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The Pocwj Kecord, The Stroudsburgs, Ka. — Tues., June 28, 19GGburgs' Bentleys get the nod to makeSaturday nightended local eraDancing- cheek to cheek is not a thing of the past. The Bentleys varied the music from fast to slow to give the fruggers a rest.*You see the nicest costumes at The Hearth. Here a bare tummy gets a workout from one of the group’s rock n roll numbers.By JEFF COXKecord News EditorNat and Flo Sheinbaum got tjre(i 0f L0ng island. They wantedthe mountains. It's funny how things start.So. they bought Allen Roth’s restaurant, The Charcoal Hearth,up on Rt. Oil a couple of miles east of Iiartonsville.They redecorated the place a little, but it had never really been a smash.A guy named Bob Weidner from Allentown was up here, too. He had a band he called The Devils and got a job playing at The Charcoal Hearth.That was in 1903. That’s how it began.Saturday night it ended.For the Devils, now renamed the Bentleys, are moving. They’ve got backing. They’re going to take the ride and see how far they get. They should get far.They turned The Charcoal Hearth into “The Hearth,” plugged in those giant Fender amplifiers and electronic stuff, filled the place with music, and packed the people in.They had to add a whole new wing a while ago just to hold the people — and it still got so crowded . . . well, so crowded that at times the band couldn’t even move off the bandstand at a break.It made college something special for a whole generation of kids at East Stroudsburg State.The music would start, so loud you got on the dance floor andinto a crucible of sound, crushing you into action, thumping andforcing its way inside you. So loud you couldn’t deny itcame from ali over • • • Easton, Allentown, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre.It made life miserable for Flo. She sat at the door watching every face like an FBI man at a racetrack. If she knew you, it was a big wave and a smile. If she didn’t, you coughed up cards proving your age or out the door.The Devils got better over the years. It was uncanny “rY°u k.now that song 'Monday Monday’?” said Lou Tatalias,25, of Nanticoke, the bass guitar player. “It only took us once or twice through and we had it. Bob (Weidner, the leader) laid out the main parts for us and that was it.”Weidner, 27, talks about drummer John Caseioli’s ability to pick up the beat behind any song ... he feels edgy when John26, of Easton, isn’t behind him.Ed Hill. 26, originally from Port Jervis, plays rhythm guitar and harmony lead.They make music. John Hood, who’s in advertising in New York, was in the place one Saturday night about six months ago.Fabulous. They’re great,” Hood said. “I’ve been in discotheques all over New York and haven’t heard any group as good as these guys.” * 6They’re great because you have to dance. You have to dance because they are musicians and know what they’re doing.Weidner, who plays lead guitar, harmonica, and organ, and shares the vocal leads with Ed Hill, never had formal lessons. Ed and John Cascioh did.Lou Tatalias didn't either. But that doesn’t make any difference. Bob Weidner worked as a salesman and display manager for Rea and Derick Drug Store in Stroudsburg.Lou sold advertising for The Poeono Record.Ed taught guitar, and John is an accomplished photographer Four guys. Plenty of action. But it’s all over now.All over at The Hearth with the Bentleys, anyway. It happened like this as Weidner tells it:“A college student I knew used to come up to the Hearth. Then he moved into the city next to these two people who were looking for a group to handle.“He told them about us and they called me and told me the situation they were looking for a group to back, to push all the way. So I went into New York with tapes and pictures They were enthused. J“We went in as a group about a week later (about a month ago) and auditioned for them. They were more enthused. The next day we were at a studio and cut our new record/*Weidner wrote a song once before, and the group cut it on their own label in the summer of 1964. It was called the Devil Dance. I didn t like it” said Weidner. “It had no meaning. My new record has meaning.”The new record, called “Now It’s Gone, is backed with Nighttime in the City/’ both written by Bob Weidner. and out on the Devlet label, the group’s own.“It’s still on our own label,” Weidner said. But it’ll be taken over by a major label as soon as sales in this area are sufficient.“Our backers want to start us either in New York City or just outside. Then, when the promotion is built up, we’ll probably start in the village (Greenwich Village). We’ll be auditioning for The Phone Booth, a club in the village, and for Arthur uptown ”Arthur is Sybil Burton’s discotheque.“You know', once a record breaks, then tours and things come automatically. We figure it’ll take about three months with strong publicity for the promotion to take effect.”The Bentley’s are going to be something new. With all the shaggy-haired British boys and groups, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, etc., the Bentleys will be strictly American.