The Sherrys -- Omoide no Sherry（想い出のシェリー）

 

Earlier this morning, Scott from "Holly Jolly X'masu" cottoned me onto this very short-lived Group Sounds band known as The Sherries（ザ・シェリーズ）. Not surprisingly, because of the brevity of their existence, there isn't any J-Wiki page devoted to them but I was able to find one site which did feature them. Apparently, the band was formed from the remnants of another short-lived folk rock group called The Black Stones（ブラック・ストーンズ）which came out with one lone single.

Well, bassist Yutaka Miyagawa（宮川豊）and drummer Michihiro Tani（谷迪弘）formerly of The Black Stones got some new band members, including vocalist Tatsuo Kimura（木村達男）, to form The Sherries and as with their previous incarnation, they were able to put out just one single called "Omoide no Sherry" (Sherry, Come Back) in November 1967. Written and composed by the band with Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）arranging everything in what must have been one of his earliest assignments, it's very much along the lines of a GS tune but I also think it sounds fairly rough as if the five members were still in the act of gelling. Well, as it turned out, they never did gel due to some internal strife and that one single was all she wrote. The Sherries never did come back (thank you, I'll just see myself out).😁

One piece of trivia that I did find from the above site is that The Sherries, while they were still getting along, decided (or their manager decided) to perform the A and B sides from "Omoide no Sherry" continuously on stage somewhere for 32 straight hours. The gimmick paid off in the single becoming a minor hit.