The Fools

Hailing from Ipswich, Massachusetts, the quintet first known as The Rhythm A’s, then later as The Fools, got together around 1975. Rich Bartlett, Doug Forman, Mike Girard, Chris Pedrick, and Stacey Pedrick assembled live performances that included rock-pop music wrapped around skits, slapstick, and audience participation. Radio programmers liked their “Psycho Killer” spoof, “Psycho Chicken,” and the record was a local hit, followed up by a bigger one, the poppy “It’s a Night for Beautiful Girls” — released after the group signed with EMI. After a couple of albums, they broke from the label and went independent, putting out the 1985 album World Dance Party, which had the strange hit “Life Sucks…Then You Die.” The band parted ways in the mid-1990s but is now back together, still doing spot gigs, in 2007. Their best cover recording remains the Peter Pan ditty “I Won’t Grow Up.”

(by Ed Symkus)