Exile (American band)
Exile, formerly the Exiles, is an American band founded in Richmond, Kentucky, in 1963. The band consists of J.P. Pennington and Les Taylor, both of whom are guitarists and vocalists, along with Sonny LeMaire, Marlon Hargis, and Steve Goetzman. With a founding membership including original lead singer Jimmy Stokley, the band played cover songs and local events in Kentucky for a number of years before becoming a backing band on the touring revue Caravan of Stars. After a series of failed singles on various labels, Exile achieved mainstream success in 1978 with "Kiss You All Over", a number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. This iteration of the band mostly played soft rock and pop music.
After Stokley was let go due to tensions with producer Mike Chapman, his role as lead vocalist was concurrently assumed by Mark Gray and Taylor. However, Gray departed after three years to begin a solo career. Exile transitioned to country music at the beginning of the 1980s, with Pennington and Taylor as vocalists alongside LeMaire, Hargis, and Goetzman. This lineup was featured on their 1983 album Exile, their first as a country band and first on Epic Records. Between then and 1987, Exile had ten number-one singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts, as well as a number one on Top Country Albums with Kentucky Hearts in 1984.
Hargis, Pennington, and Taylor left the band between 1987 and 1989, with LeMaire and multi-instrumentalist Paul Martin alternating on lead vocals for two albums on Arista Nashville between 1990 and 1991. During the early 1990s, both Pennington and Taylor recorded as solo artists. Exile disbanded in 1995, after which LeMaire recorded one album in the group Burnin' Daylight. Individual members of Exile played a number of informal shows between the late 1990s and the early 2000s decade, but the early-1980s lineup did not re-establish until 2008. Exile has continued to tour and record albums under this lineup in the 2010s and 2020s.
Exile's sound is defined by vocal harmony with rock and pop influences. Most of their country music releases in the 1980s are co-written by Pennington and LeMaire, and feature the band playing all the instruments by themselves instead of using session musicians. Songs of theirs have also been covered by Alabama, Huey Lewis and the News, Dave & Sugar, and the Forester Sisters.
History
Exile was founded in Richmond, Kentucky, in 1963 as the Exiles, by a group of students attending Madison High School. Musicologist Randy Westbrook, in the book 50 Years of Exile: The Story of a Band in Transition, describes the band's origins as "murky" due to conflicting accounts among early members. According to him, founding drummer Mack Davenport played high school dances in the band Kings of Rhythm. Davenport recalled this band consisting of Paul Smith Jr. on bass guitar, Doug Jones on lead guitar, Ronnie Hall on vocals, Doug Begley on saxophone, and Billy Luxon on trumpet. They played jazz, soul, and blues. After an unknown number of performances, this group became the Fascinations, which consisted of Davenport, Smith, Luxon, Jones, and percussionist Eddie Rhodus, with Hall and Jimmy Stokley both providing vocals. Rhodus died in a car accident and Jones departed in 1963, at which point the five remaining members dissolved that band and founded the Exiles. They entered a local contest with a recording session as its grand prize. The Exiles lost to a band called the Digits, although after the competition, Jones left for undisclosed reasons and the other members recruited the Digits's guitarist Mike Howard to take his place. The name "the Exiles" was inspired by the Cuban exodus or exile of Cubans to the United States following the Cuban Revolution.Originally, Stokley and Hall alternated as lead vocalists. However, the other band members thought Stokley was "much more dynamic" and fired Hall in 1964. J.P. Pennington joined soon after; he was previously in a local band called the Le Sabers, whose lead singer Leroy Pullins was later known for his 1966 novelty hit "I'm a Nut". The Exiles persuaded Pennington to play bass guitar, allowing Smith to switch to rhythm guitar. They performed publicly for the first time in 1964 at Irvine-McDowell Park in Richmond, with a lineup consisting of Stokley, Howard, Smith, Davenport, Pennington, and Luxon. Most of their other early performances were at sock hops and high school dances, where they covered artists such as the Temptations and James Brown. Stokley wanted the band to have a keyboardist and selected Buzz Cornelison, who had briefly played with the Kings of Rhythm. After Cornelison joined, the band began performing local gigs throughout Kentucky.
One of the band's recurring gigs was at a youth center in Martin, Kentucky, whose owner, David Grigsby, encouraged the Exiles to submit a demo to Nashville radio station WLAC disc jockey John Richbourg. Richbourg arranged for the band to record their first single in 1965 on Jimbo Records: "The Answer to Her Prayers", a song that Smith wrote. They performed a number of gigs at a nightclub in Richmond called Speck's, which led to them becoming the house band there. As Luxon, Pennington, Cornelison, and Howard all contributed backing vocals, the Exiles began incorporating cover songs with more vocal harmony, such as the Young Rascals and the Beach Boys. They also covered soul music to take advantage of Stokley's "raspy" voice, which Westbrook compared to Wilson Pickett. Pennington quit the Exiles in 1965, as he was 16 years old at the time and his parents thought he was too young to be in a band. Following Pennington's departure, Smith reverted to bassist, creating a six-piece lineup with Howard, Davenport, Luxon, Stokley, and Cornelison.
