Olivia Newton-John's heyday backup band thisOneness celebrates its mid-'70s music

He was playing keyboards for Olivia Newton-John on tour and recording with Bob Dylan in the studio. But Gregg Inhofer's own Twin Cities band, thisOneness, couldn't garner much attention in its hometown.

"We were too rocky for the jazz clubs and too jazzy for the rock clubs," Inhofer said.

Well, timing is everything in the music business. Four months after Newton-John died, her North American touring band is releasing a triple CD package of music — "Surprize," its 1974 debut (featuring "Song for Olivia") and two previously unissued albums from the following two years.

"I've saved up enough money to put it out," Inhofer said. "It's a bucket list thing for me. I always wanted to get the other two albums released."

That's why he carried tapes of those recordings in a box from New York to Los Angeles and back to Minneapolis.

"I had them in storage lockers, in my closet here and there, in my car," he said last week.

Inhofer will spin all three discs Sunday at a 1 p.m. CD release party at Butter Bakery Cafe in south Minneapolis.

The three recordings — "Surprize," "Amalgamated Funk" and "Sonic Geometry" — trace the growth of a band of "rock musicians who discovered fusion and then almost became jazz musicians," as Inhofer put it.

The debut sounds like the Mahavishnu Orchestra meets Weather Report, and thisOneness evolves into its own accomplished fusion sound, peaking on "Kamau," a track on the third disc.

"We were street rock kids and our ears were exploding with new influences like Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, Freddie Hubbard, Weather Report," said drummer Bernie Pershey, 71, who had played in White Lightning and other Twin Cities rock bands before joining thisOneness.

Fortunately, guitarist Dale Strength had some background in country music, which his dad performed. When Robyn Lee, a multi-instrumentalist in thisOneness, got invited to play organ for a country singer from Australia, Newton-John noticed Lee's buddy Strength's cowboy boots.

"Do you play country?" she asked.

She wasn't happy with her band, so she dismissed them and hired Strength's quintet.

The Minnesota musicians bought Newton-John's album, rehearsed for six hours and then boarded a bus for their first gig in Brookings, S.D.

'As sweet as her image'

"It was great," Pershey recalled of his time with the rising star. "Because she was being marketed country, we did a lot of Midwest fair shows with bands like Charlie Rich, Porter Wagoner, Tammy Wynette. It was good to get to see how really good country musicians play. And it was the first time meeting people from all over the country — from Miami to Texas to Los Angeles. Eyes got opened to other elements of culture."

There are plenty of stories from the two years these five Minnesota musicians toured the United States and Canada with the world's most wholesome pop singer — opening for Don Rickles, riding horses with Olivia, receiving a police escort out of Houston because their bus was mistaken for that of a politician.

Pershey remembered how the well-mannered star would occasionally make a drink she called a Dingo, half Champagne and half orange juice. One day in the Southwest, she got a little happy on a Dingo and got on her bus' CB radio singing something like "nobody wants to play rhythm guitar behind Jesus/everybody wants to be the leader of the band." A trucker responded that he didn't believe it was Newton-John. So she suggested a meetup at a truck stop down the road.

"There were over 100 truckers there; she didn't realize she was speaking on an open channel," Pershey recalled last week. "So she sat there and dutifully signed cowboy hats and stuff. I remember the steamed look on the road manager's face because how far off schedule we were from that incident. She was a nice person."

She was "as sweet as her image," according to Inhofer. He still has a then-trendy digital watch the singer gave him in 1975. It's inscribed "I dishonestly love you," a playful joke about her big hit "I Honestly Love You."

'Oneness of humanity'

Pershey came up with the moniker thisOneness.

"We were exposed to the exploding of culture and the willingness to try new things and mix different music together," he said. "It was a vision of the world from the macrocosmic down. It was the oneness of humanity."

The band lived in a farmhouse in Eagan, jamming daily. Gigs were few and far between, save for a club in Duluth and the Longhorn jazz room in downtown Minneapolis (that shortly thereafter transitioned into a legendary punk-rock venue).

In the midst of the tours with Newton-John, Inhofer had a shining moment when he was invited to a recording session with an unnamed artist in December 1974. Minnesota-reared Bob Dylan wanted to rerecord some songs for his "Blood on the Tracks" album while home for the holidays. Inhofer got the call because he played keyboards with Minneapolis singer-guitarist Kevin Odegard, who was managed by Dylan's brother, David Zimmerman.

After thisOneness disbanded in '76, Inhofer passed on moving to Los Angeles right before Newton-John starred in "Grease." He did play on her song "Suddenly" featured in her next movie, 1980's "Xanadu."

Inhofer has since performed solo and toured with Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits fame. He gigs with Badfinger, Crow and Twin Cities rock stalwart Curtiss A. Pershey moved to Los Angeles 40 years ago and has toured with Edgar Winter, Eric Burdon, Walter Trout and Iron Butterfly, among others. Strength gigs sporadically with sundry bands, and Lee is sitting out because of health issues. Bassist Jay Young, who played on thisOneness' "Sonic Geometry," performs in various jazz combos in the Twin Cities. Bassist Doug Nelson, who went on to play with Dr. Mambo's Combo and Jonny Lang, died in 2000.

Inhofer, 72, kept in touch with Newton-John via text message over the years. He saw her whenever she came to perform at Minnesota casinos and theaters.

She died of cancer in August, and now thisOneness has re-emerged with its recordings (available at Electric Fetus, Down in the Valley and CD Baby, among other outlets).

"It is fortuitous," Pershey said. "It's in no small part due to Gregg's elbow grease. I'm glad it's out. I'm very proud of it."