This group began life in the Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s where they performed in the Pittsburgh area as the popular local band known as The Igniters.
The Igniters, made up on musicians that included Ronnie “Byrd” Foster, Jeff Bobula, Bob McKeg, Joe Santavicca and Jackie Keir along with the singer Frank Czuri, were often seen at The Varsity House in Pittsburgh as its house band and gaining a large fan base with their renditions of the R&B and British Invasion popular songs of the day.
In 1968 The Igniters managed to gain themselves a recording contract from Atlantic Records which gave them the accolade of being only the second white act taken on by them. However, the company decided they wanted them to change their name and after the possibility of Mack’s Factory was shelved, Jimmy Mack & The Music Factory came to be.
The released their single “Baby, I Love You”, which was originally a hit for The Ronettes, backed by “The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game” in the latter half of 1968 and managed to reach No. 41 on New Haven, Connecticut’s WAVZ.
This name for the group only survived for a brief time, however, when their name was changed yet again. This time they became Friends and even though recording a single on the Atlantic Records label in 1970 it was not enough to keep them together and they went their own separate ways before much time had passed.
Many years later in 2003 the band, returning to their original name The Igniters, staged a reunion concert in Harmarville, Pennsylvania.
Sources:
- http://www.bestrocknrollband.com/id5.html
- http://oldmonmusic.blogspot.com/2008/04/voice-of-pittsburgh.html
- http://www.puregoldmusic.com/templates/Czuri.aspx
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby,_I_Love_You
- http://musiciansolympus.blogspot.com/2011/07/byrdfoster-drums.html
- http://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/rock/the-igniters