The Buckinghams in Concert

When Nick Fortuna was in high school in Chicago, life in the 1960s was pretty much standard. Guys wore blue jeans and t-shirts and worked about 30 minutes to get their hair just right. Shades of “Happy Days,” right? Well, not exactly. You were known by what side of town you were from, what your neighborhood was, where you went to high school, and what kind of music you liked. So, looking at the 1963 photo above, how long did it take you to find Nick Fortuna? Not too much has changed, except the biceps, from back in the day at Niles West High School. In the early 1960s, you’d find a little of everything on the airwaves of WLS-AM and WCFL-AM Radio stations and on WGN-TV. And, in February 1964, when The Beatles landed in America, everything changed. Every teenage guy wanted to play in a band, or have a band, or be seen in a band—one of those—that was having just as much fun making music as The Beatles were having back then. Here's Nick in his first band, The Centuries, ha...

Now on sale, the October issue of Keep Rockin' Magazine with two stories featuring The Buckinghams, a photo essay on Dick Biondi, stories of Clear Lake, Iowa and Buddy Holly, mentioning John Pickering, of The Picks, and cover story on Chubby Checker. Check it out at www.krmag.com and order there or find it in local bookstores. The story of The Buckinghams begins with two Chicago groups who were performing on the same stages around town in the early 1960s. From one group, The Centuries, three members of the future group The Buckinghams would emerge. Pictured here are Carl Giammarese, Gerald Elarde, Nick Fortuna, and Curtis Bachman.