Willapuss Wallapuss, The

Websites:  https://citizenfreak.com/artists/102022-rising-sons, https://garagehangover.com/5-rising-sons/
Origin: Burlington, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Biography:

Mon, February 16, 2015
Hi Robert. I just received a copy of your last email from Sandy Bryant (I followed Gary Sherbanow as lead guitaist in the Ragged Edges and I was part of the recent "email reunion" Sandy mentioned.). In case you want to add a bit more info re. the record, Sandy Bryant played drums, Danny Foster was on lead vocals, Wayne MacNeil (you have him spelled "Macneil") played bass, Gary Webb played rhythm guitar and Tony Ronza played lead guitar. The Ragged Edges went through lead guitarists like Spinal Tap went through drummers but to my knowledge, none of us ever exploded. I know I didn't, but maybe that's because I was the last one. In case you'd like to add it to your site, here is a publicity photo of the band who recorded Good Times/Why don't you. Left to right - Wayne MacNeil (bass), Gary Webb (rhythm), Sandy Bryant (drums), Danny Foster (lead vocals - he's the one in front), and Tony Ronza (lead guitar).

A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to play with 3 former members of "The 5 Rising Sons", another Burlington band included on your MOCM site (The Ragged Edges were also based in Burlington). My wife and I had supper with Sandy Bryant in Florida a couple of weeks ago and I was telling him about that event and recordings made by both bands. It might interest you to know that the Ragged Edges recording did not have any session player additions or overdubs. Everything you hear is from those 5 guys.

If you want more info for the Rising Sons record, Robin McMillan played drums and sang Annie doesn't live here anymore. I'm pretty sure he sang "She just likes me" too. Dave Best played bass, Mike Kotur played rhythm and Peter Davidson played organ. There is quite a bit of info at garagehangover.

The pic below was a publicity photo. The info at the bottom is inaccurate. Dave Best played bass, Ron Canning played lead guitar, Robin McMillan did play drums but was lead vocalist on their record, MIke Kotur did play rhythm guitar (they got that right but spelled it wrong) and Peter Davidson did play organ (about the only thing the author had right)

The 5 Rising Sons came from Burlington, Ontario. Members were:

Ron Canning: lead guitar
Mike Kotur: guitar
Pete Davidson: organ, vocals
Dave Best: bass
Robin McMillan: drums
Bruce Ley later joined the group on organ and bass

“Annie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” is the catchy pop A-side. I like the flip even more, the fine downer ballad “She Just Likes Me” was written by John Sharpe. It’s the ultimate teen complaint – I love her but … she just likes me! This was released in 1966.

They have a second on Columbia (“Land of 1,000 Dances” / “Don’t Look Away”) that I haven’t heard and another as the Willapus Wallapus on Yorkville, the interesting psychedelic pop number “To Jone”.

They played the Toronto Sound Show at Maple Leaf Gardens sponsored by CHUM in ’66 and toured with Terry Black in ’67.

Drummer Robin McMillan sent photos and wrote about the band:
We all went to different schools in Burlington and played the Hamilton and Burlington areas for approx. one year. My dad was the sales manager of Elgin Ford on Bay Street in Toronto and he had a three day extravaganza at the dealership in Toronto for the new Mustang, hot rods, dragsters and lots of other fast cars from Ford. He hired us to play all the music in the afternoons for the Friday, Saturday and special Sunday shows as well and bought a lot of commercial time on CHUM, CFRB and all the major newspapers and included us in all the ads.

Before you knew it there were over 30,000 people at the shows and of course to see the cars and we didn’t look back. We got bookings from all over.
With all the hype we were invited to make a couple of records which helped up quickly up the ladder from a local Burlington group to huge jobs in Toronto … the Hawks Nest, Club 888 and many others, and one of the thirteen bands CHUM picked to play at Maple Leaf Gardens.

“Annie” was in the top ten in Winnipeg, the Maritimes and CFOX in Montreal as well as CKOC, CKPC and tons more stations in Canada and played although not charted on CHUM.

Bruce joined the group the day after the Toronto Sound Show in Sept 1966. Peter on organ left to go to college in London but still kept in touch with us.

We recorded under the name of Willapuss Wallapuss just for the fun of it. Yorkville’s idea because we were a very young group and they thought it was cute I guess but it got play. “To Jone” written by Bruce Lee, who actually has done quite well writing songs for kids TV shows. Actually her name is Joan but spelled Jone don’t ask me why.

Another 45 by the Five Rising Sons on Amy (“Talk to Me Baby” / “Try to Be a Man”) is a different band, being a Shel Talmy production. The US Columbia 45 of “Candy Man” / “The Devil’s Got My Woman” by the Rising Sons is no relation to this band.