The Buoys were an American pop/rock band from the early 1970s. Its membership included Bill Kelly, Fran Brozena, Jerry Hludzik, Carl Siracuse and Chris Hanlon, based in the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton, Pennsylvania, area. They are most famous for the banned song "Timothy", which was written for them by Rupert Holmes.
Partnership with Rupert Holmes
The Buoys are most famous for their recording of Rupert Holmes's "Timothy", a song deliberately written to get banned, based on the theme of cannibalism. Holmes himself selected the group to record the song.[1]
Recorded at Scepter Recording Studios in New York City and released by Scepter Records in December 1970, with whom the Buoys had been signed but previously ignored, the song hit No. 17 on US charts in 1971.
In 1963, there had been a mine cave-in in Sheppton, Pennsylvania, a small mining community outside of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Rupert Holmes told rock journalist Maxim Furek, "I learned about the Sheppton Mine Disaster after Timothy was on the charts. If I had known about that at the time, I probably never would have written the song because I don’t want to make fun of something that’s tragic."[2]
Scepter executives did not catch what the song was about until after it started climbing the charts, after which they claimed that Timothy was a mule. Holmes rejected this attempt to change the premise of his song; he had intended it to be offensive. Holmes, with D. Jordan, wrote a less-successful hit for them titled "Give Up Your Guns" (1972), an epic narrative dealing with an escaped bank robber.
Much more serious in tone than their previous hit, "Give Up Your Guns" reached only No. 84. By contrast, "Give Up Your Guns" was a massive hit twice in mainland Europe, when originally released, and when re-released in 1979.
Holmes wrote a number of other songs for the band, including "The Prince of Thieves", "Bloodknot", and "Tomorrow", most of which had much of the darkness but little of the humor of "Timothy". Like "Give Up Your Guns", they are complaints by criminals.
Holmes now writes Broadway musicals. Rock journalist Maxim Furek later wrote a book connecting Sheppton to what he called The Sheppton Mythology.[3]
Additional songs
Their other songs, written by the band without Holmes, include the following:
"Sunny Days/Memories"
"Tell Me Heaven Is Here"
"Castles"
"Streams Together"
"Good Lovin'"
"Pittsburgh Steel"
"Absent Friend"
"Sunny Days"
"Look Back America"
"Liza's Last Ride"
In addition, the songs "Don't Try to Run" and "Dreams" were written by Brozena, Kelly, and Hludzik only.
History
The Buoys combined CSN-style harmonies blended with assorted musical approaches. Their eclectic style combined piano as a major instrument, with guitar, drums, strings, winds, brass, and harp, but also borrowed from the 1950s rock 'n' roll sound ("Good Lovin'", "Sunny Days") to more 1960s-influenced songs of protest ("Look Back America", "Pittsburgh Steel"), 1930s-style pop like "These Days", to Renaissance-influenced prog like "Castles". Without Holmes, the darker lyrical aspects largely went away, although "Pittsburgh Steel" contains more dark humor; Pittsburgh steelworkers plot to kill their foreman by dumping him in a vat of ore.
After The Buoys broke up, Bill Kelly and Jerry Hludzik teamed up as The Jerry-Kelly Band. In 1980, they formed a band called Dakota. Dakota joined a sold-out tour as the opening act for Queen. The tour included Baton Rouge, Montreal, Toronto, Philadelphia, Houston and Atlanta. Danny Seraphine of Chicago produced several albums for Dakota. Dakota disbanded in 1987, and reformed again in the 1990s with several new members, playing folk- and country-influenced rock.
Post-Dakota, Kelly and Hludzik regrouped several times as The Buoys, but with a different lineup of musicians. Bill Kelly relocated to Nashville, where he operates Sweet Suite Music.[4] Hludzik lived in Philadelphia and West Chester, Pennsylvania. He died on April 12, 2020, in Christiana, Pennsylvania, after a long struggle with frontotemporal dementia.[5][6]
In 2023, the Buoys were inducted into the Luzerne County Arts & Entertainment Hall of Fame. They were among the inaugural class of inductees.[7]
Collections
An album on compact disc of eighteen of The Buoys' songs was released in 1993 by Movieplay S.A., Intermusic, Inc., and Remember Records, in some markets as Give Up Your Guns and in others as Timothy: Golden Classics. Both albums contained the same cover image: a vintagephotograph by Michael Ochs of the five core band members standing before the entrance of a building, under an awning that says "Timothy". On the right, "Give Up Your Guns" is spraypainted on the wall of the building.
This collection includes most of their pressed recordings, although an alternate B-side take of "Liza's Last Ride" did not make it on. According to Rupert Holmes's webmaster, this pressing is unauthorized, and neither Holmes nor The Buoys receive any royalties from its sales.
Nash, Bruce, and Allan Zullo. The Wacky Top 40: The Most Outrageous, Hilarious, and Unforgettable Songs in Pop History. Holbrook, Massachusetts: Bob Adams, Inc., 1993.
Chisak, Richard. Is There Life After the Garden? The Dakota-Queen Tour. Timothy. March, 1981.
