Rhythm of the Rain" was showing up on charts all across the world and in many of these other countries, we DID go to #1. The group was already working on an LP at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood with engineer Stan Ross, who was the technical know-how behind the famous Phil Spector "wall of sound" and engineer to many of the major artists of the time including Sony and Cher and The Rightious Brothers and most of the Spector stable of stars.

The groups next single was the incredibly lovely song, "The Last Leaf" with "Shy Girl" on the flip side. Both sides of this record did well for the group, but never came close to measuring up to "Rhythm of the Rain". The group stayed together until about 1975 and Dave Wilson and Eddy Snyder were still a part of the group when it disbanded. Eddy continues to tour the west as Eddy Preston doing a "one man band" show in many popular resorts. David Wilson, the original drummer lives in the north-west U.S. with his lovely wife, Terri. John Gummoe lives in southern California and continues to compose and record in his own home studio. He has just completed a dance mix of "Rhythm of the Rain" produced by Christian "B" of KISS radio in Los Angeles and in 1999, Taragon Records released a great compilation CD with many of The Cascades best efforts, including several remixed versions of songs done for RCA Victor that were never released. This CD is entitled, "The Very Best of The Cascades" with liner notes done by John Gummoe and it just so happens to be available at this web site.

TRIBUTES

My first tribute is to a man who showed us the way!! His name is Don Blocker and I've not seen or talked to him in decades. When we were trying to launch our career, we were niave and thought that we could just go around and knock on doors in Hollywood and people would talk to us and listen to our demo tapes. Well, it worked some of the time, but Don Blocker was the first person to take the time to explain to us how things should really be done. He was at Liberty Records at the time and I guess felt sorry for us. He took time with us and referred us to a young, up and coming manager in the San Diego area where we were all living. We met with this young man; he liked our material and our live performances and took our demos to Hollywood on our behalf and finally had us sign with Valiant Records. But without Don's help, we might have continued to go unrepresented and knocking on doors much longer. Ironically, Don passed on the group for his label, but we did record for Liberty later on in our career. Mr. Blocker spent many successful years in the music business and I know later on was on the payroll at Motown Records. Our thanks for to him for reaching out to a bunch of inexperienced kids and giving us some sound advice.

Next.......Mr. Barry De Vorzon. Barry was the driving force behind The Cascades. He molded us and rehearsed us and put together our sound with his unique brand of genious. He brought our demo to Perry Botkin Jr. for a truly incredible arrangement. Perry's celeste figures in "Rhythm of the Rain" were so catchy and gave my song a real identity. Barry then took us into the legendary Gold Star Studios, along with the best studio cats that Hollywood had to offer and produced what we all know now to be one of the greatest classic pop sounds of Pre-Beatles pop/rock. Thanks Barry, Great Job.

Next....... My long time friend and collaborator, Lenny Green. Thanks Len for always believing in me, for your inspiration, for your great talent. You are the reason I began composing in the first place. And you know, I've always been one of your biggest fans. Your writing is a joy and always so totally unique. Those of you reading this can learn more about songwriter, Lenny by going to his web page which is linked with mine. I thank you for all your encouragement through the years from those early days right on up till now. I treasure your friendship. You've enriched my life and I wish you, your lovely wife and your family the best always.

My next tribute is to my friend, David Wilson. The world lost David just a few months ago to cancer. He was the drummer in the band; always was from the very beginning up till The Cascades broke up in about 1975. Like Len, David was always there to encourage me, to make me try when I didn't think I could really do it. He was the tenor part of our harmony, just a third above the lead. Our parts truly made up the best of the Cascade sound. As you may have read in other parts of this site, David and Len and I were all in the Navy together and the three of us were truly the first beginnings of what eventually became, The Cascades. I'm proud to have had David as a friend and I will miss him greatly.

Next........My deep and sincere thanks to RADIO!!!!!!! Where would I be without the people of radio, especially Oldies Radio. You have made "Rhythm of the Rain" the 9th most perfomed song of the last century!!!! I am eternally grateful. Please contact me anytime for interviews, promos, whatever I can do for any of you, I'm at your disposal.