The Purple Underground

Originally known as the Spades, this band started out as a sextet in Winter Haven, FL, in Polk County (best known then as the home of the aquatic theme park Cypress Gardens, with its underwater mermaid show). Within a couple of years, they'd morphed down to a core quartet consisting of Tom Nay on guitar, Jim Carlton on bass, and two brothers, Jon and Halsey LaFrandre, on keyboards and drums, respectively. They lasted that way just long enough to cut the psychedelic single "Count Back" in the late winter of 1967, and after Carlton's departure that spring were reduced to a trio,...