Even those who pride themselves on their knowledge of mid-'60s California bands can be forgiven for not recognizing the Bedouins by name; on the other hand, listeners familiar with the folk-rock scene in Los Angeles from that same period will know well at least a few of the records that the group released. The San Francisco-based band only existed for about two years, and never got to release a record under their own name. But they did issue a single that reached the Top 40 nationally, and an accompanying LP, all under the adopted name the Grass Roots -- no, not quite the same outfit that subsequently scored monster hits with Let's Live for Today and Midnight Confessions, but the antecedent to that band, and the material associated with the early hits Where Were You When I Needed You and Mr. Jones.

The Bedouins' history began in the early '60s when guitarists Willie Fulton and Denny Ellis, bassist Dave Stenson, and drummer Bill Schoppe organized a surf band. They mostly did instrumentals, and following the custom of the time wore matching Pendletons and white slacks; and although all were still in high school, they were good enough to attract a devoted following among the teenage crowds they drew. One of those who saw them was Joel Larson, who played drums and aspired to join the band. It took a few weeks to work his way into the lineup, replacing Schoppe (who went on to play with groups such as the Newcastle Five and Powder). The quartet also soon began evolving past surf music, all the while building their reputation. According to Larson in the annotation for the Rev-Ola Records CD reissue of their recordings, part of the secret of their success as an amateur high school band was that all four attended different high schools and, as a result, were able to arrange gigs in front of each other's "home" crowd, thus giving them three or four times the natural audience that most of these bands ever enjoyed; it also didn't hurt that they were, by all accounts, very good at what they did. The Bedouins were thoroughly under the influence of the Rolling Stones and other harder, bluesier bands coming out of the British Invasion. Still all in their mid-teens, they were good enough to win a well-publicized band contest in San Mateo, and started to draw still larger audiences and some local press. The Bedouins weren't among the first-tier bands working in the City by the Bay, but it seemed like they were coming up fast in the wake of groups such as the Beau Brummels -- the first San Francisco band to make a splash nationally, and who'd hardly been much further along professionally a year earlier -- the Warlocks (aka the Grateful Dead), and the Charlatans.

Lightning seemed to strike at the start of 1966, though accounts vary as to precisely how it did this. According to Larson in the notes for the Rev-Ola reissue, they were one of several local bands invited to a performance at a club where Los Angeles-based record company chief Lou Adler was. Adler, a producer who had started a label of his own called Dunhill Records, had a pair of songwriters working for his publishing arm (Troudsale Music), P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, who had made some recordings of their work under the pseudonym the Grass Roots and sent one of them, a song called Where Were You When I Needed You, to radio stations in Los Angeles -- and lo and behold the song was actually getting played, and there was interest in the Grass Roots. The problem was that there was no "Grass Roots," only Sloan and Barri, who were too valuable to the company as songwriters to send out to live gigs or personal appearances. Still, the opportunity was too good for Adler, or Sloan and Barri, to pass up, and so they started looking for a group that could become the Grass Roots. That's the most recent version of the story, as of 2008 -- that Adler found them. But in an earlier release of the resulting recordings, P.F. Sloan said that he was steered in the direction of the Bedouins by Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane, and that he brought them to the attention of Adler and company.

Regardless of who "discovered" whom, there were still some rough edges to work out. The Bedouins' work up to that point didn't really resemble the single that Sloan and Barri had sent out, but Willie Fulton did sing uncannily like Sloan, whose voice had graced the song that stirred up all of this interest. And for a chance at a recording contract, the group was willing to switch to a more folk-based rock sound and change their name; they were duly signed to Dunhill although they were so young at the time that it was their parents who did the signing. The problems started during the ensuing recording process, which put Barri and Sloan in control as producers as well as songwriters. Their first task was to put Fulton's vocal onto the existing recording of Where Were You When I Needed You. Work began on an LP almost immediately, and that was where the real problems started -- putting Fulton's voice onto an existing recording by other musicians was one thing, but bringing in session musicians to substitute for the bandmembers behind Fulton was completely unacceptable to all concerned.

The band's distress was understandable, but so was the record label's position, given the way the music industry -- especially in Los Angeles -- worked at the time. Thanks to its proximity to the movie and television industries, the city was home to some of the best freelance studio musicians in the world, with virtuosi in every specialty from blues to classical just a telephone call away, most labels saw no reason to spend hours of studio time to help the actual members of a group nail down the sound the producer wanted. And this went double in the situation that the Bedouins-cum-the Grass Roots found themselves in, for as it turned out, Dunhill was mostly interested in Fulton's voice -- as far as Adler and company were concerned, anyone else could be playing on the records behind him. (Indeed, Adler had started out in the business working with Jan Dean, who had perfected the art of using session musicians and even passed the notion on to a self-contained band like the Beach Boys). According to Sloan in his contribution to the Varese Sarabande reissue of the resulting album, he didn't feel that way -- he wanted to let the group play on their records, but it was Dunhill's method of making records to rely on session musicians. Still, at least one member of the group did get represented on the sides they cut, more so than the others: Joel Larson was around the studio enough, and available (whereas Hal Blaine was busy enough on other gigs), that he apparently did get heard on the drums on some of what was recorded.

And the Bedouins/Grass Roots did get to play live to their heart's content, earning an extended residency at a Los Angeles club called The Trip. And although their contribution to their "own" records was limited, they were sent out as the backing band behind such Dunhill-based groups such as the Mamas the Papas and Barry McGuire in their television appearances. Frustrations continued to mount over their records, however, and even the success of a single of Mr. Jones -- a retitled version of Bob Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man -- which reached the Top 40, didn't smooth matters over. Finally, in late 1966, the first incarnation of the Grass Roots fell apart. Larson, who'd come to like the music business in Los Angeles, stayed behind and went on to a long and productive career, even rejoining the Grass Roots in their highly successful early-'70s incarnation. Fulton, Ellis, and Stenson returned to San Francisco and eventually reorganized themselves as the Unquenchable Thirst, and all went through some rough years later in the '60s, at least according to Larson's account on the Rev-Ola CD. Ellis and Stenson joined Serpent Power, the folk-rock band put together by poet David Meltzer, while Fulton ultimately became a guitarist and singer with Tower of Power in the '70s. Their history as the Bedouins remained obscure until listeners and producers began exploring the early sides of the Grass Roots. Most of the Where Were You When I Needed You album was the work of Sloan and Barri and the session musicians, but Mr. Jones did represent something of what the Bedouins had been about, as did some of the edgier covers such as Hitch-Hike and Tell Me. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi