What do the owner of a technology company, a retired school administrator and an expert in economic development have in common?
If you said not much, you’d be wrong. But if you said they all were members of a rock band with a No. 1 song, you’d be right.
It’s been 55 years since American Tea Company’s “I Want You Now” topped the local charts, but for Mark T. Nelson, Jim Schuh and Ken Rogers, the memories feel like yesterday. You can listen to the song here.
It all started in 1967.
“Ken and I were actually in a band to begin with called Foreign Matters then we changed our name to the Shadow Casters,” Schuh said. “That was about the time we got together with Mark and Gary (TeStrake) and Tim (Haley). … It was a huge improvement (in our sound), especially with Gary and Mark being excellent vocalists.”
The two got that experience, in part, through musical theater at Marshfield High School. That year, Nelson was cast as Oliver and TeStrake as Fagin in the school’s production of “Oliver.” But it was after a performance with the Madrigal Singers that Schuh and Rogers invited the pair to join them.
“We were in our tights and everything,” Nelson recalled. “Gary said, ‘I’m going over to band practice. Would you like to come over and join us? They’re interested in finding a keyboard player.’ I said, ‘You bet!’”
Mark and Gary changed out of their tights then headed over to Schuh’s house, where the band was set up in the basement.
From the start, they attracted an audience.
“I had several nieces and nephews living in the neighborhood nearby, so it wouldn’t be unusual to have lots of kids looking in the basement window listening to us practice,” Schuh said. “I still hear that from those nieces and nephews today, how much fun they had and how cool it was for them to have an uncle who was in a band.”
They weren’t the only family members listening in. Schuh said his mother could often be found sitting on the basement steps, offering her opinion on what songs they should learn next. The boys took that advice to heart, eventually mastering more than 100 songs and playing across four states.
“Our agent would send us from northern Wisconsin one night to eastern Wisconsin the next night – just all over the state,” Nelson said.
They put a lot of miles on their old station wagon, towing a trailer behind with their instruments, often getting home at 4 in the morning –long before the age of cellphones. They said their parents had to have a lot trust in them.
While they took their jobs as musicians seriously, they said they applied that same dedication to their schoolwork. They didn’t work on school nights, but being in a band did mean they missed out on some high school experiences.
“We didn’t have the usual high school experience of going to dances. We were traveling to play for other people’s dances,” Nelson said. “We spent a lot of time studying, a lot of time learning new songs.”
Schuh, who went to Columbus Catholic High School, said the school would let him out early if they had a gig far away. They also made some other revisions.
“They changed their dress code and allowed boys to have long hair because we were in a professional band,” he said.
Nelson said he also ran into issues at the public high school. When he was a junior, he said he was going to perform with the Madrigals, but the new choir teacher refused to let him because he had long hair. He and a friend, Lynn Schloesser, petitioned the school board to drop the hair requirement in the school district’s dress code.
“They came out of their meeting and said, ‘We’re dropping the whole dress code,’” Nelson recalled. “Lynn and I were big heroes because … girls could wear jeans which was forboden before.”
In 1969, American Tea competed in a series of battle of the bands competitions, taking first in Medford and second in Eau Claire. But they were disqualified from state because they played too many paid gigs and a couple band members were in the musicians union. If they had won there, they would have gotten a chance to cut a record at a recording studio.
Instead, they decided to write songs and make a record of their own. While they were performing at The Barn in Illinois, another musician suggested they check out Golden Voice Recording Co.
They brought three songs with them – one they were sure would impress the studio. But the owner instead pushed the band to record “I Want You Now.”
That decision put them on the airwaves.
“When we were traveling to gigs, we would stop at radio stations and give them a record, and sometimes they would interview us live on the radio,” Schuh said.
Back then, radio stations had disc jockeys on site, spinning actual records instead of having syndicated playlists set by a central studio. The band would tell fans they could buy a copy of their record – and they would ask fans to call their radio stations and request their song.
It worked, taking “I Want You Now” to No. 1 on the local charts.
While they were getting air time, they also kept up with their live gigs, building up their fan base.
“If we played at Waupaca, we would have people from Appleton driving there, we would have people from Wausau or Stevens Point coming over there,” Nelson said.
Among the band’s influences were Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana and The Doors.
“Gary sounded just like Jim Morrison (lead singer for The Doors), and he looked a lot like him,” Schuh said. “People would come to see us who had seen the doors, and they would say your singer sounds better than Jim Morrison.”
But they never lost sight of who paid the bills.
“We grew to understand that owners liked us to take breaks,” Nelson said. That way, the kids could head over to the bar for another drink before getting back on the dance floor.
Schuh added that they were always there on time.
“We gave them what they were paying for,” Schuh said. “We did what we were supposed to do.”
The group’s last show was Labor Day weekend in 1970. Despite hopes of being discovered and reaching the national scene, it never happened. They disbanded just 17 weeks after hitting the Top 10, going on to attend different colleges.
“If we weren’t going to college, Uncle Sam wanted us,” Rogers said, referring to the war in Vietnam.
They all got college deferments for the draft – except Schuh. He said his was denied; instead, he wrote a conscientious objector application and went to work.
“I worked at a mental institution in Eau Claire,” he said. “It’s kind of like a place where you send people when you don’t know where else to put them.”
Rogers said American Tea’s impact stayed with him for a lifetime.
“The creativity, the focus on relating to people, the hard work and of course the music made a difference in how I approached all my life challenges,” he said. “I am thankful for the experience and hoped I created some similar experiences for other people through my life's work.”
While their paths diverged after high school, music and the arts remain a big part of all their lives.
Nelson, president of Microscopy Innovations, is a co-founder of Chestnut Avenue Center for the Arts in Marshfield.
Rogers went on to become a music teacher and, later, a school administrator.
And after retiring from his career in boosting the economies of cities’ downtown areas, Schuh is still performing as half of the Mark Healy and Jim Schuh Duo.
“It was better than any other after-school job we could imagine,” Nelson said.
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