19651972: Caravan of Stars and early singles
In late 1965, Richbourg took the band to Nashville to record material he had selected and produced, including the single "Alligator Time". It featured double entendre lyrics and spoken-word ad-libs. The single was credited to Jimmy Stokley and the Exiles, and was issued through Monument Records. Grigsby also contacted Peggy Rogers, a manager for radio and television host Dick Clark. After seeing the band perform at Speck's, she encouraged them to travel to Cincinnati Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, to accompany Lou Christie at a stop on Clark's Caravan of Stars touring revue. The Exiles rehearsed with female backing vocalists for a performance of his single "Lightnin' Strikes". During rehearsal, Cornelison realized the vocalists had been singing wrong notes and taught them the correct melody. As Christie was not present during rehearsals, he did not notice this correction until the performance. Afterward, he asked who had corrected the arrangement; when Cornelison stated he was responsible, Christie asked him to write down the correct notes, a move that impressed Rogers.In 1966, Rogers asked the Exiles to accompany a Caravan of Stars show at Stoll Field in Lexington, Kentucky, after a truck delivering instruments to the show broke down. They continued to tour on Caravan of Stars throughout October and November, backing acts such as the Yardbirds. John Caldwell, a Caravan of Stars manager, encouraged the band to travel to New York City in 1967 to record for Date Records. These featured the Exiles solely as vocalists, with the instruments played entirely by session musicians. They recorded a cover of the Young Rascals's "What Is the Reason", as well as the originals "Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are" and "I'd Love to Give My Love Away". None of these singles were successful. Caldwell also asked the band to move to New York City, so the band would not have to travel between there and Kentucky while recording for Date Records. Cornelison refused and quit, as he wanted to rejoin college and study musical theater. He was replaced by Bernie Faulkner, who had played with them at Speck's. In addition to the keyboard, Faulkner contributed on guitar and saxophone. Smith was drafted after the band's move to New York City, leaving the Exiles without a bass player. He was briefly replaced by Larry Davis, whom the other members met while in New York, but he quickly left due to personality conflicts. As a result, Howard contacted Pennington and successfully asked him to rejoin. After three months in New York, the Exiles returned to Kentucky and resumed performing at Speck's.
Due to their success backing Caravan of Stars, they were invited to do so again in 1967 and 1968. They performed twelve minutes of cover songs as an opening act before accompanying other acts on the bill, such as Freddy Cannon, Brian Hyland, and Paul Revere and the Raiders. After the 1968 tour ended, they were contacted by talent agent Mark Alan, who invited them to return to New York for another session with Date Records. Unlike the previous session, they were allowed to play their own instruments. These sessions resulted in one unsuccessful single, "Mary on the Beach". The band was dissatisfied with their living conditions in New York and left again in early 1969. Soon afterward, Howard was also drafted and served in Vietnam for eleven months. He declined to rejoin, as he was disappointed by the second trip to New York and the lack of original material in the band's repertoire. Howard became a construction worker and then worked in a post office before retiring in 2009. Cornelison then rejoined after being turned down for a job at a lounge in northern Kentucky. As a result, the Exiles did not have a lead guitarist at this point, instead relying on both Cornelison and Faulkner as keyboardists. In addition, Cornelison played trumpet, while Faulkner also played saxophone and rhythm guitar.
Alan booked the Exiles as an opening act for Tommy James and the Shondells at a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1969. Lead singer Tommy James invited them to travel to New York a third time, as he wanted them to record a song he had written titled "Church Street Soul Revival". Pennington alternated with James on lead guitar in addition to his usual role as bassist. The song was released in 1969 on Columbia Records and became the band's first chart entry, making number four on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles charts. In 1970, the band was recommended to songwriter and producer Buddy Buie, who also wanted to record a song with them. This song, "Put Your Hands Together", featured the Exiles accompanied by the Atlanta Rhythm Section, of which Buie was their manager and producer. As this song was also unsuccessful, the band began expressing disappointment with Alan's management. In addition, Pennington had begun writing original songs, but Stokley and Cornelison were not interested in writing songs, and the original material proved unpopular in concerts. Davenport quit in late 1971 or late 1972, attributing his departure to the band's continued lack of success. He went on to become a bartender, and was replaced on drums by Bobby Johns. Pennington left a second time in 1972, as he wanted to move to California with his cousin. While the other band members expressed a desire to break up, they remained together at Stokley's insistence, and Johns recruited guitarist Kenny Weir and bassist Bill Kennon. Pennington returned to the Exiles after only a few months, assuming the role of guitarist this time. As a result, Kennon departed and Weir switched to bass. Westbrook said that this lineup allowed a more hard rock sound in addition to the existing vocal harmonies, as well as the presence of Faulkner's saxophone and Cornelison and Luxon's trumpets, for a sound "more intricate than what was expected from the average bar band".