DENNY CARLETON'S MUSICAL HISTORY TOUR
Denny's career started in 1965 with his high school band The Lost Souls 
[Lost Souls video]
[ Real Audio Sample]
The band played local CYO teen dances, K of C halls, armories and Hullabaloos. The Lost Souls' popularity peaked in
1967 when they played at the Cleveland Stadium. From 1965 to 1968 The Lost Souls established 24 attendance records at various
clubs. The group did covers and originals that used flute, sax and mandolin along with the usual guitar bass and drums. The
band broke up when the members went to college and went their separate ways.
Guess who Denny looked like in the 60's? Take a look!!
After The Lost Souls Dennis was asked to join The Choir
[Choir.]
The Choir had gone through some personal changes and was looking to regroup after their national hit "It's Cold Outside".
(# 57 U.S. billboard 1967 ) This version of The Choir competed with Eric Carmen's Cyrus Erie for local popularity. The band
recorded an album that paved the way for a new record deal, but the band broke up when two members of The Choir joined the
Cyrus Erie. Denny played with the The Choir for nine months.
(The Choir...a
Cleveland Legend
by Catena Galipo with Richie Unterberger and Denny Carleton; a Choir
History written in 1987. More [Reviews])
A day after The Choir broke up, Denny was asked to join Moses, a rock theatrical band that became very popular. Moses played in the metro Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas. The group was known for it's theatrics, humor and high energy music. Moses opened for such acts as Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, MC5 and Ted Nugent, but broke up due to conflicts over direction of the band. More about Cleveland Rock and Roll History here
In the beginning of the 1970's, Denny began to play folk music in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and as far away as Toronto, Canada. During this same period, He also accepted Jesus Christ as his personnel Savior and was baptized in the Holy Spirit, becoming part of the Charismatic Renewal which helped him to build his life with the foundation being Jesus Christ. [Charismatic Renewal] Throughout the rest of his music career he has remained active doing Christian and secular music.
In 1974 , Denny and Brian Sands agreed to re-form Moses as a new group - Milk.
[Moses to Milk]
Randy Klawon was replaced on lead guitar by Al Globakar and Dave Alexy played drums. Moses had been high energy and danceable; Milk
was artistic, avante garde, and basically off the wall. Tiny Tim melodies, Rudy Vallee songs, baseball cards thrown from the stage along
with group photos posing with man-sized shampoo bottles made Milk too much for the tastes of most audiences. Locally, Milk remains most
notorious for nearly starting a riot as the ill-chosen opening act for a Canned Heat concert.
Denny's next band was just as eventful. The Fa band was the trio of Denny Carleton (guitar and vocals), Fred Grupe (bass), and Mac Chaefer (drums). They played local YMCA's, bars, and schools, developing a large cult following who enjoyed hearing the originals as well the band satirizing the 70's rock scene. Mac wanted to be more serious and left, but Fred and Dennis continued playing every night to the beat of a different drummer - literally! Occasionally, an extra guitar player appeared, or perhaps a harmony singer ...usually ending in a free-for-all jam session with anyone who wished joining in. In 1975, he appeared on WMMS Coffee Break Concert, doing his originals.
Afterwords, Dennis was approached by Dave "99" Hayward's [more] Precious Records about putting out an E.P. Denny's tunes "Could She Love Me" and "Pregnant Molly" were on one side, while Al Globakars' "If I Only Had The Bomb" was on the other.
All this publicity changed the Fa band, which was re-formed with permanent members: Denny (guitar and vocals), Ralph Viviano (drums),
Dan Schneider (lead guitar), Fred Grupe(bass) and Joe Balaszic (vocals). The band played locally for about a year until they broke up
for a short time. They were reformed as Inner City, but Ralph had gotten another gig with Eric Robertson.
So Bruce Moore became the drummer and the band added his wife Pam's female vocals doing Heart covers along with originals from Dan and
Denny. The band played mostly at the Phantasy Theatre in Lakewood before breaking up after just five months. Pam went on to sing back
up with Bob Seger and then Meatloaf, while Dan became a staff songwriter for a N.Y. publishing firm.
