El Cinco de Pearlas

Musings of Bill Bender

This is very interesting  for me because it preceded my days as a Pearl member.  Before the Pearls, I was singing rock and roll in the dorms (Chenango) with Doug Morgenstern playing guitar.  I also sang some harmony with a guy named Joel Schwartz, who also played guitar and had a real deep voice like Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers.  I also sang with a guy named Pete Morticelli, who actually wrote songs.  In my freshman year (1966), based on a contact he had in New York, we went to Manhatten and recorded a record (called Lost) at the Kama Sutra (sp?) Studio (the record company that had the rights to the Lovin Spoonful).  We brought a lead guitarist who we knew (can’t remember his name) and we actually recorded the song and the reverse side (which sucked).  I sang background and harmony and the completed song actually sounded pretty good.  It got played a little on the Binghamton radio stations but then disappeared like the Titanic.  Recording in the studio was cool, as we had earphones and I had to harmonize to what I was hearing because we all sang separately.

But the real fun for me began when I met Jack and George and Bill and Andy.