The Vagrants were a Long Island, New York blue-eyed soul and garage-rock band active through the mid-to-late 1960s, best known as the launching pad for guitarist Leslie West, who left in 1969 to form Mountain. Their raw, overdriven cover of Otis Redding's "Respect" became a regional hit on the East Coast in 1967, and their residency at Island Park's Action House put them on the same regional bill as acts like the Doors and Vanilla Fudge. They never broke nationally, but the Vagrants' heavy, soul-inflected guitar attack fed directly into the sound their Long Island peers built next.

the sound in question

1967

RespectThe Vagrants