“It’s going to be a real clean cut look — American clothes, haircuts, the whole bit. It’s time some of this stuff started coming back to America,” Weidner said.Weidner wants to continue writing songs. Someday he’d like to get in on the production end of the business, too.“I’m going to keep writing songs that make sense. Young people and older people, too, are ready . . . well, when somebody first hears a song they seldom hear the words, Then after they’ve heard it a few times, they start listening to the words.If the words have some meaning, then maybe they can identify with what’s being said.”Bob Weidner, Ed Hill, and Lou Tatalias, left to right, three of tiie four Bentleys, hammer it out for thecrowd at The Hearth. The group is leaving Stroudsburg for national promotion.People identify with that music, too. People used to swing from the rafters on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights when the band played from 10 until 2.It was different in the beginning, though, and it still makes Weidner grit his teeth a little when he thinks about the attitude he encountered a few years back.Some people wanted to close the place up,” he said. “They ■thought it was bad or something. In all those years that we’ve played I only saw about 10 fights. You hang around any bar room for three and a half years and you’re going to see a lot more fights than that.“People don’t come here to brawl,” he said at the Hearth a couple of weeks ago. It was during a break and he talked seriously. “They come here to dance. And we always tried to play for the crowd. If some older people were here, we’d play some slower numbers.”The Hearth became an institution for the younger people of Monroe County and those who knew about it from other areas. It was the only place of its kind because the band was so good.You have the Jamaican A-Go-Go in Bethlehem. Yes, they have Go-Go girls in scanty things up on platforms. But the bands are usually poor.You go to the Cameo Lounge in Allentown and sometimes they have a decent band, but some of the people are a little hard . . . rough trade.But at The Hearth they had a lot of clean-cut kids and a band that swung. Good and loud so you couldn’t miss it.Older people would come in and say, “I don’t like the kind of music they play, but they play it good.”What was it about The Hearth? Something happened up there when The Devils played. Something.You’d sit at a table and watch. The band just stood there. There were no Go-Go girls. But the dance floor was a sea of wriggling bodies. People doing all the latest dances and having fun.It was the whole mystique. Of course. The Devils were playing at The Hearth when Rock N Roll was still something for kids. But then, shortly after they started, the jet set found it. Remember when all the earls and nobles kicked the whole new age off by going to the Peppermint Lounge in New York to twist?That’s it. Then all of a sudden the slop and mashed potatoes and monkey were “in.” For everybody. Young and old were then permitted by society, to do the dances.So along came the jerk and all those. Then the frug.It was a happy-go-lucky revolution. Here was a life-style created by kids that the adults were taking over. Everybody was getting into the act.And The Devils just kept getting better. So the kids came and got all moved by the music because this was their music. Music for them.You’ve seen these people walking along with a transistor radio plugged into their skulls. Well, they’re living this new life. It all has to do with leisure time and plenty of money and lots of new clothes and fun.It’s American. Our culture . . . our very own culture catching up with us finally. No longer borrowing from Europe.The big beat sound, the rock, was even borrowed by the English. Now Europe is borrowing from us. It’s great. We can hold our heads up. Lords and barons doing the frug. How big a seal of approval do you need?That’s why all the kids got turned on. They were living. While that great music came flooding down from the stage, they could dance their hearts out and be swirling in the midst of the whole gay, new, jet-age, electronic life.It’s an exciting time to live in, and the wonderful sound made by the Bentleys underscores that excitement. And now they’re moving on. Maybe to the big time. Maybe the whole world will hear these guys.Hang on, world.Photography byGeorge ArnoldmmiThe casual look is in evidence here as this young; man and his partner ... wherever she is ... dance to the Devils— now the Bentleys —at The Hearth.1’liis girl gets caught up with the boat and (toes mo jerk. Ml the music was amplified to huge decibel levels to fill he room.Weidner, a soft-spoken person off stage, belts out a song and plays the organ while the kids gyrate in the background.Drummer John Cascioli sits among his equipment--in front of Mandrake---and backs up the guitars. He plays tambourine on the group’s new record,'Wow It’* Cone ”
Newspaper Details
Stroudsburg Pocono Record
Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, US
Tue, Jun 28, 1966
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 Mar 2019
Other Publications Near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Jeffersonian Republican
Stroudsburg Jeffersonian
Stroudsburg Daily Record
Stroudsburg Pocono Record
