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Holy **** St. Kevin's 1965


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I am the original poster. Thanks for the information...your comments bring the corps alive.

I have a follow up question. As a youngster I got to listen to the Brass By Night album with St. Catherine's Queensmen, Our Lady or Loretto Knights, etc. I still remember the cracks and pops on the LP. I especially remember one corps had a swinging brass line that used a soloist and simple tenor drumming to do the Egyptian pharoah dance music...the type of tune that you would hear in the old Abbott and Costello movies...it was so cool for a young kid to hear them play like that.

How did those corps fare against St. Kevin's and the other powerhouses? Within tenths, points, or not even in the same ballpark? Did the greats from these corps tend to burn out like the DCI kids of today or did they generally go on to the seniors?

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From the 'Class Reunion' Thread:

"A bunch of folks from the St. Catherine's junior corps..... John and Ted Sasso, Frank Dorritie, Bill Hightower and others..... joined Sun for the '63 season, and it was the first season the corps really put itself on the radar screen against the top senior corps of that era."

--Fran (Haring)

I believe the NY corps, particularly St. Catherine's, Loretto, and Selden were very competitive with St. Kevin's. As you can see from Fran's post, many Queensmen went to the Sunrisers, and helped turn them into a major contender.

As for the other corps, I know there were many people from both Loretto and Selden who went on to Sky, Sun and some to Hawthorne, far too many to name. Some of Selden went to the NY Kingsmen with Bob Bunce before continuing on in various senior corps. I'm not sure about specific members from Floyd Bennett, but I believe quite a few went to Sky and Cabs.

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I am the original poster. Thanks for the information...your comments bring the corps alive.

I have a follow up question. As a youngster I got to listen to the Brass By Night album with St. Catherine's Queensmen, Our Lady or Loretto Knights, etc. I still remember the cracks and pops on the LP. I especially remember one corps had a swinging brass line that used a soloist and simple tenor drumming to do the Egyptian pharoah dance music...the type of tune that you would hear in the old Abbott and Costello movies...it was so cool for a young kid to hear them play like that.

How did those corps fare against St. Kevin's and the other powerhouses? Within tenths, points, or not even in the same ballpark? Did the greats from these corps tend to burn out like the DCI kids of today or did they generally go on to the seniors?

Here's some comparative scores from the late 50's and early 60's:

1957 AL Nationals - Prelims

10 Saint Kevin's Emerald Knights 81.610

11 St. Catherine's Queensmen 81.480

12 Woodsiders 80.750

13 Selden Cadets 80.170

14 Our Lady Loretto Knights 79.860

1959 Dream DIVISION Junior

1 Saint Kevin's Emerald Knights 85.850

2 Selden Cadets 83.300

3 Audubon Bon Bons 81.950

4 Paterson Cadets 78.100

1960 Dream DIVISION Junior

1 St. Kevin's Emerald Knights 85.500

2 Our Lady of Loretto 82.300

3 Selden Cadets 80.900

4 Audubon Bon Bons 80.600

5 St. Mary's Cardinals 79.700

1961 Dream DIVISION Junior

1 St. Kevin's Emerald Knights 86.400

2 Our Lady of Loretto 84.500

3 Selden Cadets 83.650

4 Bracken Cavaliers 82.100

5 Audubon Bon Bons 80.425

1961 Garfield Show

1 St. Kevin's Emerald Knights 84.35

2 Blessed Sacrament 84.05

3 St. Catherine's Queensmen 79.95

4 Bracken Cavaliers 78.90

5 St. Raphael's Bucs 70.50

6 St. Patrick's Cadets 69.15

7 Dumont Police Cadets 63.05

1961 Eastern States Standstill Championship

1 Garfield Cadets 90.35

2 Blessed Sacrament 89.10

3 St. Kevin's Emerald Knights 88.95

4 St. Catherine's Queensmen 87.40

5 Cambridge Caballeros 86.40

6 I.C. Reveries 86.75

7 Selden Cadets 85.00

8 St. Raphael's Bucs 81.85

Andy

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Thanks for the info.

Was it poaching by other corps, finances, or the move to touring corps that caused the demise of those great names?

"Poaching/Age Outs":

"Poaching" was an "Unknown Term" 'Back in the Day'. "Raiding" was what usually happened, and it was usually done by a SENIOR corps ("All Ages" to the recently initiated) to a "Junior" corps. There were several reasons for a corps demise "Back Then": A big one was a failure to have "In House" replacements for yearly losses.

Some of the corps, who did this (Had a "Feeder" or "Cadets" corps) were: Blessed Sacrament (Squires), Garfield Cadets(Plebes), Boston Crusaders(Valiants), St Raphales Buccaneers(Musketeers), Madison Scouts (Junior Scouts)and St Kevins Emerald Knights(Gems & Chips), and managed to survive turnovers without a great deal of turbulence.

