Bob,

When I was in high school in Lyndhurst, Ohio, there was a place called the Chagrin Armory, where the up and coming bands would play. It was basically just a huge, empty concrete warehouse, with terrible acoustics, but it could probably hold 1500 people.

I heard The Outsiders were going to be playing there, and a couple of my friends and I decided to venture out from the protective cocoon of Lyndhurst to the wilds of Chagrin and check them out.

I had heard "Time Won’t Let Me" on the radio, and, as a card carrying Mod, had turned my nose up at it. It had horns (yuch!) and organ (blech!) and it seemed to me the lead singer, Sonny Geraci, was a touch flat for the whole song, but, in the spirit of adventure, we ventured out anyway.

They blew me completely away.

They were wearing matching navy blue blazers and white pants. Their hair was long, but not too long. I looked up at the stage, and instead of seeing the "greasers" I had expected to see, they were really pretty cool.

Then they started to play.

By the time they got to "Time Won’t Let Me" I was a bonafide fan. Everything sounded just like the record, only better, and Sonny Geraci turned out to be a fantastic frontman.

I don’t think I knew which one Tom King was, at the time. It was really all about Sonny, and the horns, but I knew Tom was the guy who wrote the song.

It was years before I learned that Jimmy Fox played drums on the album (a lot of that time they credited MY drummer, JIm Bonfanti) but, I’ve got to say, all these years later, that record still holds a special place in my heart. It’s that "moment in time" kind of record, that takes you back to exactly where you were when you first heard it.

It was painful reading about how Tom was screwed out of his record and writing royalties for $500, but most of us have been there.

All I can say is, that song, and The Outsiders, were an inspiration to me at a time when inspiration was everything.

I still see Sonny around town. He’s still gigging, and he looks great and sounds better than ever.

Thanks Tom ( and Sonny), for a memorable night, and a record that will live forever.

Eric