Sadly, we haven't had a lot of New Colony Six news to report of late ...
Which is what makes today so special ...
The group (and group members) have a few performances coming up that we wanted to tell you about ...
Their first appearance will be this Friday Night (5/23) ... but unfortunately that show is already sold out ...
Then, next Saturday (5/31), Ray Graffia, Jr. will be making a solo guest appearance along with Rick "Elvis" Saucedo, performing with what I'm told is a GREAT band, Ambidextrous (we'll find out ... we're going to the show) at The Moonlight Theatre in St. Charles.
Rick will open the show with his Elvis tribute, performing to pre-taped tracks and then join the band during their set (as will Ray Graffia for some special NC6 tracks) before EVERYBODY comes together on stage for the big finale. (I haven't made it to The Moonlight Theatre yet so I'm anxious to check this out ... they seem to be having more and more shows there ... and I hear they're really good people to deal with ... Billy J. Kramer was just there about a month or two ago.)
Then the full band is back at The Arcada Theatre on August 31st. Ronnie Rice will open the show with his "Day-O" / Human Jukebox act and then join the band for a couple of performances of their hits on which he played a key role.
After that, it's two more Cornerstones shows to close out the year ...
September 28th at The Arcada ... and November 29th at The Des Plaines Theatre. (tickets for all Arcada and Des Plaines Theatre shows are available thru oshows.com - tickets to the Moonlight Theatre show next weekend need to be purchased thru their own website - see link above - kk)
The New Colony Six were my favorite of all the Chicagoland '60's bands ...
They just seemed to have hit after hit on the local charts ... and, as you can see by the list provided below, they crossed over to the national charts several times as well.
Back in 2005, we did a month-long spotlight series on the band, introducing them to readers all over the country who may not have been familiar with their catalog. (Ray Graffia, Jr., Ronnie Rice and Bruce Mattey were all willing participants in telling their story.)
This was back in the days before we had a website ... so it has lingered in obscurity ever since.
However, now that we're in the process of rebuilding everything due to the forgottenhits.com fiasco, I am seriously considering putting together a permanent page honoring the group. Stay tuned for more details.
Meanwhile, Ray sent along a couple of other pieces of memorabilia to share with our readers ...
Including a YouTube video that traces the group's history in about 24 minutes (see photo below)
