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The Mynah Birds was a Canadian R&B band formed in Toronto, Ontario, that was active from 1964 to 1967.〔Chong. 2005.〕 Although the band never released an album, it is notable as featuring a number of musicians, such as Rick James and Neil Young, who went on to have successful careers in rock, folk rock and funk. Over its short lifespan, the group featured a large number of members in its many different configurations. Its most memorable lineup included Rick James, Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, Rickman Mason, and John Taylor. Rick James would later become a major funk star in the 70s and 80s. Young and Palmer went on to become two of the founding members in the popular West Coast folk rock group, Buffalo Springfield. After leaving Buffalo Springfield in 1968, Neil Young would go on to achieve even greater fame as a solo artist.〔 Goldy McJohn and Nick St. Nicholas would later become members of the rock band Steppenwolf. Also, a late-running 1967 version of The Mynah Birds featured heavy rocker Neil Merryweather. ==History== The Mynah Birds grew out of a 1964 group called the Sailorboys, fronted by Jimmy Livingston and also including guitarist Ian Goble, drummer Rick Cameron, organist Goldy McJohn and bass player Nick St. Nicholas. In the early 1960s, a 15-year-old singer named James Johnson signed up for the U.S. Naval Reserves. When called up for active service, he headed to Canada. In August, 1964, the AWOL sailor made his way to Toronto, Ontario, and nearly got into a fight on the street there. As he tells it in his autobiography, Johnson was rescued from a beating by a couple of local musicians, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson. Helm and Hudson were former members of Ontarian Ronnie Hawkins‘ band the Hawks and went on to form the legendary group, the Band. Hudson and Helm took the shaken young sailor to a local bar, where he jumped up onstage with the band playing at the time. That group was impressed enough that they invited him to join them, and renamed themselves the Sailorboys. Johnson quickly got to be on terrible terms with a lot of members of the Toronto music scene. One of them was Shirley Matthews, a local celebrity at the time: she’d had a big Canadian hit with “Big Town Boy” earlier in 1964. Matthews, learning that Johnson was a fugitive and in danger of being found out, suggested he call himself Ricky Matthews, after a cousin of hers who had died. At some point, the Sailorboys changed their name to the Mynah Birds; they shifted their lineup a few times, adding a keyboardist who went by the name Goldy McJohn. (Their single “The Mynah Bird Hop” got recorded somewhere around this time.) In early 1966, the Mynah Birds were signed to Motown Records. Shortly before recording began, their then bass player, Bruce Palmer, invited an acquaintance of his to join the band: local folk musician Neil Young. An article about the Mynah Birds in a May 1966 Billboard magazine indicated that their first single would be an original song called “I’ve Got You In My Soul.” That never happened, likely because somebody noticed that “I’ve Got You In My Soul” sounded remarkably similar to a 'Them' (the band fronted by Van Morrison) song called “Little Girl.” Still, the Mynah Birds completed a single that was prepared for release on Motown’s V.I.P. imprint, called “It’s My Time.” By that point, Ricky Matthews, formerly James Johnson, had combined those names into the stage name he’d use for the rest of his life: Rick James. But the band’s manager apparently misappropriated their advance money from Motown and they fired him. In return, the manager informed Motown that the band’s singer was AWOL from the Navy. One thing led to another, and Matthews ended up going to jail for a year. “It’s My Time” was never actually released, and Motown scrapped their plans for a Mynah Birds album. In the meantime, Goldy McJohn, who’d left the Mynah Birds a few years earlier, helped form the band Steppenwolf (which ex-Mynah Byrds bassist Nick St. Nicholas later joined). Neil Young and Bruce Palmer bought a hearse, drove to L.A., and helped form Buffalo Springfield, whose own tribute to that period of their career was the Neil Young song, “Mr. Soul.” After Matthews was released from prison, he briefly went back to work for Motown, and then performed with various rock bands. In 1974, he released his first solo single under the name Rick James, “My Mama.” “It’s My Time,” though, became one of the great lost Motown singles. It made its first official appearance in a Motown boxed set released in 2006, and recently appeared in its originally intended form, with its b-side “Go On and Cry," for 2012's 'Record Store Day.' 〔"()". mtvhive.com. Retrieved 2013-04-09.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Mynah Birds」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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