REO Speedwagon

REO Speedwagon (originally stylized as R.E.O. Speedwagon), or simply REO, was an American rock band formed in Champaign, Illinois, in 1967. The band cultivated a following during the 1970s and achieved significant commercial success throughout the 1980s. Their best-selling album, Hi Infidelity (1980), contained four US Top 40 hits and sold more than 10 million copies.REO Speedwagon sold more than 40 million records and charted thirteen Top 40 hits, including the number ones "Keep On Loving You" and "Can't Fight This Feeling". After sixteen studio albums, and numerous lineup changes, with Neal Doughty the only constant member, REO Speedwagon retired in December 2024. The band has since made occasional one-off live appearances.In the fall of 1966, Neal Doughty was a junior at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, where he met fellow student Alan Gratzer. Doughty had learned some Beatles songs on his parents' piano, and Gratzer had been a drummer in local bands since high school.Gratzer continued performing with his band (which had a keyboard-playing lead singer), and Doughty eventually sat in for a few songs. On the last day of the university's spring semester, guitarist Joe Matt called the band's leader and told him that he and the other members (Gratzer and bassist Mike Blair) had decided to start a new band with Doughty where everyone but Doughty would sing.The new band made a list of songs to learn over the summer break. Doughty landed a summer job and bought a Farfisa organ. The members returned to school in the fall of 1967 and had their first rehearsal before classes started. They named the band REO Speedwagon after Doughty saw it written on a blackboard, from the REO Speed Wagon truck designed in 1915 by Ransom Eli Olds. Rather than pronouncing REO as a single word as the motor company did ("REE-oh"), they chose to pronounce each letter individually ("R-E-O"). An advertisement in the school newspaper produced their first gig, a frat party that turned into a food fight. They performed cover songs in campus bars, frat parties, and university events.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.