Eighty men tried and eighty men died

Artist: Royal Guardsmen
Tile: Snoopy Vs The Red Baron
Year: 1967
Chart peak: 8

Gimmicks are often a double-edged sword. A gimmick can certainly help to get a group noticed, but repeat it too often and it can just as easily be your band's undoing. And whether they liked it or not, the Royal Guardsmen could never quite shake off their gimmick - they were the "Snoopy" band.

To a certain extent, they were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The six-piece from Ocala, Florida, were originally handed the lyrics to "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron" by local impressario Phil Gernhard, who (correctly) reckoned he had a hit on his bands and was looking for the band who would give it the best treatment. With a sprightly arrangement (inspired by the "English Invasion" bands that the group adored), plus singer Chris Nunley's inspired German intro and interjection of "Curses! Foiled again!", the Royal Guardsmen took the honours. The other members of the group were Tom Richards (lead guitar), Barry Winslow (rhythm guitar), Bill Balogh (guitar), Billy Taylor (organ) and John Burdette (drums).

Even at that stage, the group were aware of the dangers of being pigeonholed as a "novelty" group, and insisted on issuing a self-penned "proper song" as their debut. "Baby Let's Wait" came out in Florida, and did nothing. Hot on its heels came "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron".

Now, pop music has never been on particularly close terms with historical truth (was Ra-Ra-Rasputin really Russia's greatest love machine? I rather think not) but Snoopy Vs The Red Baron was pure fantasy. Inspired by Snoopy's "World War I Flying Ace" persona in the "Peanuts" cartoon, the song had the "funny looking dog with a big black nose" challenging the German ace Baron Von Richthofen to a "real dogfight". Which Snoopy wins. Well, obviously.

This bizarre cartoon-strip reworking of military history was a major hit - number two in the USA and number eight over here. Unfortunately, it just led to the Guardsmen being forced to record more and more "Snoopy" songs - "Return of the Red Baron", "Snoopy's Christmas", "Snoopy For President" (which was withdrawn after the assassionation of Robert Kennedy) and the weirdest of the lot, "The Smallest Astronaut", which had Snoopy helping the Apollo programme by leading a decoy mission to confuse the Russkies (but didn't mention him by name, since Charles Schultz had by then decided that all these Snoopy songs were diluting the brand). They did get to put serious songs on their albums, but as the record company got to choose the singles, and felt that The Royal Guardsmen should continue to be marketed as a novelty band, the group were never able to shake off the "Snoopy" tag. Interestingly, they were originally offered the song "Abraham, Martin and John", which potentially could have turned things around for them - but then songwriter Dick Holler changed his mind and gave it to Dion instead. (On this side of the Atlantic, the more famous version was by Marvin Gaye.) The band fell apart around the second half of 1969.

The band have reformed a couple of times since. In the late 1970s they became a disco covers band. Shortly after the group split for a second time, Tom Richards was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. He died in September 1979.

The remaining Guardsmen reformed again in 2004, and have recorded a new single called "Snoopy vs Osama" - so I think we can assume they've come to terms with being pigeonholed. Their four sixties LPs have been re-issued on CD, so you can assess for yourself whether they were better than their novelty reputation suggests. In all honesty, it's hard to see them as anything special; they were clearly a competent covers band, and there's plenty to be said for a competent covers band but probably not "wow, you oughta be huge!".

Get it: Snoopy Vs The Red Baron / Snoopy And His Friends - two albums on one CD, probably more Royal Guardsmen than you'll ever need!