US Flag TRAVIS PIKE'S TEA PARTY (1967-1969) Mass State Flag
Of all the songs in Travis Pike's Tea Party's repertoire the only two released on a single were If I Didn't Love You, Girl, which certainly makes it rare, and its flip side, The Likes of You that included orchestral strings and woodwinds, some instruments played midday by "moonlighting" musicians from The Boston Pops!


IF I DIDN'T LOVE YOU GIRL


THE LIKES OF YOU
TO HEAR THEM NOW, CLICK ON THEIR IMAGES ABOVE!

In 1968, Travis Pike's Tea Party was hired to be the band for a WBZ-TV pilot series. Three episodes were in the can (although only two ever aired), before the show was cancelled. "If I Didn't Love You, Girl" had just been released on the Alma label and the band didn't panic, believing that the cancellation of the show would mean the band would be available to promote the record, until the program director at WRKO, Boston's new No.1 rock station, refused to play their record.

Travis confronted Program Director Mel Phillips in the lobby of the same building in Kenmore Square where Travis's father had once been the Executive Producer of Documentaries for WNAC-TV, also in charge of TV Film operations.

As Mel Phillips came down the stairs to the lobby, he was shouting that WRKO would never play their records, no matter how many people called in to request them, because Travis Pike's Tea Party, by taking the WBZ-TV show, had gone over to the enemy, and now that WRKO had triumphed, he vowed that Travis Pike's Tea Party would never be played in Boston again! So, in the lobby of WNAC-TV, Travis grabbed Mel by his mutton chop sideburns, kissed him goodbye, and set out for California.
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