Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds

Rock history grants Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds a distinctive niche that reaches well past their perennial oldies favorite “Don’t Pull Your Love (Out).” Picture Graham Nash exiting Crosby, Stills and Nash while the remaining members kept the original name unchanged; exactly that situation occurred here.

Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo, and Tommy Reynolds performed together in several Los Angeles outfits and first reached the charts as members of the studio group the T-Bones, whose single “No Matter What Shape Your Stomach’s In” originated as an Alka Seltzer jingle. Taking cues from the bright AM-radio style of Three Dog Night, the three musicians formed Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds in 1970, signed with Dunhill Records, and quickly landed a Top Five hit with “Don’t Pull Your Love (Out).” Later singles found no audience, and Tommy Reynolds departed in 1973. In a calculated move rare in rock, Hamilton and Carollo or—more probably—Dunhill recruited singer Joe Carrero to fill the vacancy yet left the band’s name untouched. The thinking was evidently that the act’s scant existing recognition should not be risked. The tactic succeeded: the revised trio reached number one in 1975 with “Fallin’ In Love” and then vanished from view. Dan Hamilton died of a stroke in December 1994.