(b. October 29, 1938, in Wauwautosa, WI) and singer/guitarist
(b. June 22, 1942, in Philadelphia, PA) have worked together off and on, as a duo and with others, since they met in New York City in 1962, introduced by singer/songwriter Antonia Duren,
's current one at the time. In May 1963, they formed
as a duo. Their music mixed elements of traditional folk and old-timey country with an urban sensibility informed by humorous and surreal elements of beat poetry, making them one of the oddest acts in the folk boom. They signed to Prestige/Folkore Records, the folk division of the independent jazz label Prestige Records, and recorded their debut album, The Holy Modal Rounders, on December 11, 1963, and January 17, 1964; it was released in 1964. Their second album, The Holy Modal Rounders/2, was recorded on July 16, 1964, and released in 1965. (After Prestige was acquired by Fantasy Records, Fantasy re-released the albums as a two-LP set under the title
in 1972. In 1999, Fantasy again reissued the albums, this time as a single CD called The Holy Modal Rounders 1 & 2.)
Hooking up with the Greenwich Village poets
Tuli Kupferberg and
Ed Sanders and drummer
Ken Weaver,
Stampfel and
Weber then became part of the Village Fugs, who were at least as strange as
the Holy Modal Rounders, but more interested in playing rock music. The Village Fugs' debut album, The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views, and General Dissatisfaction, was released by the Broadside subsidiary of Folkways Records in 1965. The group simplified its name to
the Fugs, and the album was reissued by the independent jazz label ESP as The Fugs First Album. ESP initially rejected the band's second recording as obscene, and they followed instead with an album called The Fugs, which broke into the pop charts in July 1966 and reached the Top 40 during a six-month chart stay. (The Fugs First Album then belatedly reached the charts and peaked in the Top 100.) With that, ESP created one of the first advisory stickers ever made for a record ("For Adult Minds Only") and finally issued the intended second release as
the Fugs' third album, Virgin Fugs (1966). (Fugs 4, Rounders Score, a compilation album released by ESP in 1975, contained previously unreleased outtakes.)
Stampfel and
Weber left
the Fugs and reconvened
the Holy Modal Rounders for their own ESP album,
Indian War Whoop (1967), which added to the group keyboard player
Lee Crabtree and drummer
Sam Shepard from
Stampfel's spin-off group the Moray Eels. In 1968, they signed to Elektra Records and released their fourth album, The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders (though, as
Stampfel later pointed out, it was the other way around), with a lineup that retained
Shepard while
Richard Tyler replaced Crabtree on keyboards and
John Wesley Annis was added on bass. Annis was still on board for the fifth album, 1971's
Good Taste Is Timeless, released by Metromedia Records, but
Tyler was gone, replaced by multi-instrumentalist
Robin Remaily (a childhood friend of
Weber's and the author of "Euphoria" from the band's first album), and
Shepard had left to focus on his playwriting (the band had played in the pit for his 1970 off-Broadway play Operation Sidewinder and even recorded an album of its music for Columbia Records that went unreleased); his replacement was drummer
Mike McCarty.
Alleged in Their Own Time, featuring
Stampfel,
Weber, Remaily, bass player
Dave Reisch, and banjoist
Luke Faust, was recorded in 1972 and released in 1975 on Rounder Records, which had been named after the group. By then,
Weber had moved to Oregon with the other members of
the Holy Modal Rounders, except
Stampfel, who remained in New York and eventually led a band with Reisch called the Unholy Modal Rounders that appeared on
Michael Hurley's celebrated 1976 album
Have Moicy! Stampfel and
Weber reunited, backed by members of
the Holy Modal Rounders spin-off group the Clamtones (among them
Tyler, Reisch, and Romaily), for
Last Round (1978), released on Adelphi Records, its title suggesting this was
the Holy Modal Rounders' final statement. Maybe that was why, in 1981, when
Stampfel and
Weber got together again for
Going Nowhere Fast, released on Rounder, they credited their first duo album since 1965 to
Stampfel & Weber, not
the Holy Modal Rounders.
After that, they went their separate ways again, with
Stampfel releasing several albums with his group the Bottlecaps and
Weber taking on occasional engineering assignments. In 1996,
Weber relocated to the East Coast and again reunited with
Stampfel. The two began to perform together, and in 1999, joined by Reisch and guest slide guitarist
Don Rooke, they recorded Too Much Fun!, the first
Holy Modal Rounders album in 21 years and their first recorded collaboration in 18 years. In 2001, Rounder released I Make a Wish for a Potato, a compilation album of recordings by
the Holy Modal Rounders and their associates.
–
William Ruhlmann, Rovi