The band Every Mother’s Son was likely, depending on how you define it, a one-hit wonder. Come On Down To My Boat was the only Top 40 Billboard hit for the New York group, comprised of brothers Dennis Larden (vocals) and Larry Larden (guitar), who had originally performed as a folk duo, plus Bruce Milner (keyboards), Christopher Augustine (drums), and Schuyler Larsen (bass).
The #6 hit on the Billboard charts was originally recorded by a group called The Rare Breed, which apparently was one iteration of a group called the Ohio Express, but that lineage is too complicated to go into here.
The latter version of Come On Down To My Boat appears on Every Mother’s Son’s eponymous first album, which got to #117 on the Billboard album charts. The single went to #3 in Canada and #26 in Australia.
From the Wikipedia: “Because the group was signed to MGM Records, MGM Television… decided to feature the group in a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., ‘The Karate Killers (The Five Daughters Affair),’ singing the song in a nightclub as a fight breaks out.”
But Every Mother’s Son did have three other Top 100 songs in the US, two from their second, less successful collection, the imaginatively named Every Mother’s Son’s Back, which failed to dent the Top 200 album charts. Put Your Mind At Ease, which has a riff that reminds one of Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees that had come out earlier in 1967, got to #46 in the US, though made it to #8 in Canada. Pony with the Golden Mane only got to #93 US, #41 in Canada.
No One Knows, apparently, a non-album cut from 1968, only got to #98.
Listen to
Come On Down To My Boat – Rare Breed HERE
Beg Borrow or Steal – Rare Breed HERE
Come On Down To My Boat – Every Mother’s Son HERE or HERE
Put Your Mind At Ease – Every Mother’s Son HERE or HERE
Pony with the Golden Mane – Every Mother’s Son HERE or HERE
No One Knows – Every Mother’s Son HERE
Roger, do you know that Bruce Milner is a dentist in Woodstock, NY?
I did NOT! Thanks, Judy!
The arc of those EMS singles is kind of familiar. They’d hooked up with producer Wes Farrell, who brought them “Come On Down to My Boat”; after it hit, the band was anxious to try out its own material, and those next two singles were written by the Larden brothers. When they failed to click, Farrell brought in a song from his connections elsewhere; once it died, that was pretty much the end of EMS.