We asked Hit Men guitarist Jimmy Ryan about his early days of touring with the Critters (“Mr Dieingly Sad,” “Younger Girl” ), and discovered he made a very interesting travel arrangement for himself, separate from the rest of the band.

Elmore: How did you all get around? 

Jimmy Ryan: Don’t ask. We were on a bus. Nothing like these  spacious buses they have now, it was pretty much like a Greyhound bus. We would drive all day, play at night, get back in the bus and drive to the next gig. So if you didn’t sleep on the bus you didn’t sleep. And I couldn’t sleep sitting up.

At one point it was bus and truck, so we had this Ryder kind of truck with all the equipment in it, and I knew that a lot of the equipment had these big  quilted covers on them, very thick, very soft, to protect them.  I said to the driver, “Do you mind if I sleep in the back of the truck?” I had to lie down. Eventually I started sleeping in the truck on one of these quilted covers, on top of Felix Cavaliere’s (The Rascals, Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band) organ. If they had had an accident, there’s no chance I would have survived. If the truck had flipped, I’d have a Hammond Organ on top of me.

We had roadies with the Critters because they were much less expensive in those days, but we didn’t have them on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is tour, which had about seven bands. Our manager made a horrible deal: he said we could use the Young Rascals equipment. Then, when we got on the bus, the Rascals said, “Sure, you can use our equipment, as long as you set it up.” Whaat? So we were the headlining act and we were setting up the equipment. Boy, did we want to kill that manager.

Ryan talked a bit about working with his current group, the Hit Men:

“The guys that I’m playing with now are some of the best musicians in the world. There is nothing in the pop music world that we can’t do, and do quickly. Billy Joel’s saxophone player, Mark Feinberg, occasionally works for us, and Mark said, “Maybe we could do a Billy Joel song.” That’s what we do, so we got together on the night, and learned “You May Be Right.” It took us 15 minutes, and we performed it that night. That’s a good band.

“Playing with this band such a pleasure. Everybody in the band sings. Everybody plays their instrument extremely well. Everybody knows the songs really well ’cuz they grew up with them. The only thing that we ever have to work out is when there are lots of harmonies, like the Four Seasons stuff; we had to work hard on that. Believe me, it sounds like they’re simple, but the parts aren’t. And to do that while you’re playing, that took a lot of work. It sounds deceptively simple, but it is not, it is extremely complicated. It’s like really trying to learn Beach Boys songs. You have no idea how good those guys are until you try to do it.”

Today, the Hit Men connect with audiences on a level rarely seen by today’s musical artists; they play interactive sets of music from rock and roll history that are also their personal histories, because these men recorded the music. A short list of acts the band’s members have performed and recorded with: Blood Sweat & Tears, Johnny Winter, Cheap Trick, Lou Reed, Dr. John, Vanilla Fudge, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Sting, the Ramones, LL Cool J, Luther Vandross, Korn, Paula Abdul, Jack Bruce, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Dave Mason, Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, the Turtles, Gary Puckett, Mitch Ryder, Barry Manilow, Tony Orlando, Tommy James, the Four Seasons, and (drumroll) Sesame Street.