Jukin’ Bone | Free Will | Interview

Jukin’ Bone was a legendary band from Upstate New York who formed (as Free Will) in 1968 and signed to RCA Records in 1971.

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Led by vocalist Joe Whiting and lead guitarist Mark Doyle, the band also featured George Egosarian on second guitar, John DeMaso on bass, and Tom Glaister on drums. This was the line-up that recorded their first album for RCA, ‘Whiskey Woman’. By the time of their second LP, ‘Way Down East,’ Tom Glaister had been replaced by two drummers, Danny Coward and Kevin Shwaryk.

Both albums featured original compositions by Whiting, Doyle, and Egosarian in various combinations, and were hailed by Creem magazine as seminal classics of 70’s hard rock. While signed to RCA, the band toured with ZZ Top, Freddie King, The Allman Brothers, The Kinks, John Mayall, and Three Dog Night, among others. They disbanded acrimoniously in 1973, although Doyle and Whiting went on to record several fine albums together on the Blue Wave and Free Will labels, and also achieved individual success in their lengthy careers – Mark as either producer/music director/guitarist for the likes of Meat Loaf, Bryan Adams, Hall & Oates, Mary Fahl, et al and Joe with Bobby Comstock, Savoy Brown, and as tour opener for Van Halen.

“Music was truly the language of the time”

Would you like to talk about your upbringing? Where did you grow up? Did you have a lot of music at your home? 

Mark Doyle: I grew up in Auburn, NY. I’m the oldest of 13 children. My dad was an accomplished jazz pianist and arranger who played daily on radio and television, and played night clubs at night. My mom played alto saxophone, but only as a hobby. My earliest memories are falling asleep to the sounds of my dad wailing on jazz piano downstairs. There was always music playing.

Joe Whiting: I grew up in Skaneateles, NY and yes music was always around. My dad had a big collection of big band 78 rpm records and I listened to the radio all the time.

Do you remember a certain moment when you knew you wanted to become a musician? 

Mark Doyle: From as early as I can remember, I always knew that I would be a musician. It was an honorable profession in my household. I gravitated to piano because of my dad, and became a bit of a child prodigy on jazz piano. That all changed when I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and switched to guitar.

Joe Whiting: Some neighborhood friends had a little band and people were paying attention, namely girls. And I thought they would pay attention to me if I was in the band, but I didn’t see it as my life’s work at the time.

Was Free Will your first band or were you part of any other bands back then?

Mark Doyle: My first band was actually called Thursday’s Children. My sister Lisa played drums in it. I left that band when I was asked to join Free Will.

Joe Whiting: My first band was with my neighborhood friends. They called themselves The Ridgewoods because they used to life in Ridgewood New Jersey.

The band was formed in Upstate New York, what was the scene like back in 1967-68?

Mark Doyle: It was a truly amazing scene. You could make your living playing gigs 5 nights a week if you wanted. There were so many good bands, most of them cover bands. The drinking age then was 18, so the bars were full of young people. Music was truly the language of the time.

Joe Whiting: Very vibrant with many opportunities for young musicians. A lot of clubs, plus school and church dances as well as house parties.

You were originally formed as Free Will and also recorded quite some material under this name that were released later on. Would you like to elaborate how the band members got together and what was the original idea behind the band?

Mark Doyle: I met the singer, Joe Whiting, above a music store in Auburn. He was from Skaneateles, one town over. We had a wonderful and inspiring conversation about our musical and life goals, and knew that we were totally simpatico with each other. One day our soon-to-be drummer, Tom Glaister, showed up at another music store in Auburn, driving a Salvation Army truck. We got to chatting and he was interested in joining as well. Our bass player, John DeMaso, I had known since he first moved to America from Venezuela and ended up in my 7th grade class. Our rhythm guitar player, George Egosarian, I met on the Syracuse University campus – he had lived in New York City and was more sophisticated than the rest of us. So our band was an amalgam of a blues/soul singer, a jazz piano prodigy turned lead guitar player, a drummer who was a percussionist in the Symphony, a South American bassist, and a rhythm guitarist who also had very diverse and eclectic tastes.

Joe Whiting: Mark Doyle and I just wanted to start a band to play the music we heard on the radio and that we were buying on LP’s.

How come your 1969 recordings were released in 1977 as ‘Here’s Free Will’?

