[Grayson Sparshott] “The Misfortunes started in 1966 with my grandfather Jim Clevenstine on guitar, Kenny Lotterer on guitar, and Neil Gittings on drums.
In 1967 Bruce Berkey and Sam Marinelli Jr joined where Jim switched to Bass. Around 1967-68 Scott McGee, who played guitar, and Ric Horvath joined where Jim now switched to keyboards, Bruce switched to Bass, and Kenny switched to singing.
The final lineup was Jim Clevenstine on keyboards, Sam Marinelli and Scott McGee on guitar, Bruce Berkey on Bass, Ric Horvath and Kenny Lotterer singing, and Neil Gittings on drums.
They were managed Jim’s father George Clevenstine who also worked as their sound technician with Neil’s father. Their sound system was inherited from the group “The Exquisites” whose keyboardist was related to Jim.
The Misfortunes first concert was Eastwood Elementary Teen Center event audition and later at different teen house parties around the Dundalk/Colgate area. In later years they would play at many different CYO’s, frat parties, and battle of the bands where they had only lost one against a psychedelic group in the late 1960s. (Seen at the Herring Run Rec Center, Mt. Carmel, and Pot Springs Teen Centers, St. Brigid’s CYO, Holy Rosary CYO, and the St. Wenceslaus CYO as the Baltimore Misfortunes on December 13, 1968 with the Radicals, Lamoures, and the Kavemen).
They tried different auditions with both female singers and horn players but both never really fit with their genre of Pop, rhythm and blues, and Motown music.
The group can also be found under “Baltimore Misfortunes” due to a group from Pennsylvania with the same name playing gigs in Baltimore around the same time.
The groups last gig would be in 1969 at a Halloween party where at the beginning of 1970 the group would break up. They had a small reunion in 1998 with a jam session.”
Information and photos courtesy of Grayson Sparshott
