The Country Cavaleers

Long-haired, pro-Jesus, anti-drug country duo who recorded their first single for Nashville label Cutlass Records in 1972. Singer Buddy Good (born on Sept. 29, 1950 in Buffalo, N.Y.) had played in a Buffalo band called Caesar and the Romans before moving with his family to Tampa, Fla., in 1964. He joined Tampa native James Marvell in the British Invasion-inspired garage band The Skopes, which changed its name to The Surprize. With the help of Florida record-business figure John Centinaro, they joined the reformed version of Tampa pop band Mercy (4), who had hit in April 1969 with a single titled "Love (Can Make You Happy)." Good and Marvell appeared on Mercy's Miami-recorded 1969 Warner Bros. album Love Can Make You Happy, which contained a re-recorded version of the hit single. Good, Marvell and Centinaro moved to Nashville in 1970, and Good and Marvell, reborn as the Country Cavaleers, recorded their debut single for Cutlass Records before recording a followup single for MGM. They appeared on the Wilburn Brothers' Nashville television show in 1972. The duo wore Cavalier-style costumes and hats and sported beards and waist-length hair. They released a string of singles on the Country Showcase America label and released their only studio full-length, 1974's obscure 24-minute album Presenting the Country Cavaleers, most likely intended as a demo of the duo's recent songwriting activities. As evidenced on the album's Christian-country anthem "Turn on to Jesus," their style was an amalgam of Roger Miller and Jack Clement-style novelty numbers and Beatles-derived songs that reflected their roots as British Invasion-influenced rockers. They disbanded in 1976 and released a posthumous live album a couple of years later. Good went into the automobile business in Tennessee and Marvell continued to operate in the music business. Marvell released the 1981 single "Love (Can Make You Happy)" b/w a collaboration with Good, "Urban Cowboys, Outlaws, Cavaleers," on the Cavaleer Records label. Interestingly, in later years Good and Marvell claimed to have invented outlaw country. Well-practiced live performers, in their heyday the Cavaleers, as they're sometimes known, toured with the Wilburns, Loretta Lynn and other major country stars. They hit the lower rungs of the country charts with 1973's "Humming Bird" and 1977's "Te Queiro."