Freddy Pink started in 1981 on Bainbridge Island, a bedroom community across Puget Sound from Seattle Washington, with a happenstance meeting by vocalist Gordon Yancey and Guitarist Peter Blossom, a then recent transplant from the East Coast.  Their meeting on a commuter ferry from the city to the island would produce a five piece band comprised of local island talents to include: Bassist Wes Carter, Guitarist Henery Larson, and then Seattle drummer Penn Edwards.  The group would woodshed in an authentic egg carton covered studio on Bainbridge for it’s first six months before setting out for the little burg of Poulsbo Washington, another bedroom community in the West Sound where they eventually grabbed a house gig four nights a week for close to a year.   The plan was to woodshed  in the “Hinterlands”, tighten up the act, then make our big break into the city.  It was a pretty sweet gig, paying pretty well, but more important, it afforded us the time to  form, and tighten up the show.  It was there at “Sinbad’s” in Poulsbo that an old friend of Gordon’s from the highly reputed “Olympic College School of Jazz” stopped by the club to sit in.  His name was Billy Crey, a Sax player who was billed as a virtuoso by the Music Director of the College,  Dr. Ralph Mutchler.  Billy was a fine player but a bit outside i.e. more Jazz oriented for what the group was trying to achieve, which was a “Rockin’ Blues thing” at the time, but Billy had other friends he brought to the gig who offered to play for free because they liked the rhythm section.  Little did we know at the time that those friends of Billy’s had ulterior motives.

Running this pack of Horn player buddies was Steve Swanson, another Olympic College alumni, and eventually Berkley School of Music graduate, who played first chair trumpet with Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton, Gary Burton, and the Blue Eyed King of Soul...Wayne Cochrin of the CC Riders.  Steve had long been thinking of branching out on his own to write his own show in the vein of Wayne Cochrin’s soul review, and upon hearing Gordon’s voice decided to go for it with both barrels.  The other horn buddy who became a permanent fixture with FP, and to date is accredited with the second longest tenure in the band was Steve’s friend Paul Fessenden.  Gordon, who had also attended Olympic College at that time had passed both Steve and Paul in the halls at Olympic before knowing what would come of that irony.  Together those horn buddies breathed life into what was becoming a happening thing in the West Sound, and what would eventually become a highly reputed Northwest act, and beyond.

As the band grew so did Steve and Gordon’s ideas for the bands direction i.e. “Motown with an attitude” and the original cast would eventually fall away, all but the horn section.  With the addition of a third horn player, Barry Sax player Gene Lakonnen, the group had morphed into a Rock and Soul act unlike anything the Northwest had ever seen, featuring a fire breathing horn section playing very powerful arrangements that would seem more indigenous to a Las Vegas format than Seattle.  It was this first morph that laid the foundation for what the Freddy Pink band would become for the next two decades and beyond.

The “Wheat Germ Circuit” as it was known to area musicians was the next big phase for the group. This stage of climbing the Northwest’s musical ladder started at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle’s University District, and eventually crossed over to The G Note in Greenwood, Mr. Bills in Northgate, the “Pioneer Square scene” to include the Central, Larry’s, Michael J’s, The Merchant Cafe, and Doc Maynard’s.  Most of these clubs had a pecking order, that is, you would be offered a Sunday or Monday night to start, no guarantee on pay, playing for the door only.  If a band did well, drawing good numbers, they would work their way toward better nights mid-week and eventually the weekend, if and when “they” considered an act headliner material.  Freddy Pink went through that pecking order and played close to every night of the week for the first year or so until the word got out that something new was brewing at those clubs...Something called Rock and Soul. 

One funny note; Gordon had a poster from the Rainbow Tavern that showed Freddy Pink as the big Friday and  Saturday headliners, and down in the left corner, in very small writing, was a listing for the Sunday night act, billed as a burgeoning blues artist out of Tacoma...It was Robert Cray.

