Today’s classic organ-heavy song of the day is “96 Tears” by a group calling themselves ? and the Mysterians. (That’s pronounced “Question Mark and the Mysterians.”) This garage rock classic was released in August of 1966 and popped all the way to #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100. Billboard named it the #5 song for all of 1966.
“96 Tears” was written by Question Mark himself, a guy named Rudy Martinez, way back in 1962. Rudy also produced the tune. The track was recorded in a basement recording studio in Bay City, Michigan, and the label (Pa-Go-Go, a small label based out of San Antonio, Texas) originally intended the song to be the B-side of a cover of “Midnight Hour.” Mr. Martinez insisted on his tune being the A-side, and the label relented. When that record became a local hit and radio play spilled over into neighboring Canadian stations, the song was picked up by the larger Cameo Records for national (U.S.) distribution. The rest you know.
? and the Mysterians were a Mexican-American garage band from Bay City and nearby Saginaw. They formed in 1962 and stayed active until 1969, when they drifted apart. Their sound was kind of lo-fi garage rock, driven by Question Mark’s somewhat raw and untrained lead vocals and bandmate Frank Rodriguez’s Vox Continental organ, which is very prominent on the “96 Tears” single. The other band members included Bobby Balderrama on lead guitar, Frank Lugo on bass, and Eddie Serrato, drums, all children of migrant farmers who had settled in Michigan. They got the band’s name from a 1957 Japanese science fiction film called The Mysterians. (“The greatest science-fiction picture ever conceived by the mind of man!”)
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, ? and the Mysterians lip synching “96 Tears” on a Detroit-area TV show, Swingin’ Time, in 1966. The song was so simple (just two chords—G7 to C—in the verse, with an Em held in the bridge) that any garage band could play it—and did!
