The Fireballs, sometimes billed as Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, were an American rock and roll group, particularly popular at the end of the 1950s and in the early 1960s. The original line-up consisted of George Tomsco (lead guitar), Chuck Tharp (vocals), Stan Lark (bass), Eric Budd (drums), and Dan Trammell (rhythm guitar).
The Fireballs were formed in Raton, New Mexico, in 1957 and got their start as an instrumental group featuring the distinctive lead guitar of George Tomsco.
They recorded at Norman Petty’s studio in Clovis, New Mexico. According to group founders Tomsco and Lark, they took their name after their standing ovation performance of Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire”, at the Raton High School PTA talent contest in New Mexico, U.S. They reached the top 40 with the singles “Torquay” (1959), “Bulldog” (1960), and “Quite a Party” (1961). “Quite a Party” peaked at No. 29 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1961. Tharp, Budd, and Trammell left the group in the early 1960s, but the Fireballs added Doug Roberts on drums, plus Petty Studio singer Jimmy Gilmer (born September 15, 1940, in Chicago and raised in Amarillo, Texas) to the group.
Later billed as Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, the group reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart with “Sugar Shack”, which remained at that position for five weeks in 1963. The single also reached No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B chart for one week in November of that year, but its run on that chart was cut short because Billboard ceased publishing an R&B chart from November 30, 1963, to January 23, 1965. Nonetheless, “Sugar Shack” earned the group a Gold Record Award for “Top Song Of 1963” based on record sales. In the UK, the song peaked at No. 45. Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs then had another pop hit in 1964 with a similar-sounding “Daisy Petal Pickin'”, which reached No. 15 on the Hot 100.
Besides their own recordings, the Fireballs were studio musicians for dozens of other recording artist projects from 1959 through 1970 at the Norman Petty Studio, including folk singer Carolyn Hester and Arthur Alexander. Norman Petty had been Buddy Holly’s main recording producer; after Holly’s death, he obtained the rights to Holly’s early rehearsal and home demo recordings. From May 1962 until August 1968, Petty had the Fireballs overdub the Holly material, making them the band he never knew he had, though the band had met Holly at Petty’s studio in 1958. The overdubs were originally released on four albums of “new” Holly material throughout the 1960s with four of the efforts, released as singles, charting. In 1964, they recorded and released an album (solely under Jimmy Gilmer’s name) of a dozen Holly covers called Buddy’s Buddy, likely inspired by the posthumous collaborations.
During the run of “Daisy Petal Pickin'” on the charts, the British Invasion began with the first hits by The Beatles. The group had difficulty competing with the influx of British artists and did not reach the Top 40 again until 1967, with “Bottle of Wine”, which was written by Tom Paxton. The Fireballs took “Bottle of Wine” to No. 9 on the Hot 100. Although Gilmer was still a member of the group, the band was billed simply as “The Fireballs” on that single. Gilmer pursued artist management under Petty, with the group disbanding in 1969. Drummer Doug Roberts died in 1981.
The Fireballs reunited in 1989 for the Clovis Music Festival, then continued performing with original members George Tomsco, Stan Lark, and Chuck Tharp until 2006, when Tharp died of cancer. Gilmer returned as lead vocalist in 2007. Lark retired from the group in 2016.
Stan Lark (born Stanley Roy Lark on July 27, 1940, in Raton, New Mexico) died on August 4, 2021, at age 81 in Amarillo, Texas.
Eric Budd (born Eric James Budd on October 23, 1938, in Raton, New Mexico) died on October 7, 2022, aged 83, in Conway Springs, Kansas.
George Tomsco, who still lives in Raton, NM, continued to release CDs of new material using The Fireballs name and did the occasional show as a “solo Fireball” and also with Jimmy Gilmer. Their final show together was at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, on February 5, 2022.
After suffering from Alzheimer’s for two years, Jimmy Gilmer died at the age of 83 in Amarillo, on September 7, 2024, eight days before his 84th birthday.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fireballs
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OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS’ DEATHS, INCLUDING FRANKIE BEVERLY
Warning Signs of Suicide – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or if you want to discuss, call the old numbers at 800-273-TALK or 800-273-8255 for English and 888-628-9454 for Spanish. Learn the signs of someone who may be contemplating suicide.
If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
September 2024
11: Senaka Batagoda, 66, Sri Lankan singer.
10: Frankie Beverly*, 77, American singer (Maze) and songwriter (“Before I Let Go”, “Back in Stride”); Doug Hood, 70, New Zealand record producer (“Pink Frost”, Boodle Boodle Boodle), cancer.
* Howard Stanley “Frankie” Beverly
It would open the door for years of hits and success for Beverly and the band with hits like “Joy and Pain,” “Golden Time of Day,” “We Are One,” “Happy Feelin’s” and a song touted as “the unofficial theme of Summer and any gathering of people who have come to party—’Before I Let Go!’,” according to the band’s site.
9: James Earl Jones, 93, American actor (Star Wars, Fences, The Lion King), Tony winner (1969, 1987); Caterina Valente, 93, French-Italian singer.
8: Tarek Ali Hassan, 86, Egyptian composer and endocrinologist; Viktor Lyadov, 58, Russian pianist; Zoot Money, 82, English singer and keyboardist (The Animals, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band); Puput Novel, 50, Indonesian singer, actress, and presenter, breast cancer; Ben Thapa, 42, English opera singer (G4).
7: Alfredo Garrido, 91, Spanish music producer and lyricist; Jimmy Gilmer, 83, American musician (The Fireballs), complications from Alzheimer’s disease; Dan Morgenstern, 94, German-born American music journalist (Jazz Journal, DownBeat) and archivist, eight-time Grammy winner, heart failure.
6: Will Jennings, 80, American Hall of Fame lyricist (“My Heart Will Go On”, “Tears in Heaven”, “Up Where We Belong”), Oscar winner (1983, 1998), Grammy winner (1993, 1999); Mark Moffatt, 74, Australian musician (The Monitors) and record producer (“(I’m) Stranded”, “Treaty”), pancreatic cancer; Screamin’ Scott Simon, 75, American pianist and singer (Sha Na Na), sinus cancer.
5: Roy Cape, 82, Trinidadian calypso saxophonist, stroke; Herbie Flowers, 86, English musician (Blue Mink, T. Rex, Sky); Martin France, 60, British jazz drummer; Mapaputsi, 45, South African musician; Sérgio Mendes, 83, Brazilian bossa nova musician (“The Look of Love”, “The Fool on the Hill”, “Never Gonna Let You Go”), Grammy winner (1993), complications from long COVID; Rich Homie Quan, 33, American rapper (“Type of Way”, “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)”, “Ride Out”); Augusto M. Seabra, 69, Portuguese music and film critic; Władysław Słowiński, 94, Polish composer and conductor.
4: Oswald d’Andréa, 90, French pianist and film composer (Life and Nothing But, Captain Conan); Bora Đorđević, 71, Serbian singer-songwriter (Riblja Čorba), pneumonia; Marc Van den Hoof, 78, Belgian radio presenter, poet and saxophonist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2024
Photo: Jimmy Gilmer | Friends of Norman Petty’s Facebook page