Asking for your prayers and good wishes for our friend, John L. Opager, Jr.

We’d like to take a minute to ask a favor of our Buckinghams’ friends and extended family to join us in prayers of healing for our dear friend John Opager, who is currently battling cancer and being such a trooper during the treatment process.

As many of you know who have known us since the beginning, The Buckinghams owe our deepest gratitude and thanks to John. In essence, he gave us our name. We were first known as The Pulsations when we auditioned for and won the battle of the bands, and the right to perform for 13 weeks on the “All-Time Hits” TV show on WGN-TV back in 1965. The producers didn’t like our name and wanted us to change it and have it sound more like the British groups hitting the tops of the record charts at the time.

During our first days of rehearsal, we’d made friends with John Opager, a young man about our age who was the security guard at the TV station. He gave us a list of names he’d thought up and we picked The Buckinghams from his listing. It made good sense. There was Buckingham Palace in England and Buckingham Fountain in Chicago. From that day on, The Buckinghams is how we’ve been known for 46 years.

We were thrilled when John and his friends joined us at Bolingbrook in August, 2011, as we returned there to celebrate Mayor Roger Claar’s annual Jubilee, and we were delighted to introduce him to you, the crowds that filled the lawns of Bolingbrook, and give him some long-deserved kudos.

Today we ask you, our friends and family, if you’ll share John’s name in a prayer and thought for healing against cancer. If you’d like to send him a get-well card, that would certainly make the time go faster between radiation treatments, to which he seems to be responding as best he can. The following address can be used to reach out to him.

Even if you’ve not met him or know him as we do, if you’ve ever bought a record or seen a concert by The Buckinghams, you have been touched by the life of John Opager, just as he touched ours, and continues to, as we journey forward in this life, together. Thanks so much for reading and for well-wishes and prayers you can offer in John’s name.

We send him our love and prayers today,

Carl, Nick, and the entire Buckinghams extended family

Cross-posted on Facebook here.

Comments

Remembering Frank Tesinsky, Beloved Chicago Musician, Key to The Buckinghams' Characteristic Sound

Each time the opening notes to “Kind of a Drag” come on the air, whether it’s your car radio, your phone, or choice of streaming media, the first 23 notes you hear inform you immediately that not only are you hearing “Kind of a Drag,” but you are hearing The Buckinghams. That instant recognition, in turn, is thanks to the talent of musician Frank Tesinsky, who arranged the iconic tune for producers Dan Belloc and Carl Bonafede in a 1966 recording session in Chicago’s Chess Studios. The Buckinghams family was greatly saddened to learn of Frank’s passing on November 9. Catherine Johns, his wife of 32 years, was a beloved part of his life and part of Chicago radio as well. In February 1967 "Kind of a Drag" was #1 on the Billboard charts for two weeks, and it forever defined the sound of five young men from the northside of Chicago. Just 27 notes, right? And yet, it defined the magic of what would become known as “the horn sound” that The Buckinghams are b...

What Celebrating 50 Years Since Reaching #1 on Billboard Means in the World of The Buckinghams

Everyone who is a fan of the band The Buckinghams can easily name all the songs that were Top 10 hits, Top 20 hits, and Billboard Top 100 chartmakers. You have several songs that have personal, special meaning for you. But the song that took the native Chicagoans out of the basements of the band members' homes was the one USA Records released last, almost as an afterthought. "Kind of a Drag" has the distinction of being the song that took this band to the national level. Many wonderful bands are part of Chicago history, and they are as beloved today as they were in their time. But this one song, "Kind of a Drag" took flight and went to #1 on Billboard 50 years ago today, February 18, 1967. Imagine what it was like for five young men to hold a copy of "Billboard" in their hands. For a few years, Carl and Jon-Jon had gone to the newsstand each week, buying a single copy of "Billboard" and reading it cover to cover. These days you hear about ...

In Memory of John Poulos, March 31, 1947 - March 26, 1980

Five days before his 33rd birthday, we lost John Poulos, a dear friend who was like a brother to us, as well as The Buckinghams’ drummer. Often described as the heartbeat of our band, he was known to most Buckinghams’ fans of the 60s simply as Jon-Jon. To know John was to love him. With his outgoing personality, he never met a stranger. His talent is remembered best in the style he displayed on drum fills and riffs on our hits, including “Don’t You Care,” “Hey Baby, They’re Playing Our Song,” and “Kind of a Drag.” It’s not surprising that Jon-Jon was included as one of the Top 10 drummers in Modern Drummer Magazine. Contemporary MySpace profiles of aspiring amateur and professional musicians today include the name John Poulos among their musical influences. That’s an honor both fitting and accurate for a musician who was truly one of a kind. Nick and I recall that one of John’s own musical influences was Bobby Elliot, drummer for The Hollies, whose signature beret and tossing of his he...

The Buckinghams in Concert

Search This Blog