Sometimes you have to change with the times, metamorphose not just from caterpillar into butterfly, but then into bird and maybe even airplane, in order to keep up with whatever else is flying around the skyway. You don’t want to be the lone duck that gets sucked into the engines.

Welcome to Sugarloaf! A band that did not start as Sugarloaf.

In the early 1960’s, guitarist Bob Webber and some other kids in Denver, Colorado did the hip thing and formed a band. They started their musical yellow brick road as The Surfin’ Classics, at a time when surf music ruled the American airwaves. In 1964, in the wake of the British Invasion, they rebranded as The Moonrakers and became the #1 band in Denver over the next four years, releasing a few Beatlesque singles which achieved popularity in the West but alas, not on a national level. They even recorded a full-length album on a tiny indie label, but their sound was already in danger of becoming old-fashioned, and Bob Webber and drummer/keyboardist Jerry Corbetta wanted to move in a new direction.

In late 1968, Webber and Corbetta formed Chocolate Hair (yes, you read that correctly), a band that eschewed pop and psychedelia in favor of harder-rocking, extended jams which allowed the pair to show off their considerable musical chops. The new group recorded half a dozen demos, a mix of bluesy instrumentals, covers, and a couple of tracks with the lead singer of The Moonrakers (who may or may not have had full-fledged member status in Chocolate Hair) and then they gave the tape to their manager to shop around for a record label.

Luckily, their manager, Frank Slay (whom we previously met as a songwriter and a producer) scored a deal with Liberty Records and the band flew out to the Emerald City of Hollywood to record their debut. At least that’s what they thought they were doing.

Along with insisting on a name change (good call), the label decided that the band’s demos were acceptable enough to make up an album — cheaper that way, too — but there wasn’t quite enough material, so they did want the group to record one more song. Oh, and if it could also be a short, radio-friendly single that would be groovy.

So Corbetta got together with a couple of Los Angeles songwriters, whipped up a last-minute song about his girlfriend, and took it into the studio. The band’s drummer had quit after the demos so they reached way back and drafted the original drummer from The Surfin’ Classics to play on the track while Corbetta sang lead, because apparently their vocalist wasn’t around. It’s unclear exactly where he’d gone, but it was 1969 — sometimes people were there and sometimes they weren’t.

“Green-Eyed Lady” was finally released in the summer of 1970 under the band’s new name, Sugarloaf (also the name of a mountain in Colorado). A jazzy, spacious, propulsive rocker that sounded nothing like the rest of the band’s material — in that it was catchy and sounded more like the 70’s than the 60’s — the single climbed as high as #3 on the US chart. From lowly, earthbound caterpillar to flying the friendly skies.

So move the night, the waves, the sand ….. with Sugarloaf.

The skies didn’t stay friendly for long. Sugarloaf initially failed to capitalize on their smash single and it appeared certain the band would fall precipitously into the large pool of one-hit wonders, but in 1974 they — by this time, “they” was only Corbetta — turned their frustration and bitterness with music industry maltreatment into a funky, rockin’, novelty of a Top 10 song titled “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You” — words heard thousands of times by artists in every field. The tones you hear being dialed at the beginning of the track actually belonged to an unlisted number for CBS Records, the label who had most recently turned Sugarloaf down. Revenge is a dish best served gold (gold record, that is):