Some others such as St Catherines Queensmen and the Loretto Knights (Both folded, incedently, on the same day, after the same contest, Union City 1962) did not, and were lost to the activity. Others such as the Selden Cadets and Cambridge Caballeros closed their doors, and their memberships migrated to cross town rivals such as the Boston Crusaders and Bronx Kingsmen.

"Mergers" sometimes ended in the demise of the "Merged", such as the Chicago Spartans corps, a "merger" of St Micheals Chi Angels and the Vikings. The benificiaries of the Spartans comming unstuck were the Royal Airs and Skokie Vanguards.

Finances played some part in the demise of a junior corps. "Touring" was not a factor, as a "Tour" was a trip to a verterans "natioanls", usually at the tail end of a season (August-September).

The late 1960s were VERY unkind to drum corps in general, as "Conscription" (Aka the Militray Draft) wiped out a large number of great corps. Some of it's victims included: Chicago Royal Airs, Bridgeport PAL Cadets, St Rocco's Cadets, NY Kingsmen, and St Raphaels Buccaneers.

The list that Andy "Corps Historian to the Boards" Lisko has posted reads like a "Who's Who" of the Eastern "Big Guns" of the early 1960s. We are indebted to him for his knowledge.

Take a bow.

Elphaba

WWW

Edited by elphaba01
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Some others such as St Catherines Queensmen and the Loretto Knights (Both folded, incedently, on the same day, after the same contest, Union City 1962) did not, and were lost to the activity. Others such as the Selden Cadets and Cambridge Caballeros closed their doors, and their memberships migrated to cross town rivals such as the Boston Crusaders and Bronx Kingsmen.

St. Catherines and Loretto both had the same issue that all their kids got good all at one time and they also all turned 21/22 at the same time. After the Union City show in 1962 all of their big gun horn and drum players aged out and there wasn't a feeder corps (as you stated) that was there to replenish the ranks. Therefore 2 of drum corps famous corps were history.

Sad thing is most people even my age (22) don't know anything about these corps.

What does an Orange Cat (garfield) have to do with the Cadets (this question was actually asked to me), and the only reason some know about Holy name is from the corps song.

Sad that we lose our history year after year.

Edited by BucsBuff
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The list that Andy "Corps Historian to the Boards" Lisko has posted reads like a "Who's Who" of the Eastern "Big Guns" of the early 1960s. We are indebted to him for his knowledge.

Take a bow.

Elphaba

WWW

I can't take all the credit Elphie ... I just pulled the major scores off of CORPSREPS.COM and sprinkled in a few more from my personal archives ...

Interestingly, they show that St. Kevin's was always able to maintain a scoring margin over St. Catherine's, Loretto, Selden through 62 ... I can't find evidence of them ever beating Kevin's ...

:-)

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Did the greats from these corps tend to burn out like the DCI kids of today or did they generally go on to the seniors?

Interestingly enough, the now common phrase 'burn out' never seemed to exist in the sixties to my knowledge. The goal of most junior corps kids was to play with one of the big senior corps, not retire from drum corps. This seems to be another DCI-era phenomenon. I suppose it's no coincidence that senior corps, especially east-coast DCA corps, flourished in the late 1960's, early 1970's with the influx of the 1960's era age-outs.

Also, it seems that many of the 60's age-outs are now among the most ardent and dedicated members of today's alumni corps. When we joined our local corps, it became part of our entire life. It wasn't just something we auditioned for, did for a few years, and then moved on to other things. Sadly, it seems that just isn't the case any more.

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"Poaching/Age Out

The late 1960s were VERY unkind to drum corps in general, as "Conscription" (Aka the Militray Draft) wiped out a large number of great corps. Some of it's victims included: Chicago Royal Airs, Bridgeport PAL Cadets, St Rocco's Cadets, NY Kingsmen, and St Raphaels Buccaneers.

I joined St. Raphael's Bucs in July of 1965. I received my "Welcome from the President" letter in August along with quite a few other drum corps people. Best thing I ever did was enlist in the Marine Corps instead of taking the draft into the Army. I was sent to the Marines School for Drum Corps. I turned down 8th&I to do two years each in the Marine Corps Drum Corps in Hawaii and Chicago. Two years of traveling from Australia to Denver, and two years of traveling coast to coast. Plus getting to go to Cavies practice and dealing with Larry McCormack.

I now play with Park City Pride and can give back that which was given to me. Plus after 42 years I finally got to play with the drummers I would have played with back then.

Raiding was a factor amongst Bridgeport Corps. The Scarlet Knights were decimated by these shifts in early 1964. In 1965 both the Cadets and Bucs made great advances. But even the influx of the Knights into these Corps couldn't stop the bleeding...only slowed it down a bit.

Jim Ormiston, Park City Pride :mmm: :mmm: :mmm:

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