Mark Doyle: I’m not aware of that recording. Who released it? Do you have a copy? To me the Free Will stuff didn’t get released until I signed a deal for us with Grail Records in Italy in 2018, which actually paid for the recording of a brand new Jukin’ Bone album

Joe Whiting: I have not heard of this. It might be a bootleg. I would love to hear it and what the source is, just to hear if it’s any good.

Did you experiment with psychedelics as you were being part of the scene?

Mark Doyle: I did. I took mescaline, psilocybin, numerous acid trips, and finally stopped after a bad STP trip.

Joe Whiting: I did not. Other band members did. I did smoke a lot of pot!

“We wanted to record at Electric Lady and did so in secret”

What led you to change your name to Jukin’ Bone?

Mark Doyle: That was a result of a Union law that said that if you recorded for our label, RCA, you had to record at their union studios. We wanted to record at Electric Lady and did so in secret. Someone did a blurb in Billboard magazine that said “RCA recording artists Free Will are recording their new album at Electric Lady Studios,” and all hell broke loose with the union. So RCA told us we had to change our name. I think our managers came up with it.

Joe Whiting: We had developed a harder edge sound as we started writing our own material and we thought we needed a name that reflected that music. Also RCA was not crazy about the name Free Will.

Did you play a lot of clubs? What are some bands that you shared stages with?

Mark Doyle: We played clubs early on, a lot. But when we signed with RCA we got on tours with ZZ Top, Three Dog Night, The Allman Brothers Band, Freddie King, Leon Russell, The Kinks, John Mayall and others as their opening band.

Joe Whiting: We played a lot of everything. Some groups we shared stages with are, Jefferson Airplane, John Mayall, Three Dog Night, The Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top, The Kinks, The James Gang, Savoy Brown, Gato Barberi.

How did you get signed to RCA Records in 1971?

Mark Doyle: We did a showcase in NYC at a club called Wheels. We played 5 sets a night for a solid week and lots of record companies were in attendance. RCA offered the best deal.

Joe Whiting: We had done a showcase in New York City for two weeks at a club called Wheels and RCA made the firmest offer. We had also signed a management deal who brokered the whole thing

Was there any lineup changes before the release of your second album?

Mark Doyle: The personnel on the first album was the one that we had settled on for a few years standing after some false starts with other people.

Joe Whiting: Yes, Tom Glaister left and was replaced by Danny Coward and Kevin Shwaryk. George Egosarian would leave right after the second album.

“We invited hippies off of the street into Electric Lady, where we set up live with a PA system and everything”

How do you remember the session for ‘Whiskey Woman’?

Mark Doyle: I do, although it’s a bit of a haze. We invited hippies off of the street into Electric Lady, where we set up live with a PA system and everything. There was a smorgasbord of booze and drugs set up on a buffet table, and the band and audience helped themselves freely.

Joe Whiting: We were a bit rusty, the format didn’t suit us and there were too many drugs and too much alcohol.

What was the writing and recording process like for the band?

Mark Doyle: I co-wrote mostly with Joe, sometimes with George, and on rare occasions Joe would co-write with George. And George wrote on his own. We presented songs old-school, just playing them for the band.

Joe Whiting: Either my Mark and me, George and me, George and Mark or the three of us together. The sessions were very intense at times, but always very friendly with contributions welcomed no matter what combination was involved.

‘Way Down East,’ your second album brought some lineup changes. Tom Glaister had been replaced by two drummers, Danny Coward and Kevin Shwaryk. How did that come about and how do you recall the album itself?

Mark Doyle: It came about because Tom Glaister got married and wanted to leave and move to Boston. We auditioned drummers and nobody even came close to Tom, but out of the auditions we felt that Danny and Kevin were the strongest so why not combine them together? We had done some tour dates with The Allman Brothers Band and they had two drummers, so we thought it might work.

Joe Whiting: Tom wanted out and we couldn’t stop him. He was so good we thought we needed two drummers to replace him. The album was much better than the first one. We were able to do a full studio recording instead of the half assed approach to the first one.

What kind of gear did you have in the band?

Mark Doyle: In Free Will I played through two Vox Royal Guardsmen, but soon replaced them with a 100-watt Marshall bass amp. George used a 100-watt Marshall guitar amp, John had a Sunn amp for bass. We all played Gibson guitars – George and I had SGs and John had the EB3.

Joe Whiting: We had purchased an entire Sunn PA system. I believe George played a Melody Maker guitar. Mark had a Gibson SG that he liked and still has. I don’t recall John being very particular about his bass. I believe Tom played Rogers drums. I have always played Conn tenor saxophones.

