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The Echo Tones
Low Down Guitar / Inland Surfer - 7"
Sotan - 1963
Michael Panontin
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The Echo Tones are about as bottom-of-the-barrel as it gets these days. Their lone forty-five, 'Low Down Guitar', registers just a single sale on the massive Popsike database. The casual listener would be forgiven for overlooking the record, (and indeed YouTubers have done just that, with the only posting of the b-side, 'Inland Surfer', having thus far managed just ten views in its four-plus years on the site).
But unbeknownst to many, this little-known Calgary trio can boast some pretty impressive musical progeny. They were formed there in 1962 around a nucleus of Dutch-born guitarist Cornelius Van Sprang and his bass-playing brother Emile, with drummer Floyd Sneed bringing up the backbeat. At some point they hooked up with Mel Shaw, who had the young lads record a couple of instrumentals he had written and issued them on his newly created Sotan label. 'Low Down Guitar' is definitely the better of the two tracks here. It opens with Sneed's lecherous "Hey baby!" and then, like many a surf record back in the day, gives a requisite guitar nod or two to Link Wray, especially his top-30 'Rawhide' single.
Sneed, after a short stint in Vancouver working the kit for Tommy Chong's Little Daddy and the Bachelors, eventually made his way down to Los Angeles, where he was hired by Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron and Cory Wells for their gazillion-selling Three Dog Night. As for the brothers Van Sprang, they would take on pseudonyms (Cornelius as Ronnie King and Emile as Van Louis) and join a local band called the Rebounds, who under the advice of their new manager, none other than Mel Shaw, adopted a more countrified sound and a more locally friendly name as...the Stampeders.
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