Boomer Castleman

b. Farm Branch, Texas, USA. Castleman moved to Los Angeles in his teens and was a regular at Randy Sparks’ Ledbetters folk club, alongside John Denver. Castleman’s first taste of success came under the pseudonym Boomer Clarke. Together with Travis Lewis, now better known as top country act Michael Martin Murphey, they became the Colgems recording duo, the Lewis And Clarke Expedition. After the Monkees, the duo was the label’s main act in 1967 and managed a US Top 100 single with ‘I Feel Good (I Feel Bad)’, one of their four singles for the label. In the early 70s Castleman, a multifaceted singer who was not afraid to try something new, recorded on GRT and Capitol Records. His biggest success came in 1975 with ‘Judy Mae’, a song about a young man, his young stepmother and his father’s early death, in the minor-chord tradition of ‘Ode To Billie Joe’. In a similar controversial vein, his later records included ‘Hot Day In The South’, a tale of a son unsuspectingly spending time in a motel with his long-lost mother! In 1977, he produced the transatlantic hit ‘Telephone Man’ by Meri Wilson and in the late 70s he briefly attempted a 50s rock ‘n’ roll style aimed at the UK market. An in-demand session man, he based himself in Nashville and became involved in country music, having some minor success as a writer with acts such as Baxter, Baxter & Baxter.