Chestnut Hill resident will be inducted into Iowa Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame

Posted 4/6/16

Christopher Harper at his home, today. (Photo by Sue Ann Rybak) by Sue Ann Rybak It's hard to imagine Chestnut Hill resident Christopher Harper, 64, who has more than 20 years experience in …

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Chestnut Hill resident will be inducted into Iowa Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame

Posted
Christopher Harper at his home, today. (Photo by Sue Ann Rybak) Christopher Harper at his home, today. (Photo by Sue Ann Rybak)

by Sue Ann Rybak

It's hard to imagine Chestnut Hill resident Christopher Harper, 64, who has more than 20 years experience in journalism working for the Associated Press, Newsweek, ABC News and 20/20, wearing beads, a scarf and bell-bottom pants singing the lyrics to his high school band The Trippers' “Have you ever?,” a rock-n-roll song about smoking marijuana that reached the Top 50 in Minneapolis.

But as the lead singer of his high school band “The Trippers,” he often did. And in September, Harper's band will be inducted in the Iowa's Rock-n-Roll Music Association Hall of Fame along with 26 other bands.

It was a hoot,” said Harper, who teaches Media Law and International Law at Temple University, about playing in the band that traveled throughout South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota.

Harper, who joined the band in 1967, after moving to Sioux Falls, South Dakota from Denver, Colorado.

He said despite its name “The Trippers,” the band wasn't named after LSD.

“There was a really big band out of Kansas City called 'The Fabulous Flippers,' who recorded the hit “The Harlem Shuffle” in 1965.

Initially, the band played Motown music such as Martha and The Vandellas' “Heatwave,” and The Temptations' “Ain't too proud to Beg” and “Get Ready.”

Harper described the band as “a show band.” In his book “In Flyover Country: Baby Boomers and their stories,” Harper wrote that band members wore “matching blue tuxedos with black ties and cummerbunds and performed synchronized dance steps for almost every song that featured guitar, organ, saxophone, trumpet and drums.”

“Somehow the irony of white boys in Sioux Falls performing songs of black artists in Detroit never crossed our minds or our fans,” said Harper, who decided to write the book after seeing “The Commitments” in 1993.

“The Commitments was a movie about a band bringing Rhythm and Blues to Dublin, Ireland, which made absolutely no sense,” he said. “And it was kind of the same with doing Rhythm and Blues in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”

“A lot of people say that television was the window of the world for people back there. And really, it was radio. Radio was how kids in the middle of flyover country get to learn through music what was going on outside of that little nitch. We essentially were six white kids doing Motown in the middle of flyover country and it was great.”

The band would play Friday and Saturday nights during school and most of the week during the summer.

“We made a lot of money for a bunch of kids,” he said “Sometimes as much as $300 a night.”

Harper added that “The Trippers” often played at the Southgate Tap, a local bar where they often ran into their high school teachers.

“We had this pact that we wouldn't say what they were doing and they wouldn't say what we were doing,” he said. “When we would see our English teacher the next day in school, we would say 'Hi, Ms. Flynn. How are you doing?' and she would say 'Oh, Hi Chris, thanks haven't seen you in a longtime.”

Harper said the band often played at the National Guard Armory in Lane, South Dakota, where hordes of teenagers would gather every Saturday for dances.

After the release of The Beatles' “Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club,” The Doors' “The Doors,” and Jimi Hendrix's “Are You Experienced,” the Trippers decided to become a rock-n-roll band.

“It was really cool playing in a rock-n-roll band. We traveled the same circuit that a lot of really famous rock-n-roll people did. We played the areas around Hibbing, Minnesota close to where Bob Dylan grew up. And we played in Clear Lake where Buddy Holly died.”

The Trippers success convinced the band to go to Dove Recording Studio in St. Louis Park for the first of three recording sessions. The band recorded three songs: “Conquistador” and “Kaleidoscope,” both by Procol Harum, a British rock band known for its hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” and “Have You Ever?”

In July 1967, Harper's band played back up for “The Lovin' Spoonful,” whose song “Summer in the City” reached number one on the Billboard's Hot 100 in August 1966, at the Sioux Falls Area for roughly 5,000 people.

Harper recalled seeing John Sebastian in the shower playing a zither.

“After he played, he kept saying 'Wow, that's cool,’” he said. “Most of the time they were just stoned out of their minds.”

Besides playing back up for “The Lovin Spoonful,” in 1967, The Trippers also won the battle of the bands at Arnolds Park near Lake Okoboji in Iowa.

In 1968, “The Trippers” won the Battle of the Bands in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The winner of the battle of bands got to be the opening act for Neil Diamond and won a recording contract. The Battle of the Bands was held in the Arkota Ballroom in Sioux Falls where performers such as Lawrence Welk, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra performed. The band recorded “Pictures of Lily” and “Watch Yourself” by the Who.

In Harper's book “In Flyover Country: Baby Boomers and their stories,” he wrote that the band “became touted as South Dakota's number one rock band.”

“Fortunately, we didn't compete with those from the other forty-nine states and the British Rockers,” wrote Harper, who despite being a rock-n-roll singer graduated 21st in his class of 600.

In fact, out of the six band members, Harper said two became doctors, two became successful businessmen and two became journalists.

“Mark Henjum, a mortgage broker, played lead guitar,” he said. “Gordy Haugan, now a doctor, played Bass. Mark Griffin, now a prominent business man, played organ and saxophone. Terry Park, a psychologist who died in 2002, played the drums. Michael Ward, who died in 2014, played rhythm guitar and trumpet. He was an NBC television executive.

“My father wanted me to become a lawyer and it was incredibly boring.”

Harper recalled how one day he was walking past the journalism department and thought “Yeah, the cool kids did that.”

“I wasn't good enough to be a rock-n-roll star, so I'll be a journalist,” he said. “And it was total serendipity.”

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