Emerging from New York’s Lower East Side in 1967, the grassroots rock outfit Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys coalesced around singer/guitarist Larry Packer, lead guitarist Charlie Chin, bassist Roy Michaels, keyboardist Bob Smith, and drummer Michael Equine. By the close of that year they were routinely topping bills at Café Wha?, and before long they had settled into a residency as house band at the celebrated Electric Circus.
In 1969 the group signed with Polydor Records; longtime acquaintance Jimi Hendrix stepped in to produce the debut album The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away. Bolstered by a string of support dates for Hendrix, the LP delivered Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys’ sole Top 40 entry, the medley “Good Old Rock and Roll,” stitched together from late-1950s pop hits. Chin exited soon afterward.
Intent on ending their association with manager Michael Jeffrey as well, the remaining members relocated to San Francisco to cut the follow-up, 1970’s Albion Doowah, a pastoral, country-tinged set that featured Paul Johnson on guitar and Jay Ungar on bass. Larry Packer departed shortly after its completion. The surviving trio of Michaels, Smith, and Equine returned to New York, shortened the band’s name to Cat Mother, and enlisted guitarist Charlie Prichard plus percussionist Steve Davidson for the self-titled 1971 album. Guitarist Charlie Harcourt later supplanted Prichard on the group’s fourth and final release, the aptly named Last Chance Dance in 1973, although the band continued to perform live for several more years.