As rough and tumble as the band was in those days, that is, a group of serious Blues-Rock-Soul Players, not caring much about stage presence, a group of “blue jean guys” who would never compromise their musical prowess by giving in to a lounge act dress code however, certain aspects of playing rooms like Seattle’s Pier 70 and The Medieval Cellar had their upshots.  Those clubs were clean, and the girls came to the shows dressed, which of course brought in the guys, and there seemed to be a bit more respect for the music, and certainly a bit more dignity for the band.   So...The band cleaned up it’s visual act, and it was from those latter rooms the band launched with several booking agents around the state, and into the world of corporate events, festivals, fairs, and large scale weddings.  We had done it!  We had succeeded in crossing over to the general masses with what we considered “real music”.   And though the logistics of running from one end of the state to another to work could be a bit of a nightmare,  it was always a fun adventure, and these new found events and venues paid very well, becoming the glue that would hold the band together for the next few years.

The “70”s marked tough times for Seattle’s musicians, and all over the country really, as the “Disco Era” had hit, and club owners were choosing the smaller labor picture, i.e. one DJ as opposed to nine musicians for their nightly entertainment.   If that wasn’t enough, tougher state liquor laws were causing clubgoers to think twice about partying, and if they did come out to hear live music, they were leaving by eleven o’clock or so, which in turn greatly affected the audience numbers, and the club owners perception of the band’s draw.  But there was a lighthouse in the storm, a club in the North end that the band band loved to perform at called Parkers, or in it’s younger days, Dick parkers Ballroom.  Parkers was Seattle’s last bastion hold out for quality national acts visiting the city at that time, and it was there that Freddy Pink was introduced to, and opened for Tower of Power, and many other well known touring greats.  The players in Tower of Power were the groups heros, and some of them were good friends with Freddy Pink’s Trumpeter Steve Swanson.  On one occasion several of Tower’s players, Mi Mi, Doug Thornberg, Doc Kupka, and their Manager Doug Kim Son, came to one of our shows at the Central Tavern in Pioneer Square.  That was an honor the guys would never forget.  They really liked us, and that for lack of better words was “awesome!!!”

The eighties and early nineties brought about some wonderful, albeit radical changes to the band’s personnel roster with marriages, kids, real estate , trains, planes, automobiles, etc.  The band saw some lulls in playing, and it was growing increasingly harder to pull together for jobs simply due to the fact that most of the players had taken “straight jobs” and just didn’t have the time.   This lull became a time of serious frustration for most of the bands musicians, especially for lead vocalist Gordon Yancey.  They had all scrimped and scraped for years, and longed for a sense of normalcy in their lives i.e. “American Pie”.  The only problem with the “big house, big, car, big yard, big swing-set, scenario was... we were musicians first and foremost, soldiers of the played note, who would, and in several cases did, end up giving it all up in order to return to playing music full-time.  “Once a musician, always a musician”, but it’s really more like “Once you have played with the real deal, there is no satisfying one’s self by playing occasionally with weekend warriors in a garage band.  The same degree of tightness cannot be achieved part-time, therefore the ability to be spontaneous within the parameters of a song, the vary thing that gives playing a cover song a new edge is much harder, hence ....”Music is not what you do, it is what you are.”

And so...with new wind in our sails, we embarked on the mission once again.  The early nineties brought about an FP configuration that  would reach new heights vocally.  The players included Tenor/Alto player Lee Ralph Haldorsen, Bassist Leslie Shelton, Drummer Rob Usher, Keyboardist Jimmy Smiley, and Guitarist Mike Stoican.  Lee, Les, and Rob, were every bit as strong vocally as Gordon, and difficult vocal arrangements on tunes like Sly’s “Hot Fun In The Summertime” flowed off the bandstand with relative ease.  The band had reached yet another level of musicality, and the group’s entertainment value took a giant leap, however after a few years that would go by the way of the last configuration, with the individual members time being at a premium, coupled with the ever continuing musicians curse of self reevaluation. To compound issues at that time the band was witnessing a phenomena taking place with the audience that would affect us all profoundly.  While the members of the band remained in a state of “forever twenty-five”, the Boomers were getting older.  They had families, jobs, and mortgages, and getting them to fill seats in the clubs grew increasingly more difficult, and the band would eventually fall into what is best described as the doldrums.

