SUNNY DAYS: THE SKIP PROKOP STORY (PART 7 by Jaimie Vernon

Skip Prokop and his band The Paupers were on their way to the ‘big game’ when they had two back-to-back blows. Their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967 was an unmitigated disaster and the band’s long-time Canadian manager, Bernie Finkelstein, left the group in the hands of U.S. Uber-manager Albert Grossman. Grossman wasn’t going to let these setbacks slow the band down. In fact, he had the guys become surrogate backing musicians for several artists in his illustrious music stable. This would prove to be the undoing of The Paupers as Skip found himself attracted to working with big name acts:

SUNNY DAYS: THE SKIP PROKOP STORY (PART 4) by Jaimie Vernon

Skip Prokop and The Paupers were well on their way with a record deal on Red Leaf Records, songs on the radio, and a foot in the Yorkville coffee houses. It wouldn’t be long before the band was highly in demand and craving bigger and better rewards.

SUNNY DAYS: THE SKIP PROKOP STORY (PART 3) by Jaimie Vernon

Skip Prokop (drums), Bill Misener (guitar vocals), Chuck Beal (guitar), and Denny Gerrard (bass)  formed The Paupers on December 10, 1964. Skip picks up the story from here.

Bill moved to our house in Alderwood (south of the QEW near Browns Line) to stay with us, and he went home on the weekends. We would drive from Alderwood, New Toronto, over to Scarborough and we would practice in Chuck Beal’s basement because we could set up our equipment there. That’s where we really began to put the band together.

SUNNY DAYS: THE SKIP PROKOP STORY (PART 2) by Jaimie Vernon

In last week’s installment of “Sunny Days: The Skip Prokop Story” our young drummer, Ronn Prokop (he had yet to adopt his nickname), was heading to the Preston Scout House to hone his drum corps chops. Suffice to say Skip would not only become quite adept at marching band drum skills, but became a reigning SIX time champion in Canada and the United States with the Optimists Drum & Bugle Corp.

Roxanne Tellier – Mike McKenna, Guitar Legend

1969 or maybe early 1970.A darkened Montreal rec room, outside sound dulled by faux wood paneling and shag carpeting, with the ubiquitous mirrored bar off to the side. My girlfriend, Colleen, and I slink into the room, prepared to be kicked out by her big brother Bill, the music maven of her family, if we giggled too much.If we behaved, we’d be allowed to listen, at least for a while, to the new record Bill had brought home to enjoy with some of his cooler (and older, so therefore hotter)  friends.  We crept into the darkness, wide eyed.