Dennis played in a few bands after Inner City including the legendary Punk Band, The Pagans
[Pagans]. The The Pagans were the name of a band
not a lifestyle, and sounded a lot like the Ramones. Denny's biggest contribution to the punk band the Pagans was arranging most of their
early material and writing one of their best known songs "Boy Can I Dance Good".
After so many bands breaking up for so long, Dennis decided to play out locally, doing 60's covers, to make money to invest in publishing his own music on his own label, Green Light . [Greenlight] Around this time, he also became a guitar teacher, eventually being hired at the Willoughby Fine Arts, Goose Acres and The Music Emporium. He also worked at Zondervan's Christian Family Bookstore and began to teach Lakeland Community College Students for college credit through the Willoughby Fine Arts.
The first cover band in this new direction was the Last Street Band. Every Friday, for the 9 months the band lasted, the 12 year old younger brother of Doug (the band's lead guitar player) would sit in and jam. The place would be packed to see "The Kid" play guitar. Doug's little brother is Tom Bukovec, who has gone on to play with Tanya Tucker, is currently Wynona Judd's lead player.
Dennis played locally with the Surprize Band in 1981-1989 , which eventually changed its name to The Window because no one could figure out who the "Surprize Band" was. The original band included: Mike Wey (bass), Mark Luthardt (lead guitar), Denny Carleton (vocals and guitar) and Roy Laboy (drums). Later, Mac Chafer replaced Roy and Tom Mackle stepped in when Mike dropped out. During the period 1982 through 1989 , The Window was WMJI's house rock band and hosted many food for the poor jam sessions for Clevelanders in need. At this time Dennis also joined and played guitar at St Felicitas's charismatic prayer meeting and healing service. St. Felicitas had a wonderful priest named Father Kraker. He continued to play during the healing service until 2001.
That same year Green Light also issued the new Cleveland Green Light sampler, featuring many local Cleveland artists including Wally Bryson's Sittin Ducks. Because of the success of all these tapes, Option Magazine featured Dennis in a full page article about his career.
As a result of the article, mail poured in and Jim Marquardt joined Green Light helping to organize it. In 1986, the first Green Light catalog was issued, featuring Denny's tapes, a dozen local artists, The Cleaners from Venus (from England), and other musicians from around the world. The tape label was similar to "K cassettes.". Green Light was mentioned by the New York Times as one of the established 'cassette only' companies in the U.S. Anastasia Pantsios, in her Plain Dealer article, said that Green Light was one of Cleveland's five legitimate record labels.
Between 1983 and 1990 , Dennis released nine solo cassettes and was known as one of the few musicians doing home taping in the Alternative Underground Music scene. [Click here for more information on the underground music.] His music was played on over 300 College and Public Radio stations, including WFMU in New Jersey, and CKLN in Toronto, Ontario. CKLN in Toronto and WAIF in Cincinnatti, Ohio. Both did two hour programs on his home tapes and sixties music. He appeared live in Toronto on CKLN. Some of this music is included in the Store section.
One of the oddest home tapes was his radio drama Who's Been Fooling Who? [MP3 Complete Text ] It concerns an idealistic musician in the future who is trying to escape the confusion in the world through music, communication and art. Lance, the main character, is being trained to submit confusing information into a symbol translator which then helps him weave through the maze of confusion and helps him live. This Sci-Fi, Lo-Fi drama was reviewed favorably by Dino Dimuro, in Option Magazine, and it was also performed by the Willoughby School of Fine Arts Theatre Workshop.
Dennis received a scholarship from Cuyahoga Community College in 1988 [Denny's Cuyahoga Comunnity College experience] College ] , where it helped to sharpen his teaching skills and helped to broaden his music to include classical, jazz and arrangements. He was then hired by the College to teach music, be a consultant and play bass for their cultural art shows about the history of rock - which took place at the State Theatre in Playhouse Square. A fellow teacher and friend, Paul Schmidt, recorded his song, "If I Had a Bride" during this same interval. Dennis composed an avante garde jazz duet at this time, with vibe player Cecil Rucker, entitled "Nations I Have Never Seen". Another he composed was a classical piece written for a string quartet entitled "Fall to Winter Flight".
