THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 134 lines
MANY PEOPLE DREAD their high school reunions. And they don't even have to sing at them.
Kaye Krebs did.
``There were 400 people in there, and they just started screaming and yelling!'' says Krebs, an executive with KinderCare in Virginia Beach. ``I can't tell you what that first song felt like. It was like being 16 again.''
At 16, Krebs was Kaye McCool of the Pixies Three. She, Debbie Swisher and Midge Bollinger were high school students in Pennsylvania when their single ``Birthday Party'' sold a reported three-quarters of a million copies, crashed the Billboard Top 40 and went to No. 1 in several East Coast cities.
They performed on package shows with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Dionne Warwick, the Four Seasons and the Dave Clark Five. By 1966, after six 45s, an album and a personnel change (Bonnie Long replaced Bollinger), the Pixies Three were out of school and off the charts.
Collectors traded copies of ``Birthday Party'' and ``442 Glenwood Avenue,'' their second biggest hit. And the Pixies occasionally turned up on girl-group compilation CDs alongside the Supremes and the Shangri-Las. But they didn't work together again until Hanover High School's 25-year reunion in 1991.
``Can you come and just lip-sync our records?'' Krebs recalls being asked by Debbie Swisher-Horn. ``I got there, and I found out we were the only show!''
The Pixies put their three-part harmony to the test, rehearsing enough material for four 45-minute sets in three days. On Friday, they'll reunite at Classic Oldies Restaurant in Newport News.
``I don't know how to describe it; they still blend,'' Swisher-Horn says of the near sisterly voices the Pixies still own. And to prove it, in a lounge at Windmark Recording studio in Virginia Beach, where they put music to tape for the first time in some 30 years this week, they break into a girl-group anthem for the ages:
``Met him on a Monday and my heart stood still/Da doo ron ron ron . . . ''
Teen spirit blazes brightly on the Mercury Records album ``Party With the Pixies Three.''
``It's full of crowd noises and screaming,'' Krebs says. ``We had to get all of our high school friends' names on the record. That was part of the deal - we had promised everybody that we'd get their names on it. And on `After the Party,' those are our real boyfriends singing `Good night.' All three of them. My husband sang, `Good night, Kaye.' ''
That wasn't his only contribution. The cover pictures Kaye, Debbie and Bonnie in pink and white dresses, surrounded by balloons and bunting. Three blurry guys stand behind them.
By this time, the teenage Pixies knew enough about the business to realize they were paying for everything out of their royalties. Studio time, promotional costs, nights on the town for their record producers - even stunt dates for the LP jacket photo.
`` `Models!' '' Krebs remembers protesting. `` `We'll bring guys! We've got boyfriends!' These models cost $500 an hour or something.
``This is my husband,'' she says, pointing to the blur on the right.
Krebs' own ``Our Love'' was the flip side of ``Birthday Party.'' But she says producers John Madara and Dave White, in a common music industry trick of the era, added their names to the label credit, thereby taking part of her profits.
``We had one good side and one bad side that I wrote,'' she says merrily of that first record.
``After that, they made the mistake of putting two good songs out at once.'' The result was split airplay, blunting the commercial impact of both sides.
Even Mercury, which was riding high with Lesley Gore at the same time, seemed unsure of how to pick follow-ups for the Pixies. Trade ads from the period underscore this to comic effect. ``Cold Cold Winter,'' their second single, was flipped in April 1964; the new A-side, ``442 Glenwood Avenue,'' got plugged with a full page in Cashbox magazine: ``Hey! Have you got us upside down?''
``We had absolutely no input,'' Krebs says. ``In fact, we didn't like most of the material they gave us,'' she adds of Madara and White.
``We were originally a three-part harmony group, but they made us do almost everything as lead-and-background. Our producers weren't very good at coming up with a sound. Here they had a new sound, and they didn't know what to do with it.''
There was talent on the sessions, though: Not only theirs, but that of sidemen and writing contributors like Leon Huff, who went on to fame as an architect of the Philly-soul sound.
``He was about 14 years old,'' Krebs says. ``And he always played piano standing up. I knew he was going to do something great.''
In addition to recording sessions and live dates, the Pixies appeared on Buddy Deane's Baltimore TV show, the inspiration for John Waters' film ``Hairspray.''
After the Pixies scattered, Debbie was the only one to pursue music full time - first with the Angels (post-``My Boyfriend's Back''), then with a succession of regional acts chasing trends from disco to country.
Cut to 1991. Debbie Swisher-Horn and Bonnie Walker, an administrative assistant for Precision Components, were looking at the prospect of their 25-year high school reunion when the notion of a simultaneous Pixies Three homecoming was floated.
``My husband came up with the idea,'' remembers Swisher-Horn. `` `Let's get the girls back together.' ''
``Yeah, but I don't think the girls will want to do it,'' she answered.
Actually, they did. Debbie and Bonnie resorted to a bit of trickery to entice '64 graduate Kaye - who had missed her prom because of a gig - to return to the ranks.
With their triumph, that was that. Until a New Year's Eve party, another Hanover High ``reunion'' the next year and two Michigan oldies concerts with Bobby Vee and Martha Reeves.
Friday night's Classic Oldies show is to be videotaped for use in a promotional kit that will, the Pixies hope, lead to more work. They're not giving up their day jobs, but they are intrigued by the possibility that there are audiences out there, on ``oldies cruises'' and in clubs.
``The rapport's there,'' Walker says of the act. ``When you think about it, we really were like sisters, singing all the time, singing in the car. . . . ''
``None of us had sisters,'' Swisher-Horn pitches in.
Walker: ``We were the sisters we never had.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by Paul Aiken
From left, Debbie Swisher-Horn, Kaye Krebs and Bonnie Walker
recorded for the first time in 30 years this week.
Color photo
Teen spirit blazes brightly on the Mercury Records album "Party
Pixies Three," featuring Kaye, Debbie and Bonnie on the cover.
Graphic
CONCERT FACTS
Who: The Pixies Three
When: 9:30 p.m. Friday
Where: Classic Oldies Restaurant, 12644 Jefferson Ave., Newport
News
Tickets: $3 at the door
Call: 886-1264
by CNB