How a 1967 One-Hit Wonder Got Banned From the Radio Without a Real Band Behind the Track

Landing a one-hit wonder is an extraordinary accomplishment in the music industry. Having a radio station ban your song is another frustrating—but in some cases, career-boosting—milestone. But to get both under your belt with no real band to back it up? That’s the kind of lightning-in-a-bottle moment that only a rare breed of bands has experienced, and The Yellow Balloon is one of them.

Videos by American Songwriter

The Yellow Balloon popped onto the music scene in the mid-1960s through Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean fame and Gary Zekley, a prolific songwriter and producer on the West Coast. Torrence was scouting new songs to record while his partner, Jan Berry, was recovering from a near-fatal car accident. He called on Zekley, who gave him a track called “Yellow Balloon”. Torrence cut a version of which Zekley wasn’t particularly fond, so Zekley cut a rendition of his own.

That version of “Yellow Balloon” featured Zekley on vocals, Mike Post on 12-string guitar, Tim Gordon on drums, and Mike Rubini on harpsichord. Torrence’s version, which he released under the Jan & Dean name, didn’t perform nearly as well as Zekley’s, which peaked at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Torrence’s came in at No. 111.)

The Song That Was Banned Without a Band

“Yellow Balloon” came out one year after Donovan’s 1966 track, “Mellow Yellow”, which some radio stations banned due to its perceived references to drugs. Radio stations began doing the same thing to “Yellow Balloon” under the assumption that if Donovan was talking about drugs, then The Yellow Balloon must have been, too. But as is often the case with controversial music, the hubbub around whether the song was too inappropriate to play on the radio only made the general public want to listen to it more.

So much so, in fact, that The Yellow Balloon began receiving calls about potential shows and live appearances. The only problem, of course, was that there was no real band to speak of. The musicians who performed on the Gary Zekley version of “Yellow Balloon” weren’t actually in an ensemble together. They were just colleagues who happened to be in the right place at the right time. But Canterbury Records’ Ken Handler was eager to get The Yellow Balloon off the ground, so he asked for help on the drums from Don Grady.

Grady, as most 1960s sitcom lovers will know, was already famous for his role as Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons. He performed in disguise and under a pseudonym to avoid drawing attention away from the band, which only added to the group’s overall mystery.

With a new group in tow, The Yellow Balloon recorded and released one eponymous album. Realizing they had no desire to continue the project, the group parted ways in a friendly fashion, leaving behind an odd legacy of being one of the only banned non-bands in history.

Photo by CBS via Getty Images