It was somewhere around 2002, and after playing with a rag tag fleet i.e. players from various past Freddy Pink configurations, here and there, nothing too terribly steady for seven or eight years, that the arrangements were becoming lost.  Lead vocalist Gordon Yancey was the only original player left, and it was becoming increasingly harder to pull off gigs without having to revert to more of a “jam thing”.  While Gordon enjoyed improvisation, the confidence of creating music around a tight core show, and being able to call tunes as he read the audience, was becoming difficult.  The band would have to stop and confer on each song losing the show’s momentum.  This was fine for the occasional party jam with friends, but for lighting up audiences en masse it was much easier to light a fire if the backbone was well in place.  Although the players throughout the groups history have always top-notch, these latter configurations were comprised of a group of players, none of whom had played together in previous FP configurations. They were for the most-part mercenaries, or hired guns if you will, and collectively the only knew fragments of the band’s original arrangements, all of which had become somewhat contrived.  It was still great music, but it had lost the edge that made the band truly stand out as the Northwest’s “slickest” R&B act. 

In 2004 Gordon was introduced to a phenomenal keyboardists by the name of Don Garberg.  Don was a good friend of present FP guitarist Michael Stoican, and like the crew of the earliest configurations, Mike and Don were also Olympic College graduates.  Don had  had toured with Ricky Skaggs, Riba MCintire, and a whole slew of other greats, and things were once again beginning to shape up in the Pinkdom.  Don in turn introduced Gordon to an incredible Bassist by the name of Marc Miller who was very well connected in the new millennium music scene.  Marc new everyone, and pretty much shaped the rebirth configuration with players out of his hip pocket to include, Guitarist Art Bromage, Keyboardist Eric Popowicz, Trumpet Player Bobby Speer, Saxophonist “EJ” John Erickson, and the groups music director and trumpeter Dr. Ronald Cole.  Once again Freddy Pink was on a roll.

By 2005 Freddy Pink was back at it full-speed, once again featuring that blazing “fire breathing” horn section and pounding rhythm section they were known for.  The fans, old and new, came out of the woodwork to groove with the guys who had played many of their weddings and private parties in the past, and who had helped to build their romances at those clubs of old.  Who knows, perhaps Freddy Pink’s music created the backdrop for the creation of some of the bundles of joy that came to those fans through the years.  We’d like to think so.  Rock and Soul is all about the love.

Through the years the Freddy Pink band has seen some incredible players come and go, like late greats Marc Doubleday, Trumpet player from the Buddy Miles Band, and Guitarist Tim Breen from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  All of the bands players, around forty of them total, contributed a certain special something during the periods they played with the band.  It was the contribution of those great players that helped to build the band’s reputation, and shape the sound for what the Freddy Pink Band has become today...the West Coast’s consummate Rock and Soul Review. 

In 2011 the band continues to evolve.  The latest and greatest FP configuration ever includes: Trumpeter Dr. Ronald Cole, Trumpeter John Benedetti, Drummer Kirk Allen, Bassist Leslie Shelton, Keyboardist David Loy, Lead Vocalist Gordon Yancey, Saxophonists “EJ” John Erickson, and Cliff Colon, and Guitarist Michael Stoican. 

With each change in the band’s  configurations through the years, came a change to the dynamic that is the band, however the core values of Freddy Pink remains, that is, the best players, a fun creative edge, an allegiance to Soul Music, a strong team attitude, and the will to expand with the ever changing landscape of music and it’s industry.  In 2010 Freddy Pink is a staple with corporate event planners, casinos, clubs, and once again with the concert touring scene.   We have been billed by Seattle Hospitality Worldwide, the largest event planners on the West Coast, as being their number one band.  As our repertoire continues to grow, so does the distance the band travels around the United States and Canada.  The music is the best it has ever been,  and Life is really good!  Better news yet.....“they’re going for 25 more!”

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