Bluestone Union Legacy
Blue Evolution has roots from Bluestone Union going back to 1971. Originally, a union of two bands: The 1971 version of Bluestone Union was three Mentor, Ohio members of The Celebration: Mike Kwitowski – lead vocalist; Kirt Campbell – keyboards, bass guitar and lead vocals and Bill Callaghan – rhythm guitar and vocals, joining up with Bluestone Union members: Ron Sukalac, Mentor, Ohio – lead guitar and vocals, Wally Gunn, South Euclid, Ohio – drums and vocals and Gary Braden, Cleveland Heights, Ohio – bass guitar, keyboards and vocals.
After many rehearsals in Mentor, Ohio, and handful of live gigs at The Union Jack, at Noble and Mayfield Rds., in South Euclid, Gary Braden secured a booking and Bluestone Union got a big break! They opened for The Raspberries, on 11/25/71, Thanksgiving night, at The Chesterland Hullabaloo teen club. This holiday evening performance resulted with a record breaking attendance of over 900 teens! Bluestone Union was invited back for many more shows at the club.
Chesterland Hullabaloo owner/manager, Don Parsons saw something in this young band and invited them to rehearse on stage, at the club the next Sunday afternoon to showcase the band. He invited local band and club entrepreneur, Otto Neuber, to fine tune the band and to see if he was interesting in booking and/or managing Bluestone Union. Otto agreed and started booking the band all over North East Ohio. Later, the band entered a working relationship with Jim Quinn, a guitarist and business leader with United Artist recording rock group, Damnation of Adam Blessing. Jim became their manager and booking agent, in 1973. Jim booked this college-age band into every style of rock venue available then. Concerts, teen clubs, bars, parties, college, high school, CYO dances and events, locally and regionally. Every “name” rock club in the North East Ohio area featured Bluestone Union!!!!!
This line up stayed together until 1974 and played many live venues throughout the region for thousands of rock music fans. Highlights being two well attended concerts at Mentor High School Auditorium, opening for National recording artists, Brownsville Station and Cleveland’s Michael Stanley. Bluestone Union continued to support the Raspberries and International recording star, Chubby Checker at a sold out, Utopia night club concert, in 1973. Jane Scott, the legendary Cleveland Plain Dealer, newspaper entertainment journalist and reporter, spotlighted Bluestone Union, in a full page story, on November 16, 1973!
Bluestone Union re-united in 2012, 41 years since its inception, keeping it in the family, with Mike O’Neill of The Celebration, replacing Bill Callaghan as second guitarist and Kirt Campbell returning to play bass, joining Ron on guitar, Wally on drums and Mike K. as lead vocalist. This version of the band continued through November 2016 when Kirt and Mike O’Neill decided to retire from the band. Joining the band in their places were long time veteran Cleveland bass player/vocalist Norm Isaac and guitarist/vocalist Jay Brindo. This version stayed together until May 2020. At that time, Ron, Mike, Norm and Jay decided to create the new Blue Evolution band and carry on playing the great British Invasion Era tunes enjoyed by many . Wally is also working on his own new project.
During the 8 years that the re-united Bluestone Union was together, many photos, videos and audio recordings were made. Below, you can browse through many of them:
