JOHN TOWNLEY
John Townley (born 1945) is a musician who was a member of the folk-rock group The Magicians from 1965-66. After The Magicians “disappeared”, Townley built the first 12-track recording studio in New York, Apostolic Studios, which opened in 1967 and which was often used by Frank Zappa. He performs maritime music professionally and has recorded several albums in that genre. He has been part of several sea shanty bands, including the “X-Seamen” and “The Press Gang”. (More from Wikipedia)
The band, now redubbed the Magicians, added Allan “Jake” Jacobs (guitar and vocals) and John Townley (guitar and bass) when Mike Appel and Everett Jacobs left the band. The band became better known when they replaced the Lovin’ Spoonful as the house band at the Night Owl nightclub in the Village. At one point, Felix Pappalardi – later of the hard rock band Mountain – was interested in joining up as the bass guitarist, but it didn’t work out. They even managed to score an appearance on a local CBS television show called Eye on New York – quite a coup considering that they did not have a hit song or an album.
(December 2011)
