Early days Bill Bartlett went on from the
Lemon Pipers to form a group called Starstruck. Starstruck originally included Steve Walmsley (bass) and Bob Nave (organ) from the Lemon Pipers. Walmsley left the band and was replaced by David Goldflies (who later played for years with
Dickey Betts and Great Southern and
the Allman Brothers). While in Starstruck, Bartlett took
Lead Belly's 59 second long "
Black Betty" and arranged, recorded and released it on the group's own TruckStar label. The boycott failed, however, and "Black Betty" reached number 18 on the singles
chart in 1977 in the
U.S., top ten in the
UK Singles Chart and
Australia, and number 46 in Canada, while the
Ram Jam album reached the U.S. top 40. It was also a hit in the
Netherlands, reaching number 4. In Canada, the album reached number 33.
Later Their subsequent album
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram achieved little success, despite the addition of
Long Island, New York, lead guitarist Jimmy Santoro. The
Portrait album was re-issued on Rock Candy Records from England in 2006. It is listed in the Top 100 lists in
Martin Popoff's book ''The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal Volume 1: The Seventies''. Three of the Ram Jam Touring members; guitarist Gregg Hoffman, bassist
Dennis Feldman and drummer
Glenn Dove, along with keyboardist
Jordan Rudess and vocalist
Roy Herring Jr. became the group
Speedway Boulevard. Working with producers
Jerry Kasenetz and
Jeff Katz, they recorded single, "
(Think I Better) Hold On and the
self-titled album, which were released in 1980.
Post-hits In the 1990s, both studio releases by Ram Jam were packaged together as a German import record entitled
The Very Best of Ram Jam. The cover of the album features the same artwork as the self-titled debut album, and the track list is simply the ten titles from
Ram Jam followed by the ten titles from
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram. While the original
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram started with the songs "Gone Wild" and "Pretty Poison", these two were moved to the end of
The Very Best of Ram Jam. Cover versions of the song also appear on the 2002 album
Mr. Jones by
Tom Jones and on the 2004 album
Tonight Alright by Australian rock band
Spiderbait. Bill Bartlett still plays guitar, but in the early 1990s transformed himself into a
boogie-woogie piano player. He also plays
banjo,
harmonica, and has written dozens of songs. Santoro still plays professionally in various bands in New York, and teaches music at an elementary school on Long Island. Scavone, who now resides in New Jersey, after many years detached from the music industry, recorded an album of 12 songs, both originals and
cover versions with his former teenage garage rock band called
the Doughboys. It was featured at the 40th Reunion of
John Zacherle's Disc-O-Teen in 2004, which coincided with Zacherle's 84th birthday. The album, entitled
Is It Now, included liner notes by John Hawkins, the original keyboard and piano player for
the Nashville Teens. Howie Blauvelt died in 1993 at age 44, and Pete Charles (full name Peter Charles Picardio) died in 2002 at age 49 from unknown causes. Scavone continues to write and record original music with the Doughboys. In 2015, Scavone was recruited to play harmonica, percussion and backing vocals with his longtime heroes,
the Yardbirds. ==Band members==