Evolving out of late-'50s teen cover combo named the Fabulous Continentals, the band was originally a perpetually shifting five-piece mainly consisting of Moses Lake High School students. When lead vocalist John Draney left to join the army in the early '60s, the group's lineup finally solidified as the quartet of keyboardist Mike Balzotti, guitarist Mardi Sheridan, drummer Bob Galloway, and bass player Chuck Warren. Using a Roget's Thesaurus to select a name that would give their enterprise an English ring, they became the Bards.

The band began releasing singles in 1966, putting out a slew of 45s on such prominent labels as Picadilly, Panorama, Jerden, and Parrot, but its first big break came when Capitol Records released its cover of the Curtis Mayfield tune "Never Too Much Love" nationally in 1967. Although it failed to chart on Billboard, the single reached number 67 in the Cash Box Top 100 and gave the Bards the opportunity to tour with major acts like the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, the Rascals, and the Turtles. By this point, the Bards already had developed into an enormously popular live draw locally and had toured nearly every Northwest dance hall, radio station, and club.

Sheridan briefly left the band in 1967 to journey to San Francisco, but he returned to the lineup shortly thereafter, at which point the foursome decided to light out for Los Angeles, with tapes in hand, to search for a producer. In Hollywood, they serendipitously ran into Curt Boettcher in an elevator and he offered to listen to their recordings. Liking what they heard, the producer and his partner Keith Olsen decided to work on the Bards' first album. Unfortunately, this also eventually led to the band's breakup. The members re-christened themselves Moses Lake and released a single on Boettcher and Gary Usher's Together Records. But after the album was finished, Boettcher suggested he return to the Northwest with the quartet to act as its lead singer, delighting Balzotti and Sheridan. Warren and Galloway, on the other hand, were less thrilled with the idea, preferring to return to the band's old gig circuit. The former duo ended up dropping out of the group and returning to Hollywood to pursue songwriting and recording careers, while the latter pair put together a new version of the band and continued playing throughout the Northwest.

The Boettcher-and-Olsen album remained unreleased until Gear Fab reissued it on CD at the outset of 2002 as The Moses Lake Recordings. A second album, First American, recorded in 1969, also went unreleased until appearing on vinyl on Picadilly in 1980. Balzotti later returned to Seattle and played in a duo as the Michaels with fellow songwriter Michael Langon. ~ Stanton Swihart