This past winter, Frank and Norman were scheduled to appear together at the Decade reunion at Moondogs that I wished in the article would happen someday. Icy bad winter weather stopped me from going and I was crushed to have missed it. Lets hope they do it again..... jt
On Strongly After 40 Years
By Julie Toye, for the Herald Standard
April 17, 2005
Frank Czuri has the rare distinction of being the standout lead singer in two of the most hard hitting Pittsburgh bands ever to grace a stage, including one whose videos made it all the way to MTV.
At 56, Czuri has the even rarer distinction of still having his love of music and "the voice" that has kept him working into his 19th year with the group Pure Gold.
In the mid 1970s, Czuri joined Pittsburgh's premiere bad boy group, Diamond Reo, which had a top 40 hit with Norman Nardini's 1974 arrangement of the Marvin Gaye song, 'Ain't That Peculiar.'
Czuri, an alumni of the Igniters and the Jaggerz, joined bassist Nardini and drummer Robbie Johns about the same time guitar wizard Warren King also joined the Diamond Reo.
"Diamond Reo was a lot of fun," Czuri says of the band whose "Dirty Diamonds" album received rave reviews by European press as the best American music export of its time. Few critics anywhere found much fault with any of the group's material.
The four started out with a more wholesome appearance and sound, appearing on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand." The Diamonds opened shows for Aeorsmith, Ted Nugent, Frank Zappa and Canned Heat to name a few.
As their popularity increased, so did their bad boy, underground image and their talent as gifted song writers and musicians. The Diamonds were thought to be better songwriters and musicians than the bigger names they opened for and Czuri is said to have the exceptional voice that those more famous singers only wished they had.
Back home in a disco versus punk rock world, the group played its loud, high energizing music to crowds comprised of guitar rock fans and displaced punk rockers of the time. Ron Chavis, now a DJ on WLSW, says he was the first to play the Diamonds on Pittsburgh radio.
"It was a very special time in all our lives. The Diamond Reo members came to be, individually, part of the "Who's Who" of the music scene in years to come, and part of Pittsburgh's rich Rock history," Chavis says.
When it was all said and done, the Diamonds released three albums on major labels, recorded other never released music and disbanded. Nardini was the first to leave to form the Tigers, work in his recording studio and concentrate on becoming a solo lead performer and producer.
Czuri and King rounded up Ron "Byrd" Foster on drums from Roy Buchanan's band, Mike Pela on bass and Dennis Tacos on keyboards to form the Silencers. Precision/CBS Records signed them before they even played their first show in public at Fat City in Swissvale.
The Silencers thrilled audiences with songs such as 'Peter Gunn Theme,' 'Sidewalk Romeo,' 'Shiver and Shake,' 'Heart Attack' and 'Cry Tough. The late blues musician James King said many times that nobody but Czuri should ever be allowed to cover James Brown's 'Cold Sweat,' a tune on the group's 1980 debut album, "Rock n' Roll Enforcers." WDVE's Sean McDowell says that he is still a huge fan of the Silencers and the song, 'Peter Gunn Theme.'
Czuri and the Silencers achieved remarkable musical milestones in a relatively short period of time. They had a great producer who would go on to work with the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Pretenders and Bruce Springsteen. Songs 'Sidewalk Romeo' and 'Shiver and Shake' got fairly heavy radio airplay. Then their musical videos made it to heavy rotation on MTV, playing four times daily, for what seemed like months.
"Not a lot of bands had videos then," Czuri says about his days on early MTV, dowplaying the significance of the media attention and accomplishment. His reasoning is that MTV played The Silencers' videos so often simply because it needed videos or concert film to fill the air time.
Jack Dennis, an MTV representative, partially disagrees. True, the network had much fewer videos to chose from in comparison to today. However, far more videos were not aired than were aired in heavy rotation in MTV's early days. The test of good versus mediocre or bad, the rep said, was whether the videos made it to the network's 10th anniversary celebration. Czuri and the Silencers also made the tougher 10th anniversary cut.
By all measures, the Diamonds and The Silencers should have been bands to make the big time. Neither group sounded like anyone else. The Diamonds had boy wonder, hit arranger Nardini. Both had dynamite original material, Czuri singing his heart out and King becoming a guitar legend. Undoubtedly, the Silencers picked up the bad boy image where the Diamonds left off and pushed it to the limit. Continue