Slam Gunther
(Righteous)
-- Bass, Voice
Charles Ray
-- Guru, Guitar, Voice, Leader
Professor B. Burrhus Bran
-- Big Organ, Keyboards, Voice
Larry California
-- Drums, Percussion
ABOUT THE BAND - Press Release, August 6, 2007. The Justice Department today disclosed that Gainesville, Florida, long known as a center for the alternative lifestyles that defined the Sixties, provided a haven for four influential personalities from that era, each long thought to be dead. Astonishingly each, unknown to the others, had lived under an assumed identity for decades, and only realized the similarity of their situations after joining a band devoted to playing Sixties music. The disclosure is the result of months’ of negotiation between law enforcement officials and Charles Ray, Slam Gunther, Larry California and B. Burrhus Bran, now members of the band The Righteous Kind. “We felt that we could not make this music unless we were honest about who we really were,” Ray said.
Of the band, the disappearance of Charles Ray is the most famous. In June, 1968, Ray’s band, Charles Ray and the Ravers, had both the number one album “Ravelations!” and the number one single, “Righteous Man,” in the country. Ray appeared to be at the beginning of a long music career. Unknown to even his closest friends, Ray was already planning his exit. On August 18, 1968, Ray staged his own death. “It was so easy! I had a fancy Porsche. I put some of my clothes and some drugs in the back seat and pushed it over a cliff on the PCH. The Malibu cops assumed that I was high and naked, and that was it,” Ray said. “I had had enough. I just walked away from the whole thing.”
Ray, who had never attended college, enrolled under the name of Charles R. Martin, ultimately receiving a PhD in Chemistry and going on to a distinguished career in academia. Recently, that has not been enough. “War! Intolerance! The same damn things we protested in the Sixties! I knew it was time to put a new band together and take a second shot at spreading the message through my music.”
In a series strange coincidences, each of the musicians Ray contacted had also abandoned Sixties celebrity and was living under an assumed identity. The artist/bassist Tom Miller was in fact Fritz Schlager “Slam” Gunther, German artist–provocateur, best known as the creative force behind the controversial LA band Squatting Dogs. When the bands’ explicit anti-war message became the focus of an FBI investigation, Gunther, who was also sought by German authorities, went underground.
Larry Thompson, the Righteous Kind’s drummer, was actually Larry California, one of the most respected drummers of the Sixties and a member of the supergroup, Circus McGurkus. California was forced to change his identity following several public indecency arrests with the 17 year old daughter of a powerful state official with apparent ties to organized crime. Keyboard player B. Bruce Brashear was actually the controversial philosopher Prof. B. Burrhus Bran, best known as the author of Translating the Universe, condescendingly referred to in the Sixties as “The Hippie’s Bible.” Bran, a reluctant guru, dropped out to find the peace and calm he needed to complete his philosophical works. “I left it to Tim Leary to take the heat,” Bran said.
After the band began practicing, it was not long before they learned of each other’s past. They ultimately contacted the Department of Justice. DOJ representatives were initially skeptical. “We thought the whole thing was some kind of publicity stunt, but we investigated each story. As strange as it first appeared, we found all of it to be true,” said Tess Tracy, the assistant district attorney assigned to the case. All charges in the U.S. and Germany have been officially dropped.
CONTACT INFO:
The Righteous Kind 216 SW 3 Ave.
Gainesville, FL
United States 32601
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