The group also included some former members of Janis Joplin's Big Brother and The Holding Company.
[citation needed] Joining Pinera, Mitchell and Lawton on the debut album were Russ Smith as bass player, contributor of one song and co-writer on two other collective tunes on the album, and multi-instrumentalist Tommy Sullivan, who co-wrote three songs with Lawton in addition to the two that all five members of this version of the band are credited on.
[1] Ramatam performed at Concert 10 in Long Pond, PA with Emerson Lake & Palmer, Edgar Winter, Three Dog Night, The Faces and others in 1972.
Mitchell and Pinera's departures came before the band recorded its second and final album, In April Came the Dawning of the Red Suns (1973).
Lawton and Sullivan had (as a team) co-written about half the songs on the first album and they co-wrote all the music on the second one.