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Pearls Before Swine
Biography
The psychedelic folk band Pearls Before Swine was the brainchild of singer, composer and cult icon Tom Rapp, born in Bottineau, ND in 1947; after writing his first song at age six, he later began performing at local talent shows, and as a teen bested a young Bob Dylan at one such event. Upon relocating to Melbourne, FL, Rapp formed Pearls Before Swine in 1965, recruiting high school friends Wayne Harley, Lane Lederer and Roger Crissinger to record a demo which he then sent to the ESP-Disk label; the company quickly signed the group, and they soon travelled to New York to record their superb 1967 debut One Nation Underground, which went on to sell some 250,000 copies. The explicitly anti-war Balaklava, widely regarded as Pearls Before Swine's finest work, followed in 1968; the group -- by this time essentially comprising Rapp and whoever else was in the studio at the moment -- moved to Reprise for 1969's These Things Too, mounting their first-ever tour in the wake of releasing The Use of Ashes a year later. Two more albums, City of Gold and Beautiful Lies You Could Live In, followed in 1971; moving to Blue Thumb, Rapp resurfaced as a solo artist with 1972's Stardancer, but upon the release of Sunforest a year later he then retired from music, subsequently becoming a civil rights attorney.