"Little Boy Blue" (T. Slocum) - Tonto and The Renegades; Sound of the Sceen label, Did not chart nationally - 1967. Inducted in 2008.
The band formed in the city of Grand Ledge, Michigan, located west of Lansing. Tonto And The Renegades was originally a quartet composed of Tom Kirby, Terry Slocum, Bill Ford, and Gary Richey. "Tonto" was Richey's nickname. They were the house band at a popular teen club in the area called 'The Sceen'.
The owner of the club financed their single, which was recorded at the Great Lakes Recording Studio (a.k.a. Fenton Studio) in Sparta, Michigan, and put it out on his own vanity label, 'Sound Of The Sceen'. By the time of the recording, the band had added keyboardist Jeff Keast to the line-up.
Slocum, who sang lead and played fuzz-tone guitar on the high octane tune, wrote "Little Boy Blue" about his girlfriend at the time. Inexplicably, Lansing-area AM radio stations pushed the single's b-side, "I Knew This Thing Would Happen", and it became a local hit for the band. Over the years, however, the far superior "Little Boy Blue" has grown in stature as one of Michigan's undiscovered garage rock classics.
