Rhythm and blues band formed in 1959 by Blair Lee ‘Mickey’ Reed. The Glen Burnie based group featured Reed (drums), with Bruce Laine (bass), Al Ruzicka (piano), Mike Mitchell (sax), and Gary Hendrickson (trombone –formerly trumpet with the Del Freitag Juniors). The group also included another sax player and guitar player. Reed, Laine, Ruzicka, and Hendrickson had all gone to Glen Burnie High School and played in marching bands together. Reed and Laine were formerly in a band called the Nightrockers.
In 1960 the Flames entered a band contest hosted by Don Dillard, a DJ on Silver Spring, Md., AM radio station WDON. The basic contest ran for eight weeks at the College Park Armory, with about 4 bands each Saturday evening. The Flames won their Saturday preliminary performance, and came back for the semi-finals. They won the semi-finals, and came back for the final on the next Saturday night. Well, the Midnight Flames won the final Saturday night contest! Dillard had all kinds of recording promises for the winning band but they never heard a word from him afterward. With the basic contest and the finals, he had gotten his 12 weeks of free music at the expense of the participating groups
The Collegians TV show (see entry) was still going in 1960. Gary Hendrickson, a former performer on the show with the Del Freitag Juniors recalls “I called Alberta Nathanson to see if the Midnight Flames could get a spot on the show. She called back after a while and said ‘come on up, we have a spot for you.’ So we went to the studio and set up. But when it was time for us to go on, Mr. Hughes couldn’t remember the name of the band (remember, he had no talent at all). So he started to introduce us ‘…and now, ladies and gentlemen, here are (pause)…. our (pause)…. Flaming (pause)…. Boys.’ Well, we could hardly play, we were laughing so hard! Anyway, we made a couple of appearances on The Collegians.”
The Midnight Flames also performed on Wednesday through Sunday nights in 1963 as house band at the Southern Inn.
Reed, Laine, Mitchell, and Hendrickson went on to form the Joyriders.
