It’s hard to believe that one of rock music’s, and by proxy popular culture, most influential bands started as a barbershop quintet. Jon Skiff, known today simply as The Skiff (and occasionally the Skiffer, el Skiff, or even Skifferino if you’re not into that whole brevity thing) was but a lad of seventeen when he and four friends decided to form a vocal group in order both win the Jefferson High 1955 Battle of Bands and the hand and love of darling Jo Beth. Jon and friends called themselves The Bow Tie Boys and sung their way to a victory. But following the show, Jo Beth was nowhere to be found. Jon’s heart was broken, and thus the Rebellion was formed.

The Rebellion quickly rose to prominence while touring the bars of the Alabama and Mississippi. It was in these bars that Skiff picked up the nickname Mr. Whiskey, due in large to his habit of leaping onto a monitor and shouting at the crowd “They call me Mister Whiskey!” As the buzz built about the band, people began to call them Mr. Whiskey and the Rebellion. Their groundbreaking mixture of electrified sound, plunging bass lines, and lyrics of heartbreak, betrayal, unrequited love, and more than the occasional protracted, three minute unpronounced moan caught the attention of an up and coming A&R man with Capital Records.

Mr. Whiskey and the Rebellion were signed to Capital in the spring of 1962 and their album “Why Did She Do It?” was released to modest success in the fall of that year. There are unsubstantiated rumors that Capital attempted to modify the Rebellion’s sound for their follow up album, trying to get Jon Skiff to adopt a more consumer-friendly look and feel. This, of course, never happened. On February 8th, 1964 Mr. Whiskey and the Rebellion played on the Ed Sullivan Show, the day before The Beatles, establishing a transatlantic rivalry that would last for years to come.

Sales of “Why Did She Do It?” skyrocketed and there was talk at Capital that the Rebellion might just be the answer to the sudden British Invasion. Despite drummer Harry Reed’s claims, it is believed that the concept of performing in modified US Colonial military jackets belonged to Skiff. And it was that blue coat that came to symbolize the Rebellion during the sixties.

The Beatles and Mr. Whiskey and the Rebellion battled back and forth. Venues were often booked opposite each other forcing music fans to choose between the two bands. More often than not the screaming hordes sided with the four lads from Liverpool. By 1967, the Rebellion had fled to India and studied under a guru for the better part of a year. When they returned to the United States, the entire band’s appearance had changed. The days of relative clean cut boys where over, and in their place now stood a rag-tag collection of bearded men with long hair, oddly placed tattoos, and a plethora of new instruments ranging from the relative tame sitar to something called a Theremin.

Post India, Mr. Whiskey and the Rebellion became Mr. Whiskey and the Traveling Rebellion, then Mr. Whiskey and the Groovy Traveling Rebellion, and so on until they became Mr. Whiskey and the Psychedelic Traveling Rock and Roll Groovy Rebellion in July 1976. The audience had changed with the Rebellion, growing their hair long and wearing a great deal of tie-dye and hemp. The audience also shared the Rebellion’s almost religious use of drugs, particularly the mind-expanding purified forms of LSD.

As the Mr. Whiskey and the Rebellion’s name grew towards its final form, so did their stage shows, morphing from merely being a five piece electric blues band to a full stage extravaganza. Additional players came on board, dressed in solid colored flowing robes and playing instruments ranging from the seemingly mundane strings and horns to some as obscure as a hollowed out mango (Peter Beerly). The stage show expanded beyond this, though. The Sultan of Brunei, at the time a huge fan, gave the Rebellion a virtual zoo of animals which often roamed about the stage unchained, serving to round out the Rebellion experience. Numerous modern artists contributed flowing fabric backdrops, including one particularly famous piece purported to be from Andy Warhol.

Some say it was the mauling of flautist David Jackobson by a tiger that was the catalyst of the events that ended the Rebellion. Three weeks after Jackobson had lost several fingers and much of the usage of his left arm, the Mr. Whiskey and the Psychedelic Traveling Rock and Roll Groovy Rebellion were set to take the stage for a solo festival date in November 1977 at a field in Omaha, Nebraska. Estimates by the Nebraska National Guard say there were approximately one hundred and ten thousand fans in attendance. The Rebellion was set to take the stage at sunset and rumored to have a fourteen hour set loosely planned out. November’s darkness spread over that Nebraska field and the Skiff, Mr. Whiskey himself, took the stage alone.

His words were well documented by the legions of bootleggers that the Rebellion had acquired and the following is a direct transcript.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, lovers of all races and sexes and body types. Go home now. The rebellion is over. It’s been a groovy, wild, crazy, madly fantastic ride, but Harry Reed, has committed the gravest of sins. Oh yes, my brothers and sisters. It pains me so [word’s muffled]… People, Harry cut his hair!”

After the breakup of the Rebellion, numerous solo careers were launched, but after the assassination of Reed in December 1981, all hopes of a reunion were lost. The Rebellion is still looked back on as one of the largest rock bands ever, both in size, diversity, and influence. Their recording career spanned the better part of two decades and they really were America’s only response to the British Invasion.