Located roughly midway between those cities is the town of Concord, New Hampshire – and it was there at a boarding school called St. Paul's that four teenagers started their own rock ‘n' roll band. The band itself didn't change the world – but nearly 45 years after its formation – the group's bass player is poised to change the world in a different way.

For the teenage bass player later became decorated war hero, Senator John Kerry – now the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States. (Incidentally - if John Kerry becomes President – he would have much in common with British Prime Minister Tony Blair – who was a guitarist in his own student-era band The Ugly Rumours.)

The spark that led to the formation of the Electras occurred in October of 1959, when Larry Rand – a native of New York City then in the 10th grade at St. Paul's School – decided he wanted to take up playing the guitar. He discovered that a classmate in his dormitory - Jon Prouty from Worcester, Massachusetts - already played the guitar. Based on their mutual interest, they began playing guitar together – a pastime that continued throughout that school year.

In September 1960 at the start of the new academic year, they resolved to take their love of music-making to the next stage. They decided to start a rock ‘n' roll band… They needed a drummer, and they found one in Peter Lang (from Hingham, Massachusetts) who was one class behind them. And when they discovered that one of their classmates was equally passionate about music and had access to an electric bass – he was promptly recruited to the band! The bassist was a 16-year-old called John Kerry. The four young music-lovers now constituted the traditional lineup of a garage rock band. Two guitars, bass and drums. The four musicians were now a band – and they decided to call themselves The Electras.

The group took its name from a then-popular car model manufactured by Buick. A nearby rival band had named themselves “The Invictas” (another car in the Buick range) so the emerging group in St. Paul's decided to name themselves after Buick's Electra car.

Those four original members of the Electras formed the core group. They practiced together, found exceptional enjoyment in their music, and began to draw an audience as they rehearsed in the band room underneath the school auditorium. Their Saturday night rehearsals evolved into jam sessions that were enjoyed by a sizable audience of their schoolmates.

The band's influences were diverse – and included guitar-bands such as The Ventures and The Fireballs – and guitar legend Duane Eddy.

The band's repertoire ranged from early rock ‘n' roll classics and garage band obscurities to early surf music – with the band members often creating their own arrangements of well-known songs. There were even a few original compositions.

Feeling more confident in their instrumental abilities than their singing prowess – the group focused primarily on instrumentals. But the occasional vocal performances were tackled.

Among the familiar songs the band performed were: “ Blue Suede Shoes,” “What I'd Say,” “Rock ‘n' Roll Music,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Walk Don't Run,” “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On,” “Summertime Blues” and a Chuck Berry song that is currently being heard quite frequently… “Johnny B. Goode.”

Like all rock ‘n' roll bands – the membership evolved and changed over the passage of time. The group expanded to include musicians playing other instruments and as some members graduated from school – younger musicians took their place. By the end of its three-year run, no less than twelve musicians had appeared on stage playing under the banner of The Electras.

The first change in lineup came in January 1961. Having played together as a traditional garage band quartet, the lineup was augmented by the addition of a pianist – Jack Radcliffe - and a maracas player - Andy Gagarin. By the end of the spring term of 1961, the Electras were not only practicing regularly before listeners, they were playing at St. Paul's proms and term dances, at Concord High School dances and at private parties. Contemporary reports record a successful appearance as far away as New York City – where they were the formal entertainment for “The Senior Class Dance of the Chapin School.”

16 months after their formation, in December 1961, The Electras decided to make an album. They wanted to create a permanent souvenir of the songs they frequently played and to keep alive the fun and excitement they had shared since the inception of the band. They viewed it as an album that they could sell to their schoolmates, friends and family members.

The recording they made was very primitive by today's standards of 64-track digital recording. 13 songs from their stage repertoire were recorded by a single microphone dangled overhead – and captured on a single-track Ampex tape recorder. The session lasted just 2 hours – managing to record their entire album in just one fifth of the time it would take the Beatles to record their debut album one year later!

