Little Willie & the Adolescents

Little Willie & the Adolescents started life at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, in 1963, as the Starfires, a trio -- Eric Shabacker (guitar, vocals), Tom McLaughlin (bass, vocals), and Berry Vaughan (drums, vocals) -- doing a dance-oriented brand of pre-British Invasion rock & roll. They made their recording debut in 1964 on the Tener label (owned by Shabacker), and cut an album around that same time for the ORS label. By 1965, they had a pretty good following in the Orange County area adjacent to the college, and later moved their base of operations to Orlando. Their membership remained the same as their sound and image advanced, and they subsequently took the name Little Willie & the Adolescents. With Shabacker doing the songwriting and controlling most of the various label imprints for which they recorded, he was the dominant creative personality in the group, which endured right to the tail end of the decade. Their debut release, "Get out of My Life," charted regionally, and their single "Looking for Love" (authored by Shabacker), was also a modest local success, and later turned up on Gear Fab's Psychedelic States: Florida in the '60s, Vol. 2. Despite their promise and Shabacker's obvious entrepreneurial skills, they never broke through to a national audience. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide