The Cyrkle--Red Rubber Ball (1966)

     The Cyrkle originally began as The Rhondells. Founded by Don Dannemann (guitar, lead vocal) and Tom Dawes (bass) who were students at Lafayette College in Easton Pennsylvania. Earl Pickens (keyboards) and Marty Fried (drums) were added, and were soon playing at college frat events and other places locally then regionally.
     They were playing on Labor Day in 1965 in New Jersey when discovered by Nathan Weiss who was a friend of Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Epstein signed the group and changed the name to The Cyrkle. The spelling of the name was provided by John Lennon.
     1966 was their best year as they released, "Red Rubber Ball" which was written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley of The Seekers. It went to number 2 for a couple of weeks in the early summer of that year. They had another top 20 with it's follow-up, "Turn Down Day" later in the year. Another five songs reached the charts over the next two years before the band wrapped it up late in 1967.
     Dawes and Dannemann both became jingle writers after the groups demise. Dawes later wrote the famous "plop plop fizz fizz" jingle for Alka-Seltzer