The resulting tape was taken to the custom manufacturing division of RCA Records (at that time the powerhouse company behind Elvis Presley) – and a grand total of 500 copies were pressed as a vinyl album – the only format of the era. The original sale price of the album was $5.

20 years later when the group was a faded memory to even their classmates, a copy of the album was purchased at a New England yard sale for just 25¢. But with the recent rise to international prominence of its bass player – the value of original copies of the album has escalated significantly. Recently an original vinyl copy of the album sold on eBay for over $2,500!

The Electras were proud of their approach to music and were probably among the first bands to advocate that rock ‘n' roll should be considered an art form! The liner notes of their 1961 album stated: “ They subscribe to the theory that rock and roll should by rights be made an art, and to this end they have experimented widely with technique and form. From jazz they have borrowed the principle that improvisation should comprise a large part of music and in consequence they have developed a style that is strictly and unmistakably theirs.”

In July 1962, several of the then-current lineup (including three of the four founding members) graduated from St. Paul's School and left the band. With original member Peter Lang still playing (alongside pianist Jack Radcliffe from the second incarnation of the group) five new members played with the band at various points during the year. David Allan and Julien McKee were the primary guitarists - with occasional contributions from a third guitarist - Bart Baldwin. Two different saxophonists played with the band - Don Roach and Brink Thorne. These musicians made up the fourth and final lineup of The Electras.

By July 1963, as those members also graduated from St. Paul's, the group came to a natural and graceful conclusion. It was a prescient decision. For that same month in England - one of the hundreds of garage bands that had sprung up at the same time as the Electras – went into a London recording studio and recorded a song called “She Loves You”…

Just six months after the Electras gave their last performance – the Beatles exploded into the American consciousness – and at a stroke the tidal wave of Beatlemania – with its vibrant fresh approach to rock ‘n' roll - supplanted the style of the original garage bands of the 1960-1963 era.

The Electras passed into the history books and the fading memories of its members. Which is where they remained until 40 years later when one of its founding members announced that he was running for President of the United States. It was then that those interested in learning more about the childhood of the war hero running for president discovered his passion for rock ‘n' roll – and the fact that John Kerry was a founder-member of a garage band with his teenage schoolmates - The Electras!

AN ELECTRA MEETS A BEATLE!
A summit meeting of two garage band graduates!

In one of life's curious happenstances - ten years after John Kerry left the group he had helped to create – he found himself meeting the founder-member of that one-time garage band that helped change the face of music – the Beatles. And though neither the Electras nor John Kerry as a musician had scaled the musical heights of the Beatles and John Lennon - the meeting was one filled with mutual respect.

For John Kerry – garage band graduate turned war hero turned peace activist met up with John Lennon – garage band graduate turned cultural hero turned peace activist.

John Kerry and John Lennon were two of the leading anti-war activists who appeared at a peace rally in New York's Bryant Park on May 12th 1972 to seek an end to the war that had already taken the lives of over 46,000 brave Americans - who like John Kerry had served their country in Vietnam.

More about the meeting of John Kerry and John Lennon

FORTY YEARS ON…

Some 40 years after the disbandment of the high-school rock ‘n' roll band that he was a founding member of - Senator John Kerry is the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States.

And interest in his first “band of brothers” – his musical band The Electras – is considerable.

The three fellow founding members of the band (Larry Rand, Jon Prouty and Peter Lang) managed to locate the original master tapes of the album that they recorded in 1961. The tapes had been archived in the vaults of RCA – the company that had manufactured the album in 1961.

Realizing the limitations of the original recording – they took the master tapes to one of the world's leading audio engineers – Bob Ludwig – who specializes in re-mastering music albums for CD – especially classic albums from the 1960's and 1970's – and albums recorded in primitive circumstances.

His credits include multiple albums by Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, The Band, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits, Bryan Ferry, Hall & Oates, Sly & The Family Stone and Nirvana.

Ludwig worked carefully on the original single-track recording to restore the audio tape and present the sound at its optimum. The restored master tape has now been made into a CD - presenting the Electras' only album as it was originally meant to be heard.

• This re-mastered CD version of the original album is now available exclusively through this website.