’60s suburban rock scene regulars The Flock reuniting to open Ravinia season

For those of a certain age, The Flock is remembered for being part of the golden era of 1960s Chicago garage rock, with its bubble gum hits on AM Top 40 radio airwaves, and regular appearances at suburban shopping malls, homecoming dances, VFW halls and teen dance clubs.

“If there was a shopping center that was opening, they would have a stage set up on the outside,” recalls Jerry Smith, the band’s original bassist.

The mall operators would host a radio DJ, who would invite along a band to perform, and got their records played on air.

“It was just an understood kind of thing,” said Smith, who was 18 years old at the time.

The year was 1965 when Smith, a senior at Niles North High School, caught the ears and eyes of young guitarist Fred Glickstein and saxophonist Rick Canoff, who were attending a talent show at the newly built Skokie school in hopes of putting a band together.

Sporting a new hairdo that got him in trouble with school administrators, Smith performed The Beatles’ “Please Please Me.”

Two days later, the three were playing at a house in Rogers Park. Drummer Ron Karpman and guitarist Rick Mann soon joined the group.

Two years into their start, The Flock still was trying to spread its wings. Like The Beatles, the music, clothing and attitudes of the era started to change.

Smith remembers one show when The Flock — now backed by saxophonist Tom Webb, trumpeter Frank Posa and a classically trained violinist-turned-roadie-turned-band-member Jerry Goodman — took the stage at The Deep End in Park Ridge.

More and more bands were starting to incorporate horns into their music — like another homegrown band which would become Chicago, or Blood, Sweat & Tears — but no rock group had a violin.

“Some of (the audience) thought they were coming to see the old Flock,” Smith said. “Somebody threw a cigarette and hit my trumpet player in the head. I threw my bass down and I jumped on him and started pounding … this guy.”

Police came, and the show was over. But The Flock were taking off.

The band went on to achieve international fame, inking record deals with Columbia and Mercury and touring the United States and Europe.

Now Smith, an Arlington Heights resident for 45 years, and Goodman, of Eugene, Oregon, are putting an iteration of the band back together. The Return of the Flock — an eight-piece group that includes others with roots in the local rock scene — kicks off the 2024 Ravinia season at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Goodman’s hometown of Highland Park.

You likely won’t hear any of the early pop singles that got airplay on WLS and WCFL in the mid-60s. (Smith is still trying to shake the “garage band” persona some promoters want to typecast the band in.) But you will hear numbers from the group’s 1969 self-titled debut album and its 1970 sophomore album “Dinosaur Swamps,” which were released by Columbia.

Goodman, who left The Flock in 1970 to join the jazz fusion Mahavishnu Orchestra, will also perform selections from his career.

Smith describes the band’s musical stylings as “avant-garde jazz rock,” and as one promotional poster did years ago, “What category do you put them in? Is it rock? Jazz? Country? Classic? It’s all of it.”

After getting their start on the local teen club circuit — The Cellar in Arlington Heights, The New Place in Algonquin, and The Green Gorilla and The Hut in Des Plaines, to name a few — the band got its big break at The Kinetic Playground in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.

Club owner Aaron Russo let the band rehearse there; Smith lived only four blocks away.

“He’s hearing what we’re trying to get into. He goes, ‘Guys, here’s what I want you to do. Don’t play any more shows. Work up one set of material. I want you to work on a 45-minute set of material and I’m gonna be your manager. I’m telling you. I think this is something new and exciting.’”

Record label executives soon flew in to see The Flock, including Clive Davis of Columbia, which signed the group to record six albums over three years.

Two were made, but the group spent most of the time on the road. They shared summer pop festival stages with Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and Steppenwolf. In Europe, they were with Pink Floyd, Santana and Jefferson Airplane.

Smith and Goodman are on the cover of a poster for the 1971 film, “Stamping Ground,” which captures an outdoor rock concert in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

“I think (our) music was so unique and well accepted in Europe because the classics — the violin, all that classical side — and people were so open to hearing some new music,” Smith said.

After the group broke up at the end of 1970, they reunited with a new violinist and released the 1975 album “Inside Out” on Mercury.

Smith stayed in the music business — on the business side — as a sales rep for Hohner harmonicas, Arbor guitars and Command. He retired two years ago as the director of North American sales for Zildjian, the leading manufacturer of cymbals and percussion instruments.

He didn’t do much musically until a 1999 reunion for The Cellar — Arlington Heights’ famed teen club. There he met up with Jimy Rogers of The Mauds, and started playing local summer festivals with the group.

Smith has tried to resurrect other groups. Many of the musicians in The Return of the Flock initially got together in Dinosaur Exhibit, which opened for Steely Dan at Ravinia in 2019.

After Goodman flew in from Oregon, the band rehearsed this week at Smith’s friend’s house in Arlington Heights. They played in a basement music studio — not a garage.

“We did start that way,” Smith says. “But we’re an internationally known band.”