Rick Levy got his start playing folk music with his sister in 1962 but truly cut his musical teeth in the mid-1960’s in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Within two months of seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, he started his first band, The Outcasts. Not long after, he was recruited into The Limits, which was one of the earliest bands to come out of Allentown. Because the band’s bassist Beau Jones was away at prep school at the time, Rick performed his audition over the phone. They liked what they heard and welcomed him into the band. Rick was in the 10th grade.
The group enjoyed a respectable level of success over the years, but members went their separate ways once they reached their college years to pursue other interests (Rick himself attended the University of Pennsylvania). Rick and bassist Beau Jones continued to perform in and around the Philadelphia area, eventually forming the band Wax.
Over the years Rick has built himself a strong reputation as not only a player but as a manager as well. He’d started working with various bands, such as Jay & The Techniques, The Tokens, and The Crystals. “While working with these other acts, I saw they didn’t have representation,” says Rick. “So, I started Rick Levy Management. I had five or six artists at the time. I could be out playing with Jay and have five other bands working, making commission on all of them. I had some good years!” Another act Rick worked with was Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits), starting around 2000. After being with Noone for three years, however, they parted ways but remained friends.
“Within a few months of that,” he says, “I had a 42 city tour booked with Jay & The Techniques, Freddy Cannon, and Merrilee Rush. Eventually, I picked up the original Box Tops to manage. When they reformed in 1996 they were the only act in the business with all of the original members.”
With such a deep pedigree, Rick is hard-pressed to pick a “most memorable” experience. The most emotional one, though, was in 2004 when he reunited with the surviving members of The Limits in Allentown. “We hadn’t played there in 25 or 30 years,” he says. “People were lined up at three o’clock in the afternoon. That whole thing probably got to me more than anything.”
Even now, Rick still finds time for going on the road. He currently tours as a guitarist and backup vocalist for The Box Tops, and in the summer of 2017, they embarked on the “Happy Together” tour.
When asked how long this can continue, his reply is very matter of fact — “It’ll go another, maybe, five or ten years. It’ll go on as long as the acts can still physically go. They all still sound great!”
Visit Rick online at www.ricklevy.com. Photography by Steve Parr
