Beauregard Ajax

Beauregard Ajax was an American pop/psychedelic band from southern California in the mid 1960's.

History

In 1966 David Ferguson (Guitar & Vocals), his neighbour John Boutell (Rhythm Guitar) and a schoolmate of David’s, Dennis Margeson (Bass), formed the “Poets”. By 1967 they had added another neighbour to the group, vocalist Charlie Hendricks. David and Charlie immediately began writing original music for the group, both separately and in collaboration. Soon after the introduction of Charlie into the band Dennis Margeson was replaced with bassist Clint Williams. Charlie and Clint had previously played in several bands together. The group was still shy a drummer until Patrick Landreville, a mutual friend, introduced drummer Leo Hartshorn to the band.

Completing the band roster was the catalyst that David and Charlie needed to begin writing in earnest, rapidly increasing their repertoire. The Poets soon began playing in any venue that would have them and they quickly became one of the most popular bands in the area. Capitalising on the Poets rapid rise in popularity Patrick introduced the band to his friend, concert promoter Jim Salzer. Salzer was suitably impressed with the bands sound and appearance and began booking them as an opening act at his concerts as well as at his nightclub, the Starlight Lounge. Jim Salzer was at the time one of the top two concert promoters in southern California, the other being Avalon Attractions.

By this time Charlie had persuaded the band to change the name of the band from the Poets to the Dumplings. Mike Cullen, another local favourite, approached David with the idea of playing a double bill with Mike’s band. David was receptive to the idea and Mike secured several performances at local venues. At one of these shows Barbara Haskell, the wife of famed music arranger Jimmie Haskell, saw the Dumplings and offered to introduce the band to one of her husband’s associates in the music industry. Patrick contacted Barbara and she subsequently contacted Bob Keane of Del-fi Records. Bob immediately called Patrick saying he had gotten a glowing recommendation from the Haskell’s concerning the Dumplings and he was indeed interested in hearing the band. Patrick then forwarded this information to David and Charlie. A meeting at Del-fi was set up, a contract was offered and after a brief battle between Averill C. Pasarow, the band’s attorney and J. Cooper, Keane’s attorney, a contract was signed. Keane thought the Dumplings was a terrible name and strongly suggested the band change it. As it happens the band members, with the exception of Charlie, also hated the name. After the band considered a great many names and rejected them all, Patrick suggested naming the band as if it were a person rather than traditional band type names, they liked the idea and settled on one from Patrick’s list, Beauregarde Ajax. Bob Keane subsequently misspelled the name as Beauregard Ajax which is how it appears on “Deaf Priscilla” the only record commercially released by the band. Bob Keane personally produced the majority of the tracks then handed the project off to Paul Politi to finish the recordings. All tracks recorded for Del-fi were done at Bob Keane’s Stereo-fi Studio on Selma Avenue in Hollywood, a stones throw from the Capitol records building on Vine Street. The tracks were recorded on his Scully Dictaphone eight track machine which at the time was state of the art. Most recordings at that time were done on four track machines, eight track machines did not become standard until the early 1970s and were shortly replaced by sixteen and twenty-four track machines. Del-Fi Records never released the Beauregard Ajax recordings as the master tapes were lost when Bob Keane had a falling out with his partner in the Stereo-Fi Studio. The band arrived at Stereo-Fi for the final recording sessions and found the doors chained with a notice from the sheriff’s office. The Deaf Priscilla album eventually released by German label, Shadok Records, is from a cassette duplication of the original masters. The band underwent another name change while on the Del-fi label, Beauregard Ajax was changed to Sleep. With the name change from Beauregard Ajax to Sleep Charlie Hendricks left the band and was replaced by Bruce (no known surname), David had met Bruce while attending Los Angeles City College.

Post Beauregard Ajax

Drummer Leo Hartshorn and bassist Clint Williams joined graphic artist and singer Jim Creason’s group which also included guitarist Bill Connors (Return to Forever). They played the LA club scene until the band simply dissolved after a year of playing local venues such as the Troubadour, the Whisky-a-GoGo, the Galaxy Theatre and the Starwood.

Leo was draughted into the U.S. army and toured with an army band. He then became a minister which he remains to this day. Leo is also an acclaimed author of religious texts.

Clint got out of the music business and became an entrepreneur, starting businesses as varied as the manufacturing and distribution of clothing and selling real estate.

John Boutell (Guitar), Charlie Hendricks (Vocals and occasional Guitar) and Patrick Landreville (Bass and Vocals) formed a blues band called The Boom. The name was changed to RHS and drummer Bob Siebenberg (Supertramp) and guitarist Scott Gorham (Thin Lizzy) were added to the lineup. Bob, Scott and Charlie left the band and were replaced by David Ferguson and Brandon Matheson. The band underwent another name change to Bald Ego and continued on as a trio after David left to play with Bill Eucker. With the end of Bald Ego John and Brandon joined Bandana, a spin off of The New Christy Minstrels featuring singer Gary Miller aka comedian Gary Muledeer. Following his stint with Bandana John rejoined with Patrick in Blues Deluxe. During the 1990s John Boutell was a founding member of the contemporary blues band, Blue Stew.

David Ferguson signed a management contract with actress Yvette Mimieux’s Destiny Productions and formed a trio with bassist Steve Larson and drummer Brandon Matheson. Following the demise of his trio Ferguson and Matheson joined John Boutell and Patrick Landreville in the RHS band. After one U.S. tour David left RHS to play with acclaimed Los Angeles session guitarist Bill Eucker. Following his stint with Eucker David and Patrick reformed Sleep with David’s brother Mark Ferguson on keyboards and drummer Bobby Allen (David Bowie). With the end of Sleep David Ferguson began a successful teaching career in music and has written a number of best selling guitar instruction books.

Charlie Hendricks suffered several mental breakdowns and eventually joined a religious cult, the Children of God, now known as The Family. He has played in bands with other cult members such as Jeremy Spencer (Fleetwood Mac) and has recorded a few unreleased tracks with a group which consisted of Charlie, Jeremy Spencer, drummer Jim Gordon (who subsequently during a psychotic break murdered his own mother) and Beatles crony bassist Klaus Voorman. Charlie’s whereabouts today are unknown.