As a white boy growing up in a Twin Cities suburb where the only black kid at Kennedy High School was inevitably a foreign exchange student, you wouldn't expect Bob to have much affinity for the soul music of that era.
Nevertheless, the great R&B artists of the day, such as James Brown & the Fabulous Flames, Arthur Conley, Wilson Pickett, Jr. Walker & the All-Stars, and Sam & Dave, were a major influence on his musical career and led him to join some of the Midwest's top R&B groups, including "Lovia Smith & the Soul Sensations" and the legendary "Soul Package."
This band featured Rudy Martin on lead vocals, Bob Buteau and Solomon Hughes on guitar, Mark Aletky on drums, Jay Peterson on trombone, Mark Bratten on sax and flute, Rich Wieser on bass, and Bob Burtis on trumpet, sax, and keyboards.
The classic soul sounds of the sixties were being replaced by the soulful sounds of groups such as Chicago, and the band did its best to follow that trend, but the name of the group was holding them back. The "Soul Package" was eventually renamed "The Package" and later "Your Mother" in a desperate but futile marketing ploy. While it sounded like clever word play, a radio ad promoting an appearance by "Your Mother" at a local teen club was doomed to fail. The group eventually fell apart and members went their separate ways.