(Tell A Friend About This Site)Late in the 80's, a man by the name of Bob Pilskaln started Just Guise as a group that did parodies for a local Cleveland DJ named John Lanigan. Lanigan mc'd Cleveland's most popular morning drive program. [Just Guise] [Real Audio Sample] Just Guise would take a song like "Margaritaville" and do a parody singing "Cuyahogaville", instead. (For the non-locals, Cuyahoga county is the county where Cleveland is located). They would use famous songs to poke fun at Cleveland, it's politicians and leaders. At some point Bob wanted to expand into more original songs and into college radio. That is where Dennis entered the picture.
Bob and Denny did skits on Just Guise's college radio program that were broadcast locally on WUJC (John Carrol's radio station) and the syndicated nationally (via satellite) by U-net to 300 college radio stations. Dennis was in Just Guise from 1988 to 1990, when Bob decided to go in another direction with his creativity; he began teaching college.
In 1989, Dennis married Theresa Galish. They played in bands for awhile and found their niche as a folk duet in area coffee shops, libraries, churches and bookstores. The Carletons, as they were sometimes called, played Denny's originals plus had a song list of over 350 tunes in the progressive folk music tradition of Austin City Limits. Theresa and Dennis also played on the same bill as country artists Radney Foster, Leroy Parnell and Steve Wariner. As a duo, they had two tapes, released in 1995 and 1996, play regionally as well as had two newspaper articles done about their folk act. Theresa and Dennis also did church services for St Mary's Mentor (Teen Life mass), St Paul Presbyterian Church, St Mary Collinwood, VA St.-Joseph High School, St Felicitas and St. Christine's. They went their separate ways in 1999.
In the 90's, Dennis released his Retro tape , and also began to compose music for the theatre. The first play, The Phantom Tollbooth, and the music was composed in 1990 [The Phantom Tollbooth]. During this time he also wrote music from the poems of his distant cousin, Will Carleton (1845-1912); he was the Poet Laureate of Michigan [ Will Carleton.] He also outlined the beginning of the Will Carleton play with Janet Shank of Willoughby Fine Arts Association. Later in the decade, 1997 to be exact, Denny wrote music for Way Out Cinderella for the Chagrin Valley Little Theater. This was followed in 1998 by being commissioned to write St. Paul's Presbyterians churches theme song, Let's be Glad .
Radio once again appeared in Denny's career when, from 1999 to 2003, he hosted his own radio show on WELW and interviewing local Cleveland musicians. He also composed music for a play about Catholic Saints performed at the St. Joseph Christian Life Center in 2001.
Another commission came during 2003 by the School of Fine Arts to write music for the Ohio Bicentennial, for which he wrote "Beautiful Spring [MP3] and "Ohio" [ Video]. These songs were performed by the Willoughby Fine Arts Children's summer camp. Again theses songs were performed in 2004 by The Peaceful Children's Montessori School at the Geuaga Little Theatre.
Currently, Denny is very active in all sorts of venues. Besides writing music for plays, Dennis performs solo playing out an average of three times a week at coffeehouses, wineries, nursing homes, churches, private affairs and book stores. He also plays with musicians backing him on his songs including Fred Grupe, John Halvka, Ed Mills and Art Lazar. He organizes a coffeehouse series at the Fine Arts Association in Willoughby, Ohio and The Christian Family Bookstore.
His Christian music finds him and his group leading contemporary praise music every other week at Sts. Cosmos and Damian in Twinsburg, Ohio, as well as going to different Catholic Churches in the diocese to lead various parishes in worship. At the Peaceful Children's Montesorri school, he plays his music with the choir for Wednesday morning masses, at 8:30AM.
At both the Fine Arts Association and Our Lady of Mount Carmell, he teaches guitar plus has a teaching DVD available.
He has 8 Cds available including, Whiskey Island [Lyrics] which was released Dec. 1, 1999 and a two new Cd's in 2005 , Living Saints [Lyrics] and This Is Your Life . His complete catalog is available on the this website, including Retro [Lyrics] with bonus tracks which traces his musical Rock'n'roll career from the 1960s to 1990.
To order any Denny Carleton CDS go through CDBABY or iTunes