Below is the contract officially making Bob a member of Sugarloaf as of October 8, 1970.  He had actually been playing in the band for several months prior to this.  Bob's signature, as well as Bob MacVittie's and producer Frank Slay's signature, and the other members' initials are the only things on Page 3, which is why that page is not shown.  

footnote: This band was a gas from the very start. I had left "The Beast" and was sitting around my third floor apartment eating Afghani hash and writing tunes one day when a friend of mine, Jerry Corbetta, called.  He informed me his band had just signed with Liberty/UA Records and they were in need of a songwriter. The fact that they had an album coming out didn't really impress me, since I had left a band that had two albums out.

  I went over to his house and listened to their album. They had music tracks only for "Train Kept a Rollin" and "Chest Fever" and some other tracks that I can't even remember. I kept waiting for the vocals to come in. Jerry told me they sent the record company these demos and that they had replied, "There's your album." He was as stunned as I was.

  There was one song that I heard that really caught my ear. It was called "Green Eyed Lady" and sounded head and shoulders above any of the other tracks. Jerry said they barely got it on the album and had written the lyrics in the studio. He got the song's main riff from a classical scale book he used to practice in his intensive routines. Jerry was and still is an awesome musician. Just listen to his work on “Green Eyed Lady”, “Hot Water”, or “Tongue In Cheek”. What a talent!

  "Green Eyed Lady" was the first song Jerry had written to that point and the record company wanted another album. I must state again that I did not write, play, or sing on the record "Green Eyed Lady".

  I did join the band before the record was released and was blown away along with everyone else in the band, when the record became a national hit. The band was generous enough to include me in the royalties generated from the first album, even though I was not in the band when it was recorded.

  Before the record was released, the record company forced the band to change its name "Chocolate Hair" because they thought it was too racially provocative. They came up with Sugarloaf, named after a nearby mountain outside of Boulder.

  After the record was released, we were playing local clubs and parties and watched as the record finally crept onto the charts. It actually got its start by being played up in Portland, Oregon.  People called in requesting the song and it got on their local charts. Then it slowly spread up to Seattle, and all over the Northwest part of the country. It took six months to cross the country and hit number one in many areas, but due to the time stretch it peaked at number 3 nationally.

  It still remains as one of the greatest thrills of my life to have appeared on American Bandstand and have met Dick Clark, and to have shared the stage with many of the world famous musicians I met and partied with.

  Sugarloaf recorded a second album, "Spaceship Earth" that was mildly successful, but didn't come close to the "Green Eyed Lady" phenomenon. On this album I did play, write, and sing.

  Some of the members of the band became a little disillusioned with our producer, the legendary Frank Slay, and soon were working with the guys who worked with the group War; Far Out Productions. These guys were a little too far out for the more conservative faction of the band (I personally loved them!) and they soon were shopping for another producer. We had started recording some new tracks with a great producer and arranger with incredible musical credentials and skills named Richard Igizi. (Richard later founded Stone Records featuring predominately blues and jazz artists.) At this time, Jerry decided to go back with Frank Slay. I think he felt Frank had more of a "hit" mentality than Richard. I was particularly miffed and returned to Colorado. As they say, time heals all wounds, and Jerry and I didn't feud for very long. We were soon writing tunes together and recording on each other's projects.

   After I left the group, they had their second huge hit "Don't Call Us-We'll Call You". Jerry has continued to work in the music industry writing, producing, and playing with Frankie Valli (among others), and for the past ten years or so performing with "The Classic Rock All Stars".

   Looking back, I'm sure we could have done some things differently and been around for a long time. It's the music business and that's how it goes. At least we had our fifteen minutes, and I loved every minute of it. B.Y. 

Pictured below is a promotional folder for Sugarloaf's first LP.   Bob had just joined the band at the time and his bio is listed on the inside flap.  These folders came in multiple colors and sometimes differed.  Click here if you would like to see some of the differences.

After the release of the Spaceship Earth LP, a sheet music booklet containing songs from both albums was released.  Also inside were photos of the band that were not available elsewhere.  Click here to see the photos.  "Green Eyed Lady" was also available individually as sheet music, which is pictured on the right.

Remember the old record club offers that used to be in practically every publication on the market?  I belonged to several and it really was a good way to build your collection quite inexpensively.  The only club I know of for sure that had Sugarloaf albums and tapes available was The Record Club of America.  I was going through some magazines from 1971 recently and was checking out the record club offers and found one that had both the self titled Sugarloaf, and Spaceship Earth records and tapes in the listings.  Spaceship Earth is in the first column, three records down, Sugarloaf is in the sixth column five records down.

In the mid seventies, The Record Club of America just seemed to vanish.  Oddly enough I would learn the fate of the company over 20 years later.  In the late nineties, out of nowhere, I received a very thick catalog in the mail from The Record Club of America.  It explained how the club had gone through bankruptcy and one day it all came to an end.  The doors were closed and all of the records were left where they were at the time.  This building sat locked up all of those years until all of the legalities were taken care of so the records could be sold again.  I can't imagine what it would have been like to walk in this place that I believe had more than 100,000 sealed albums dating back to the sixties and early seventies.  The great deals that they offered in 1971 were definitely a thing of the past.  This catalog had Sugarloaf selling for $60 and Spaceship Earth for $65.  Through this club in 1971 they would have sold for $2.00 and $2.27.

Below is a Sugarloaf poster that was part of a Japanese rock magazine from late 1970 or early 1971.  It is an alternate from the photo sessions that produced picture sleeves for a German and Spanish picture sleeve for "Green Eyed Lady."  These sleeves can be viewed on the Foreign Pressings 2 page.  It is also an alternate shot from that used on the Sugarloaf sheet music book that can be viewed above.

In late 1971, United Artists put together a compilation album of the biggest hits their label had produced in the previous 12 months.  It was appropriately titled The Greatest Hits of 1971.  Sugarloaf was featured twice on the LP with the single versions of "Tongue in Cheek" and "Green Eyed Lady" both appearing on the record.  Below is a picture of the album cover.

In 1972, Sugarloaf were asked to step out of character and perform session music on a bubblegum record that Frank Slay was producing.  The 45 was by Butch Patrick, who had played Eddie Munster in the classic TV show, The Munsters.  The A-side was a cover of a Bee Gees song that had charted in 1970 called "I.O.I.O."  The B-side was a song called "I Want Sugar All the Time."  The record was a bit too sweet for Bob's tastes.

Things were looking good for Sugarloaf in Japan.  Here is a calendar for July 1972 put out by Liberty/Toshiba of Japan.  They had also recently made a red vinyl LP of Spaceship Earth and released a red vinyl 45 of "Tongue in Cheek."  Photos of these items can be seen on the Foreign Pressings page.

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