William Banks Rip - The Parliaments (Of West Virginia)
William passed last week aged 74.
By
Dave Thorley in News Archives
Updated on 10 Sep 2015 ·
Published 13 Jan 2015
William was a member of the Huntington, West Virginia, group The Parliaments, that had a number of releases on the local Cabel label, named after the county their city resides in. Along with himself and his song writing brother Issac and Archie Hyman aka Little Archie they first formed the group in the early 60's. They gigged around their local area un-aware of the existence of a group with the same name from New Jersey, that was recording up in Detroit. The conflict with the name eventually came to a head and a judge found in their favour and the other group changed it's name to Funkadelic. Even though they kept the name, they never saw the same success as their namesakes fronted by George Clinton.
The group recorded two 45's on the Cabel label including the uptempo classic 'This is my rainy day', one on the Symbol label, produced by Juggy Murry and one on their own Unpredictable label. After trying hard to get a hit with little success the group broke up. Archie went on to record in his own right as Little Archie on Dial records. Most of the band stayed around the Huntington area. In their short time together they created some classic soul sides and where much admired as a on stage group. William passed last week aged 74. Thanks to Steve Foehner for letting me know.
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