You toured with some big names, including ZZ Top, Freddie King, The Allman Brothers, The Kinks, John Mayall, and Three Dog Night, among others. Looking back, what was the highlight of your time in the band? Which songs are you most proud of? Where and when was your most memorable gig?

Mark Doyle: I think a lot of the songs have stood the test of time. Joe and I still play ‘Whiskey Woman,’ ‘Jungle Fever,’ ‘Come On Home,’ ‘Way Down East,’ and ‘Mojo Conqueroo’. Our most memorable gig was probably coming home after one of our long tours and playing The Scene in our home town of Syracuse. It was packed and people were screaming and obviously so proud and excited for us.

Joe Whiting: I think from the first album the songs ‘Whiskey Woman’ and ‘Jungle Fever’ hold up quite well and the title cut from the ‘Way Down East’ album is a good piece of work. One of my most memorable gigs was just last December when I was brought down to Pennsylvania as a surprise to sing a song I wrote with Loren Barrigar as a first dance for a father and daughter. The love in the room was unbelievable.

Are there any crazy stories that you would like to share with our readers?

Mark Doyle: Not printable, haha, although the night at Electric Lady that Stevie Wonder came in from King Curtis’s funeral and jammed with us was a golden moment.

Joe Whiting: Driving non stop for 26 hours to get to Dallas Texas being very high and getting so paranoid that somewhere along the way we ditched all our pot, a move we would immediately regret!

Why did the band stop in 1973 and what followed for the members?

Mark Doyle: The rot had set in. We hadn’t accomplished what we set out to do on our two records, our management was screwing us, the personal relations in the band were not good. A lot of bitterness had set in and the atmosphere was very bad. George had left, Danny had left, so there were just the four of us doing one last summer of dates to pay off our debts. John moved back to Venezuela after we broke up and became an A&R rep for RCA there. George moved to Cape Cod and continued to write songs. Tom eventually ended up moving to Florida and teaching. Joe and I have continued in the music business. Joe did some great Rock n Roll Revue tours with Bobby Comstock, backing up Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, et cetera, and then eventually became singer for Savoy Brown. I played with Meat Loaf for three years, and made records with Bryan Adams, Judy Collins, Hall & Oates, Leo Sayer, et cetera. I became string arranger for a lot of producer Maurice Starr’s acts – New Kids On The Block, The Stylistics, Tiffany, et cetera. I’m now Music Director and guitarist/grand pianist for Mary Fahl and have produced three albums for her. I lead a blues rock band called Mark Doyle and The Maniacs and a 10-piece ensemble called Mark Doyle’s Guitar Noir which includes a string quintet.

Joe Whiting: Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Bad management, poor career choices , too many outside influences and a real lack of business sense among the band members. John DeMaso left the music business and was a successful insurance agent. George Egosarian left the business as well to become a successful travel agent. Tom Glaister taught music in the school system in Florida and played music as well. Kevin Shwaryk played in a few bands (a couple with me) but basically left the business decades ago and passed away two years ago. Danny Coward went into the restaurant business. Mark Doyle has continued performing with his own band and produces many different artists. He also arranges and conducts as well. He and I continue to collaborate and our most recent recording is ‘Down in the Dirt’ that we released in 2021. John, George, Mark and I got together in 2017 for a reunion of sorts recording ‘Unfinished Business’ and two fine live DVD’s. We all remain friends to this day.

What do you recall from the ‘Live At Jabberwocky 1970’?

Mark Doyle: Being very high, haha.

Joe Whiting: Getting heckled by some jackass in the audience when I was singing “That’s why I sing the blues.” The club was a very hip place that had everyone from James Brown to Mississippi Fred McDowell.

How did you enjoy The Doyle-Whiting Band?

Mark Doyle: I loved it. We still play special shows – we actually have a date this summer at an outdoor concert here in town.

Joe Whiting: Very much. Mark and I have always worked well together and although we didn’t get the bounce we hoped for, the music was good and so was the band.

[Joe Whiting] There’s also Backbone Slip and A’la Rock.

Joe Whiting: Backbone Slip was Greg Spencer’s idea to put Mark and I into more of a blues setting and we all felt that the music was very good and so was the concept but after two albums we again didn’t get the kind of recognition we had hoped for.

A’la Rock was my old friend David “Rock” Feinstein. It was basically a studio band. Two of the songs, ‘Love Doll’ and ‘Baby Get it On’ were actually recorded years earlier when I was singing with the reformed Elf in 1977. We did play a couple of dates.

