Jim Holvay

Jim was interviewed by Tom Waldman for a 2014 KLCS-TV PBS episode of Rock 'N Roll Stories. Tom co-wrote the 1998 book "Land Of A Thousand Dances: Chicano Rock 'N' Roll From Southern California" with David Reyes. Waldman wrote a script based on the music scene of East L.A. in the sixties and showed Holvay. Tom then asked Jim to compose music for the play. The tunes were to feel like Cannibal & the Headhunters' "Land of a 1,000 Dances" but original. The songs, sung by an unknown group following their dream and opening for a group like The Beatles at a venue similar to the Hollywood Bowl in 1965. Holvay worked with David Reyes, Rudy Salas and Tom Waldman resulting in the soundtrack for Eastside Heartbeats-The Musical.

Located in Sioux Falls, SD during the 70s was the renown showroom, the Mocamba Club. Top acts played the club and The MOB is said to be, the most booked act and the biggest draws that the Mocamba Club had. October 2010, Don Fritz, President of the South Dakota Rock & Roll Music Association informed that The MOB was selected under the category "bands". Inducted April 16, 2011, at the Ramkota Exhibit Hall in Sioux Falls, SD more than 2,000 people in attendance saw and heard The MOB in person, their first reunion in 35 years.

One goal was to help finance school tuition by playing clubs with a "dream" band. November 1965, Sistak posed the question to Holvay. "Jim. If you could wave a magic wand, what kind've [sic] a group would you put together?" Holvay responded, "I'd put together an ass-kicking horn band with the best musicians I could find. We'd play soul music and have the greatest live show that ever existed. It's never been done before." After seeing an old gangster movie on a late night movie TV channel on WGN, Holvay came up with the concept for the group. The name of that old movie was called The MOB.[2] The group will have a full blown horn section, singers, etc., so there'll be a mob of people on stage. Being from a gangster town, the group will wear pinstripe suits, black shirts, white ties and carnations.

In the summer of '63, The Chicagoans became the house band on "Danceville, U.S.A." Lounsbury's weekly live TV show. In the fall, the group moved to New York and played The Peppermint Lounge, The Metropole Cafe and Arthur's Tavern. The Chicagoans went on tour traveling to countless venues across the U.S. and Canada. One recording session yielded an instrumental written by Holvay and Beisbier titled "Beatle Time." WLS Program Director Clark Weber suggested the group should be called The Livers (referring to Liverpool) and the record charted on the Silver Dollar Survey in the spring of 1964. After tours playing ballrooms thru out the midwest backing up Terry Stafford, Chubby Checker, Nino Tempo & April Stevens- the group moved to San Francisco. Then, they worked clubs in North Beach (pre-"Monterey") alongside Sly Stewart & his Mojo Men, The Beau Brummels, Pat & Lolly Vegas, The Gauchos, The Nooney Rickett 4. Afterwards, Jim returned home and registered for Junior College.

Carl Bonafede was a Chicago band promoter for weekly dances at local ballrooms. He managed The Buckinghams when Carl gave Jim a call. Jim Holvay first met Carl Bonafede at a Jim Lounsbury record hop, the Willowbrook Ballroom, while Carl was singing with the Gem-Tones back in 1960. Carl told Jim that The Buckinghams covered Beatles songs and Jim replied that he wrote R&B/soul songs. "I was dinking around on a spinet piano in a music practice room at Lyons Township Junior College and wrote Kind of a Drag. I wasn't sure Carl remembered I was a songwriter until he asked if I had any tunes. Yeah, I do have something, and Carl asked when he could hear it. I remember cutting a demo of the song on acoustic guitar between shows," he recalled.

In 7th grade he formed The Rockin' Rebels. His first paying gig was at the opening of a Go-Kart Shop in Lyons, IL. A couple years of guitar lessons plus a recording session featuring two blues-progression instrumentals, Jim entered Lyons Township High School as a freshman in 1959. Then, he played in a group called Jimmy & The Jesters. His father drove him to Record Row on the south side of Chicago. Within a few blocks of each other were the labels Vee Jay, Constellation, King and Chess Records. Jim met Chess Records A&R Willie Dixon with his acetate tape in hand. Even though Jim was turned down, to his advantage, he received constructive criticism that would help him. Jim also met Leonard Chess and Curtis Mayfield who influenced Jim's songwriting and guitar playing. While in high school, he purchased a sunburst-finish Fender Stratocaster, played and recorded a couple of songs on Terry Records with an Aurora, Illinois band named The MayBees and met his longtime collaborator, Gary Beisbier. During his junior and senior years, Holvay connected with Jim Lounsbury, the local TV dance show host, and played at the Lounsbury record hops in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. Holvay graduated in 1963 and joined a band called The Chicagoans with Gary.

James Steven "Jimmy Soul" Holvay (born May 16, 1945) is an American songwriter and musician best known for writing "Kind of a Drag", a number one hit for The Buckinghams. He is one of the founding members of The MOB, the first rock band to perform at a Presidential Inaugural Concert & Ball.