Elderberry Jak stands out as arguably the premier rock ensemble to emerge from West Virginia. Their solitary album stands as proof that the quartet rivaled the strength of prominent hard-rock contemporaries including Free, the James Gang, the Guess Who, and Three Dog Night, sharing multiple sonic traits with those acts.
In the fall of 1969 bass player Dave Coombs and lead vocalist Joe Cerisano assembled the group. The pair had already collaborated in Coombs’ prior outfit J.B. and the Bonnevilles, which originated in 1965 and matured into the state’s most celebrated and popular act. Each summer the band traveled to Somers Point, New Jersey, to serve as house band at the shore club Bayshores. Cerisano entered the lineup in 1968 for his first substantial professional engagement, having performed with local groups in his hometown of Fairmont while still seventeen; for that summer’s Somers Point residency, Coombs and his wife temporarily became the young singer’s legal guardians.
After J.B. and the Bonnevilles disbanded in 1969, the duo launched Kaboose, which endured seven months. Adding guitarist Tom Nicholas and drummer Joe Hartman produced Elderberry Jak, titled after elderberry wine crafted by one of Coombs’ uncles. The quartet rapidly coalesced into a potent unit that fused hard-driving rock with tightly executed funk. They performed throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania, ultimately obtaining a recording contract arranged by Leland Rogers—brother of Kenny—in Memphis. The outcome was the outstanding Long Overdue, released in 1970.
Following the band’s dissolution its members went separate ways, yet Cerisano continued his career as a professional singer, first securing work in New Jersey and then New York before moving to Los Angeles. There he founded Silver Condor and signed with Columbia Records, issuing two albums in the early 1980s. Returning to West Virginia, he maintained solo activity that encompassed television and radio commercials while also supplying vocals for or alongside a range of acclaimed artists from Jimmy Webb, Richie Havens, and Bo Diddley to Black Sabbath and Korn. At the start of the new century he continued to front the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
