The Gants

One of the relatively few garage bands from the Deep South to make a national impression in the mid-'60s, the Gants hit the Top 50 in 1965 with their cover of "Roadrunner." Liberty Records then preceded to bleed the band dry by issuing three cover-heavy albums and five more singles in the next year and a half. They deserved better, because lead singer and guitarist Sid Herring was a performer and songwriter of some talent. Too Beatlesque to be considered a garage band in the usual mold, their original material approximated elements of the Fab Four's sound circa 1965 with a blend of mid-tempo acoustic and electric guitars, close harmonies, and a slight country feel. Herring himself sounded like Lennon, and he wasn't above reworking melodic phrases from "In My Life" and "From Me to You." The strong material tended to be dwarfed by their rushed, cover-heavy albums, and the group never had another hit after "Roadrunner."