Local Leaders Salute Youngstown Rock Icons Left End

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The members of Left End, who have been dubbed “the godfathers of Youngstown rock ’n’ roll” by local radio DJs, received a couple more honors Wednesday morning.

The band members were honored with proclamations by Mayor Jamael Tito Brown and Mahoning County Commissioners David Ditzler, Anthony Traficanti and Carol Rimedio-Righetti.

The ceremony took place on the stage at the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, where the band will headline the Spring Thing concert Sunday evening.

Left End was founded in 1970 and played the annual Spring Thing concert at the former Idora Park at least a dozen times in the 1970s and 1980s. Sunday’s concert will also feature The Houseband and members of the Michael Stanley Band. It will start with the screening of a new documentary, “When Idora Rocked,” about the many rock concerts that took place at the South Side amusement park. For tickets, click HERE.

Brown said Youngstown is known for the talent it has produced and thanked Left End for “continuing to represent our city across the nation and across the world.”

In the heyday of Youngstown’s rock scene in the ’70s and ’80s, Left End was easily at the top of the heap. The hard-edged pop-rock band flirted with national fame, signing a contract with Polydor Records and releasing its acclaimed debut, “Spoiled Rotten,” in 1974.

The band performed with the likes of the Eagles, Cheap Trick, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rush, Ted Nugent and John Mellencamp.

Ditzler referenced the album in honoring the band.

“In Youngstown, we were all spoiled rotten, and we got that way because of these guys and [their late singer and frontman] Dennis T. Menass,” he said. Sunday’s concert will be “an amazing opportunity for young people in the Valley to experience what we all took for granted,” Ditzler said.

Menass, whose real name was Dennis Sesonsky, died in 2014. His daughter, Tasha Stanton, accepted the commissioners’ proclamation.

“This is sweet and sad at the same time,” Stanton said. “I’m so happy that you are all being recognized. You have been such influences in my life and in so many others.”

Patsy Palombo, drummer for the band, gave the mayor and commissioners black T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Left End” on the front and “I’m Spoiled Rotten” on the back.

“We just keep rocking,” Palumbo said. “We’ve been doing this for 50 years, and we hope to keep doing it for another 25 years.”

Left End performed a reunion concert last year at Packard Music Hall in Warren that drew a capacity crowd.

Pictured at top: The members of Left End pose for a photo on the stage at The Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, where they received proclamations Wednesday morning by Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown and the Mahoning County commissioners. From left are Dave LeMasters, Jim Puhalla, Michael Lawrence, Patsy Palombo, Roth Guerrieri, Tom Figinsky and Leanne Binder.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.