the GT's / New GTs

Dayton, 1966

The GT's were a band of high schoolers from the Dayton suburbs. The band was led by Ed Wells (Northridge) on lead guitar, with John Boerstler (Ferguson Junior High) on rhythm guitar. The original band included Bruce Sams on bass and Jeff Shoup on drums. Thanks to the newspaper article from Thursday June 24th 1965 we know the band's first public performance was on June 20th. 

This group made a 45 for the Nashville label.  As clued by the label name, most of the output was country. The song "Bad Girl" was written by Daytonian Earl Isble and has a doowop/teener sound. The flip side "Farewell Faithless Farewell" was credited to Cathryn Wright, a local music teacher, and is more rockin'. The band went to Nashville to record and brought along Brenda Bishop, a singer who was a student from Huber Heights. Brenda was not an official member at the time, but sang on the recording. She eventually joined the band.

Somewhere between September and December 1966 Bruce and Jeff left to join another band, the Better Half. They were replaced by Marty McCartney (Beavercreek) on bass (no relation to Paul...which I'm sure he was asked about more than once) and Bruce Larson (Fairborn) on drums. 

Discography:
Bad Girl /  Farewell Faithless Fairwell - Nashville 5302