#35: Elephant Candy by The Fun And Games

City: Calgary, AB
Radio Station: CKXL
Peak Month: December 1968
Peak Position in Calgary ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Elephant Candy”
Lyrics: “Elephant Candy”

There was a band of musicians from a high school in Houston, Texas, that included rhythm guitarist, trumpet and recorder player, and vocalist Rock Romano (born 1945). Rock was playing guitar by the age of 13. Romano was joined by classmates Mike Cemo, guitar player and vocalist Paul Guillet, and John Bonno. When they added Richard Bain, D. J. Greer, and drummer Carson Graham, the students took the name The Six Pents. They worked as the house band at La Maison in Houston. They also recorded a single at local studio named Andrus. After releasing the single, they changed their name to The Sixpentz. They released a single on Matrix label titled “Your Girl Too”. They moved to the Geer label and released “Good To You”. A third garage rock tune, “Summer Girl”, was released on the Kidd label in 1966.

In 1967, moving on to the Brent label, they issued “Imitation Situation”, which charted in the Top 40 on KNUZ in Houston. While “Don’t Say You’re Sorry” reached the Top 20 in Lansing and Flint, Michigan, and charted in Los Angeles and Houston. The B-side, “Tinkle Talk” was a Top 30 hit in Houston.

But when they signed with Mainstream Records, they discovered that the name Sixpence was already being used by another group. Consequently, the band changed their name again to The Fun and Games Commission. They released a garage rock single titled “It Must Have Been The Wind”.

A followup  was a psychedelic rock single was titled “Today – Tomorrow”. It charted in Beaumont (TX) and Medford (MA).

Then they abridged their name to The Fun and Games. When The Fun and Games were signed to Uni Records, Mike Cemo, John Bonno and D.J. Greer left the band. They were replaced by Joe Romano (born 1949) and Joe Dugan (keyboards).

At age fourteen, Joe Romano was singing and playing guitar as the frontman for the Glow Coats.

Sam Irwin became the lead vocalist, also contributing recorder and tambourine. So the Uni Record lineup for The Fun and Games was Joe Dugan, Carson Graham, Sam Irwin, Rock Romano, Paul Guille (having altered his surname from Guillet), and Joe Romano.

The band next released a single titled “Elephant Candy”.

“Elephant Candy” is a bubblegum pop song about how good elephant candy tastes, and only for just a dime. The singer asks, “Did you know that elephants can be fun, eating candy on the run?” This candy is so good, it’s the kind you’d take for an important date:

If I knew you, and I liked you,
I’d give you some of my elephant candy.
One bite, in the moonlight,
You’ll be lovin’ me forevermore.

The elephant candy in the song is also hard to find. The singer is “looking and searching” for the elephant candy “everywhere I go.”

While there may have been a hidden meaning behind “Elephant Candy” (with so many rock critics at the time seeing a drug reference in pop music lyrics in the late sixties), it is possible to buy ‘elephant candy.’ Here are a few examples:

1) Lucky Elephant Pink Candy Popcorn

2) Lucky Elephant Cotton Candy

3) Animal-themed lollipops (monkey, lion and elephant examples below)

4) Assorted zoo animal gummy bears

“Elephant Candy” peaked at #2 in Calgary, #7 in Rapid City (SD), and #11 in Beaumont (TX) and Houston.

An album titled Elephant Candy – The Fun and Games was released. It included a great cover of the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby”.

Their next release with Uni Records was in the winter of 1968 with “The Grooviest Girl In The World”. The bubblegum single shot to #3 in Los Angeles and Akron (OH), #8 in Quincy (IL) and Cleveland, #12 in Houston, #14 in Santa Barbara (CA), #15 in Memphis, Halifax (NS), and Seattle, #17 in Spokane (WA) and Dayton (OH), #18 in Hartford (CT) and Bellingham (WA), and #19 in Windsor (ON) and Pittsburgh.

This was followed with “Gotta Say Goodbye”. The B-side, “We”, was a Top 30 hit in Houston in June 1969.

The group broke up soon after. Rock Romano later played in Houston-area groups Little Fitz, the Baroque Brothers, Smokin Fitz, and the New Texas Bluesicians. Later he was a member of Dr. Rockit (starting in 1979) and the Sisters of Mercy, and the Sheetrockers. In 1982, Romano released the album Great Big Fun credited to Dr. Rockit and the Sisters of Mercy. With the Sisters of Mercy, Romano’s band was once able to open a concert in Houston for Bo Diddley. The Sisters of Mercy wound down by the mid-80s. But they still have reunions. Over his career, with various groups, Rock Romano has been part of bands who have opened concerts in Houston for both Jerry Lee Lewis and The Police.

He was subsequently also with Sam Irwin in the Duck Soup band. In 1989, Romano took over a small recording studio and named it the Red Shack Recording Studio. The Red Shack has been a fixture in the Houston music scene since its opening. Romano has since worked with hundreds of artists to record and engineer albums. He produced Trudy Lynn’s Royal Oak Blues Cafe which reached the top spot on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums in 2014.

Joe Romano went on to join Ray Rogers and the Bojangles, a house band for a club of the same name in Houston. He went on to become a music teacher. He also became music director for the Texas Theatre Foundation, writing three original musicals for children, and was later a contributing songwriter for Sesame Street. In the mid-80s, he became part of a jazz vocal duo with his future spouse, Susan Elliott, called Mood Indigo. They performed as a duo from the mid-80s into the mid-2010s. The duo also performed for almost three decades in the Non-Toxic Band with a children’s music repertoire. He died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 67.

May 4, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
“The Fun and Games,” Wikipedia.org.
“Joseph Louis Romano,” Bradshawcarter.com, August 5, 2017.
Eileen McClelland, “Birthday Reunites Rockit with his Sisters of Mercy,” Houston Chronicle, February 12, 2005.