The self-titled Happy The Man did miserable box-office, but pulled together fans and music reviewers the world over. The venerable and commercial Billboard wrote, of the debut, "Happy's sweeping and lushly arranged orchestrations are clearly innovative, if not hypnotic"; while the mighty, irreverant Circus spake, "Happy the Man's debut album is some of the most energetic, evanescent, wonderous and colorful young American pioneer music I've heard." That and Arista's $250,000 investment and producer Scott were enough to keep most of Happy The Man marching forward.

The casualty was Mike Beck, HTM's original drummer and a core personality in the band, who, following its debut LP, would also go his own separate way, the strain of "trying to make it" in the Big Leagues being too much for him. (Wired magazine senior editor Ted Greenwald, long a Happy The Man fanatic, would reminisce that Beck's style of percussion was more akin to that of "a Picasso" than of drumming: "Dressed in leotards, he would circle a vast array of bells, blocks, timpanies, 'painting,' as he went . . . I've never seen anything like it before or since.")

That Happy The Man caused not a ripple in the tide of American music, the twin gods of disco and punk reigning, made the decision a little less difficult for Beck.

Through a friend-of-a-friend was brought in drummer Ron Riddle, a veteran of several Boston bands, who had composed music and recorded with The Cars and its various solo incarnations. Riddle would also cull from his bag of tricks a long-suffering track co-written with former-Cars member Greg Hawkes, transforming the languishing melody into one of Happy The Man's most notable signature tunes.

[Author's note: I'm listening now on continuous Napster repeat to "Service With a Smile" from the Crafty Hands CD, and recall vividly my first acid trip, in 1983: seated as a child-Buddha in a college dormitory room, with this song as my Initiatory: the most indelible 2:37 I have ever heard: Bone-crunching rhythm section, a Moog that would shame Keith Emerson, guitar like a lightning bolt in your third eye. Shot right through to the Soul.]

Riddle recalls the recording of Crafty Hands having had "its share of tensions and anxieties. We spent days just getting drum sounds and Ken wanted me to hit as hard as I could. By the time we got to the actual tracks, my hands were like bloody stumps. We had to put some sort of plastic goo on them and I had to wear gloves just to get through the pain. Pushed to my limit, which is exactly the way I like it."

Crafty Hands dazzled music reviewers and bedeviled DJs. The Rolling Meadows (IL) Herald found it to be, ". . . a near perfect record . . . the compositions and musical virtuosity rival anything in progressive rock or jazz today . . ."; while Columbia University's campus newspaper offered broader praise: "They [Happy The Man] lack the one great flaw their predecessors flaunt--pretension--and they know the mission of music--joy."

As they say, "That and a quarter will buy you a cup of coffee." With only one vocal track (the apocalyptic "Wind Up Doll Day Wind"), FM radio was able to ignore Arista's newest investment, though Peter Gabriel would remain interested in Happy The Man, an appreciation that would come to a crescendo in mid-77, ebb, and reemerge in 1979.

Recalls Stan Whitaker: "He would call (HTM manager) Bob Steinem's house, where we were staying, and talk to me at length about how Kit and I had especially blown him away. He offered up some other member suggestions but we were adamant about it being the whole band or none. He admitted he had no problem with that, because he liked the chemistry of our band. (Probably reminded him of early Genesis days.) He wanted the whole band alright, but he wanted it exclusively!

"My/our rap was that, 'man, Peter, we'd LOVE to be your band, but we've worked six long hard years for a major record deal and have one 'on the table' with Arista . . . how can we give that up? We can't . . . but we CAN give your project priority and work the HTM stuff around your schedule.' We even joked about HTM being his opening act as well as his back-up band and we'd wear bags on our head during the HTM set . . .

"He spent a good 1 1/2-to-2 weeks calling us and talking with our and his manager to try to get us to go exclusively with him, but ultimately decided he didn't want to share us; and we, as a band, had to follow our hearts and do what we had worked so hard for. Thank god we did, since two very timeless, precious works of art (to us anyway) were created with Arista (even tho' they didn't know what to do with 'em or with us for that matter).

Frank Wyatt echoes Whitaker's take on Arista's lack of imagination. As to the proposed album cover for Crafty Hands, Wyatt recalls that an Arista official showed up to the band's house, with what was to be the final cover-art of band's second LP: "It was a delivery person, in a white uniform, staring through the peephole of an apartment, a bucket of fried chicken on his head and carrying a rubber-chicken, and and yelling "Service With a Smile!" I just about flipped. I drove all the way from Virginia to Arista's Manhattan headquarters and I would not leave until they agreed to replace it with something that wasn't hokey or humiliating."

"On a very personal note," recalls Whitaker, "when HTM broke up in 1979 (culminating with Kit leaving for Camel), I had an opportunity to join Peter again, as he was just beginning to write for his third album. I somewhat regrettably turned him down to continue to follow my own musical path. (I was just beginning to 'find my own voice' and was just starting to enjoy singing.)"

But what was once sweet turned bittersweet, then just got old: playing like ascendant Lords and living like hobos, never breaking out of the college campus and regional festival circuit, despite coast-to-coast raves in major metro dailies like the Washington Post and San Diego Union. Kit Watkins was lured away by the progressive band Camel, which turned out to be a mirage. Ron Riddle toured and recorded with Blue Oyster Cult, then back to session work and writing for TV and film. Stan Whitaker languished in Los Angeles, as a wannabe Rock Star for Tenn Jinn and others. Frank Wyatt moved to Hawaii, got married and divorced, saw his lifetime's collection of music, instruments and sound equipment stolen in a home-burglary. Bassist Rick Kennell went into music management in NYC.

The "band" itself, what was left of it, released an indie third LP in 1983, Better late . . . (Azimuth Records; rereleased in 1999 by Cunieform Records) with third drummer Coco Roussel (of the French electronic band Heldon), which rivals Crafty Hands in its craftsmanship, but which even hardcore HTM fans label, collectively, as "grim," much like Steely Dan's The Royal Scam--all business, and not much in the way of laughs, though who can blame them.

Gibralter Encyclopedia writer Paul Charbonneau says, of Better late . . .: "The edition of these 1979 recordings reminds us of just how regrettable the disappearance of this excellent group is. A music that defies description and a sound that isn't the least bit outdated. Always melodic, this unique blend of symphonic rock and jazz relies on rich arrangements of keyboards, guitars, bass, vocals, drums, percussions, flute and saxophone. The sustained use of these instruments provide much richness to the sound while solid performances provide dynamic energy. Five excellent musicians that played, we now realize, ahead of their time."

What might have been?

Happy The Man has reformed, playing four dates in 2000 with 4/5th's its Crafty Hands lineup, keyboardist David Rosenthal (Rainbow, Elton John) having replaced Kit Watkins, stage-shy now and master of his own Virginia-based Linden Music Studios. Frank Wyatt has just published his first collection of poetry, Oblivion Sun. The band unfurled recently its Web site, and a new CD of original tunes be slated for Fall 2002 release. A rare, fine wine. You can't rush it.

Don't ever give up.

The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.