Robert Hover
Bill Dobslaw (lead vocalist and keyboardist) was an “old man” of 21, but very knowledgeable in the ways of the rock and roll world. He and five other classmates—all high schoolers from South Bend, Ind.— formed the Playmates to play some hot rock ‘n’ roll at sock hops, flirt with the girls, and make enough money to purchase a 1963 Buick Riviera.
“We started doing ‘California Sun’ pretty early,” Otto Nuss told Kicks magazine writer Miriam Linna. “It was always a favorite right from the beginning. The original song (recorded by Joe Jones of ‘You Talk Too Much’ fame on Roulette records) is a slower version. We turned it into a fast song with heavy organ, guitar, and drums. We did a lot of rock ‘n’ roll hits then—Jerry Lee Lewis stuff, Elvis Presley, Little Richard—but we’d do them our way, always red hot and fast.”
In July 1963, Dobslaw, as the Playmates’ manager, booked an hour of session time in Chicago’s Columbia Recording Studios. In three takes, the guys had “California Sun” in the can. Also cut at the session was “Played On,” the intended “A” side. Only a thousand copies were pressed, and one of these found its way into the hands of a DJ named Art Roberts. Art liked the “California Sun” side, and rode the tune repeatedly on the airwaves.
After just three days of airplay, U.S.A., a small independent Chicago label, picked up national distribution on the playmates’ first waxing. (“Played On” was mysteriously pulled off the disk, so part of the group returned to the studio to tape an instrumental dedicated to their label’s owner, Howard Bedno: “H. B. Goose Step.”) “We decided to name ourselves after the Buick Riviera,” Marty Fortson explained. “It was the perfect name, being the Riviera was hailed far and wide as THE car of 1963.”
Before Dobslaw even got the deal with U.S.A. for distribution, Joe and Marty had enlisted in the Marines. As Marty recalled, “was in Vietnam getting shot at, and I heard the record. I thought, ‘Oh man, you blew it.’ ‘California Sun’ rocketed into the top 10 selling like hotcakes, not only reaching No. 5 on the national hit parade for the Rivieras, but also a popular dance song of PebbleCreek’s own original PebbleRock Band much later.
The follow-up to “California Sun,” “Little Donna” backed with “Let’s Have a Party” in 1964, barely cracked the Hot 100. Under parental pressure, a good chunk of the Rivieras dropped out of the group to clean up their educational act. That left Dobslaw and various replacements to carry on with that crude, but distinctive Mid-Western surf and party sound.
A cover recording of Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin” held down the No. 96 slot for a week in 1964, but later releases did not do as well. Dobslaw struggled to keep the “Rivieras” name alive and a functional group together. Two singles, “Somebody New” and “Never Felt The Pain” even appeared under the “Rivieras” name without one original group member playing on them. Finally, in June 1965—slightly more than two years after the Playmates had come together—Dobslaw and the returning organist, Otto Nuss, shut the group down.
“It just wasn’t there at all,” Nuss said. “We just didn’t have that sound we used to have, the sound I wanted—the “Rivieras Sound.”