Cafe Ole
recorded at:
Khyber Pass Pub
Philadelphia, PA
April 11, 1986
WYSP-FM
01 Debbi Calton & Ricky Allen - WYSP-FM Intro
02 Cafe Ole - The Love You Give
03 Cafe Ole - Casual Flirtation
04 Cafe Ole - Let's Do It Right
05 Cafe Ole - Big Time
06 Cafe Ole - Have Fun
07 Cafe Ole - Something About You
08 Cafe Ole - Situation
09 Cafe Ole - Mystery
10 Cafe Ole - Hearing Voices
11 Cafe Ole - Island Song
12 Ricky Allen & Debbi Calton - WYSP-FM Outro
13 Commercial - Satellite Lounge - Zebra, Stryper
14 Commercial - J&B's Red Garter
15 Commercial - Al Sorgie Jewelers
16 Commercial - King's Row Billiards
17 Debbi Calton - talk
From the Sam Eliot's Mustache Collection
Brought to you by the Collective For Live Music
This is another Philadelphia band that I've never heard of. They didn't break out of their local geography, although they did tour Norway once. As always, I'm searching for faint leftover traces of their career from 3,000 miles west of Pennsylvania, starting from scratch.
On Discogs, the band name is documented as
Café Olé.
Newspapers had a tough time figuring out how to bill them. The name appears as:
Cafe Olé
Cafe Ole
Cafe O'le
Cafe Ol'e
Cafe 'Ole'
Cafe' Ole'
The first evidence turns up in 1980 in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which calls them "a "fusion" band that has been functioning in these parts for the past several years." A second article from 1981 specifies "four years" which puts their start around 1977.
That same 1981 article mentions the band was working on an album with Lance Quinn, who had a track record as a disco producer with Gloria Gaynor.
Back on Discogs, there's an album on Snakecharmer Records SC-1001, issued in 1981. Five years later they put out a CD of the album. The LP runs from $40.00 to $120.00 for a sealed copy. That's asking prices; whether they get it or not is anyone's guess. The Cafe Ole album is the only release on Snakecharmer so that's got to be a self-released record.
They're very "yacht rock" and I don't mean that as a pejorative. There's a bit of a Pablo Cruise/Michael McDonald feel to the arrangements (not to the vocals, though). It's solid radio-friendly pop-rock with jazzy overtones.
A careful search reveals that guitarist Ron Smith is credited on George Thorogood's first album as "second guitar on some tracks." That speaks to his musical diversity as this sounds NOTHING like Thorogood's amped up take on electric blues.
The band was booked weekly in the greater Philadelphia area, often playing residencies at the same nightclub for several weeks in a row. There are a few ads from Scranton, about 180 miles outside of the Philadelphia metro, but other than that it looks like they were working professional musicians, playing regular gigs and staying close to home. Hey, life in an Econoline van isn't easy. It's to their credit that they played original music instead of just covering the Top 40.
I had to guess on the song titles (and on the name of the jewelry store owner). If you see any corrections, let me know.
At the end of Sam's tape there were a few minutes of local ads and disk jockey Debbi Calton, which I've chaptered and left on just for the sake of preserving the history. Local advertising...that was the backbone of the radio industry. On the syndicated shows, we get the national ads...the Budweisers and Coca-Colas. On a local broadcast it's J & B's Red Garter and the Satellite Lounge.