The Buckinghams founding guitarist and current singer Carl Giammarese usually keeps the band’s schedule between 35 to 40 shows a year.
So, he’s excited that two of those performances this year will be Aug. 22-23 at the Egyptian Theatre.
“This will be our first time there, and I’m so glad it came into fruition,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it, and the people and the crew who work there are pros.”
The Buckinghams — Giammarese, founding bassist Nick Fortuna, guitarist Dave Zane, keyboardist Bruce Soboroff and drummer Tommy Scheckel — take the responsibility of performing Top 10 hits such as “Don’t You Care,” “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and the No. 1 smash, “Kind of a Drag” as close to their original arrangements.
“You do feel responsible for giving people what they want to hear,” Giammarese said. “So, we travel with a horn section because The Buckinghams’ sound was definitely horn driven, especially with the trombone.”
The band also plays some cover tunes, according to Giammarese.
“You try to do some cover material that has connections with what we’re all about, the hits that were on the charts during the same time period,” he said. “We have found out that people relate to that.”
Of course, the band will interact with audiences, Giammarese said.
“We joke around and try to show we’re having a good time, which is the truth,” he said with a laugh. “We’re so grateful to be doing this and being out there performing our music.”
Last year The Buckinghams celebrated its 60th anniversary, Giammarese said.
“Then we had some magical years in 1967 and 1968,” he said.
Giammarese’s favorite Buckinghams album, “Portrait,” featured the hits “(Hey Baby) They’re Playing Our Song” and “Susan,” which respectively hit No. 12 and No. 11 on the Billboard charts.
“It was the last album of ours that Jim Guercio produced before he went on to produce Chicago,” he said. “It was more of a concept album, and it was a great opportunity to show off what we could do playing wise.”
The band, which included Dennis Tufano, Marty Grebb and John Poulos, rented a house in the Hollywood Hills.
“It was up in Mulholland Drive, and that’s where we rehearsed in and eventually got into the studio,” Giammarese said. “It was a great experience to work collectively as a band. We were there for almost a couple of months writing and recording.”
While Giammarese doesn’t have a favorite Buckinghams song, he did point out “Have You Noticed You’re Alive” as one he calls “special.”
“I can still see myself in the studio with fellow Buckingham Marty Grebb sitting across from each other playing acoustic guitars,” he said. “The intro of that song started that way.”
In fact, Giammarese has a slide show of recording sessions in his mind.
“Back then we worked as a group,” he said. “We’d cut a basic track with bass, drums and keyboards or guitar and then build on that with vocals.”
The recording process is different today, according to Giammarese, who also records solo projects such as his last album, “Let the Music Play,’ which was released a year ago and available on all streaming platforms.
“The whole thing was done in my home studio, and I did all the tracks,” he said. “I worked with a lot of great singers and musicians, and we would just email files back and forth. Then I had an engineer who had his own studio. And he put everything together, mixed it and mastered it. So, we didn’t get together, but that’s how things are today.”
Another change for The Buckinghams is its audience demographics.
“We’ve gone through generations with our music,” Giammarese said. “Back in the day, when we started the hits, our audience was made of young people like us, kids who appreciated and connected with our music.”
The band came back around in 1980, when there was a resurgence in ’60s music.
“We didn’t play much at all during the ’70s, and when we came back, most of the audience was in their 40s,” Giammarese said. “They had a lot of memories and stories, which were great to hear.”
Several years later some audience members would tell Giammarese and his bandmates how their parents introduced them to The Buckinghams’ music.
“Before you knew it, it became grandparents who introduced the music to the younger audience members,” he said. “So, we’re fortunate that our music has been able to connect with different generations who see the significance.”
Still, Giammarese feels the Buckinghams aren’t that much different from popular groups today.
“We were a five-piece rock band, and that is still the norm, so you can relate to that,” he said. “And I think a lot of the music today was built on what we were doing — just like how The Beatles did it.”
The Fab Four embraced the music that came before them, Giammarese said.
“They started as a cover band, and the music they listened to was a lot of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, the Everly Brothers and Elvis and Roy Orbison,” he said. “They took that music and created a new sound and showed it in a new way.”
Giammarese began playing guitar when he was 13.
“I grew up in Chicago, and my dad wanted a diversion for me,” he said. “There were some problems in the neighborhood, and my parents wanted me to not get influenced by some of the things that were happening around me. So they thought giving me a guitar would keep me busy.”
Little did Giammarese’s parents realize that he would take music as seriously as he did.
“My first album was Elvis Presley’s ‘King Creole,’ and I was a big fan of the Everly Brothers and Ricky Nelson,” he said. “I would watch the ‘Ozzie and Harriett’ show on TV just so I could see him perform.”
Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” was another of Giammarrese’s favorite songs.
“When we started as a band we also did instrumentals, and I was a big fan of The Ventures,” he said. “So by the time The Beatles hit, I was all in. Like many kids I wanted to be the fifth Beatle.”
Giammarese was a freshman in high school when he decided to pursue music as a career.
“I was still a senior in high school when our record ‘Kind of a Drag,’ our first No. 1, broke,” he said. “And I’ve been able to make a living from making music.”
But all wasn’t success and fun, according to Giammarese.
“We were really focused during the time between 1965 and 1970, and the difficulty was trying to find that first original song.”
The band’s managers brought in “Kind of a Drag,” which hit No. 1 shortly after its release.
“We were signed to USA Records, a company out of Chicago, but when the song hit No. 1, our contract had expired,” Giammarese said. “We didn’t have a deal but had the No. 1 record in the country.”
The band decided they needed to change things as to not become a one-hit wonder.
“We needed to have the right management and the right record label,” Giammarese said. “So we signed with Clive Davis at Columbia Records. Jim Guercio and Seymour Ebbins, who founded Guercio-Ebbins Associates, were our managers. Then the William Morris Agency became our booking agent.”
That’s when the band started playing TV shows, according to Giammarese.
“Back then there wasn’t social media, so all you had to go by was to get invited to perform on variety TV shows like the Jerry Lewis Show, the Joey Bishop Show,” he said. “We did the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and the biggie was the Ed Sullivan Show.”
Moving operations out of Chicago proved to be a trial, Giammarese said.
“A lot of people in Chicago got angry with us,” he said. “They acted like we were walking away from the city, the agents and the local radio support from WLS and WCFL. But we stuck to our guns. Even though we received some threats, we went ahead anyway and found ourselves on a plane to New York, and then went right into the studio to record our second big hit, ‘Don’t You Care.’”
Back then the band would hit the road and play up to 300 dates.
Although that number has dropped considerably, Giammarese doesn’t see him and Fortuna doing anything else.
“We just try to stay on top of things, and make some changes within the show occasionally,” he said. “So I see us continue performing.”
Although Giammarese loves writing songs and has released solo projects, he doesn’t see hit records in his future.
“I try to put new songs out because I need to be creative,” he said. “And I’m always hopeful a young artist will pick up a song and rerecord it. But mostly we want to keep playing shows.”
The Buckinghams
- When: 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
- Where: Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main St.
- Phone: 855-745-SHOW
- Web: parkcityshows.com and thebuckinghams.com