* En anglais uniquement
Most famous for featuring
Leslie West on guitar in his pre-
Mountain days,
the Vagrants were extremely popular in their home base of Long Island, NY in the mid-'60s, and recorded some decent singles without approaching a national breakout. Like fellow New Yorkers
the Rascals,
the Vagrants prominently featured a Hammond organ, and often played soul-influenced rock. The Vagrants were far more guitar-based than
the Rascals, however, as well as projecting a more garagey, less mature outlook; their later material lands somewhere between
the Rascals and
Vanilla Fudge.
One of the few rock bands signed to the folkie Vanguard label,
the Vagrants cut some fair singles between 1965 and 1968 that suffered from a lack of identity: a
Zombie-ish number here, a punk stomper there, a soul-rock thing here. "I Can't Make a Friend," which shows up on some garage compilations, is the most well-known of their initial efforts, but the group took their closest swipe at stardom after Felix Pappalardi helped them sign to Atco. A rock version of
Otis Redding's "Respect" (which surfaced on the Nuggets compilation) was a hit in some Eastern regions, but couldn't compete with
Aretha Franklin's rendition, also released in 1967. After a couple of other singles on Atco, the group broke up in late 1968, when
West formed
Mountain (which also included Pappalardi). Much of
the Vagrants' material was reissued in the mid-'90s. ~ Richie Unterberger