[Mark Doyle] What about The Penetrators?

Mark Doyle: I love Spike and Jack. I just produced a vocal session for Jack here at my studio yesterday afternoon. We’re on the last three songs of a whole new record for them. They encourage me to burn as brightly as I want on the guitar solos.

[Mark Doyle] You are still very busy working on a new album, please tell us about it.

One of my solo albums was a salute to the year 1966 (my favorite year in music) and called ‘Out of the Past’. I’m working on a sequel to that, once again guitar instrumental, that focuses on the psychedelic era. So far I’ve got about seven songs in various stages of completion, including some obscurities by Fever Tree, Tim Buckley, Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, The Zombies, Aphrodite’s Child and Nirvana (the 60s band.)

Is there any unreleased material left from any of your bands/projects?

Mark Doyle: The deal I signed for Free Will has one last album to go – a live performance from Mother Earth in Austin, Texas in 1971.

Joe Whiting: There may be a few scattered around but most of the Free Will – Jukin’ Bone material has either been reissued or available on MarkDoyle.com. For all of my solo work, I usually record just what I’m going to release so there really aren’t any leftovers. I do have many cassette tapes from the Jukin’ Bone era that are live recordings. I haven’t listened to them in many years and don’t know if they are any good or even playable. For someone who never had a hit record, I have been very well recorded and consider myself very lucky that so much of my work is available.

[Joe Whiting] How did you join Savoy Brown?

Joe Whiting: I met Kim Simmonds in 1988 through my friend Greg Spencer. We wound up doing a couple of “mini-tours” in between Kim’s Savoy Brown gigs. In 2009 Kim approached me about singing and playing sax in Savoy Brown and I was in the band through 2012. We recorded a very good disc “Voodoo Moon” and a live DVD-CD “Songs From The Road’. I was very saddened when Kim passed away several months ago.

What are some of the most important players that influenced your own style and what in particular did they employ in their playing that you liked?

Mark Doyle: For piano, without a doubt Bill Evans is my biggest hero. For guitar, Jeff Beck is my guru. So shattering to lose him recently – what a shock. In my formative years Eric Clapton with John Mayall and Cream was a huge influence. I also love Bill Frisell. What Bill Evans, Jeff Beck and Bill Frisell all have in common is their lyricism and the sense of light and shade dynamics in their playing. I love players with a sense of melody.

Joe Whiting: Ray Charles would rank number one for his ability to sing any kind of song and do them so well. Peggy Lee for her unique intimate style. Frank Sinatra for his ability to sing very difficult material for so many years. Elvis just for being Elvis. My favorite sax players would be Boots Randolph, Jr. Walker and King Curtis. All three just could blow like crazy

[Mark Doyle] You were either a producer/music director/guitarist for the likes of Meat Loaf, Bryan Adams, Hall & Oates, Mary Fahl, et al and Joe with Bobby Comstock, Savoy Brown, and as tour opener for Van Halen. Would you like to spend some time recalling those collaborations?

The Meat Loaf experience was great. World tours, first class hotels, 5 nights at Wembley Stadium in London, Saturday Night Live in the US. Recording with Tom Dowd. All priceless memories I will cherish.

Bryan Adams’ ‘Straight From The Heart’ happened at Power Station while I was recording with Meat Loaf. I had worked with Bob Clearmountain on a David Werner album that had a song called Melanie Cries with a whole bunch of stacked Beach Boys-type vocals. They wanted something like that for the middle 8. I also sang backing Vox on the whole album, but Lou Gramm from Foreigner ended up becoming available and Bryan has always wanted to sing with him, so they ended up erasing all those parts and putting Lou’s vocals on. Bastards, hahaha!

Mary Fahl is a wonderful person and really one of the greatest artists I’ve ever worked with. I totally enjoy performing with her and producing her records.

What currently occupies your life?

Joe Whiting: I’ve been working on my memoir for the last year and I’m in the middle of recording a new collection of original songs with my band. I only play gigs that interest me and can be fun. I just turned 75 and I’m thankful that I’m still able to perform at a high level. I walk the dog, feed the birds, practice, listen to music, brew my own beer, and try to be a good husband, father and grandfather.

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

Mark Doyle: I appreciate all of the in-depth questions. Thank you for contacting me.

Klemen Breznikar

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Headline photo: Free Will

Jukin’ Bone Official Website / Facebook
Mark Doyle Official Website
Joe Whiting Official Website