MICHAEL NESMITH, ‘HEY, HEY, HE’S A TEXAN!’

Paul Heckmann sat down with Michael Nesmith of The Monkees television show and band. In the interview, Nesmith reflects on his time growing up…

MIKE RABON, THE FIVE AMERICANS

We appeared on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is. If we were playing in Houston somewhere and Dick Clark knew about it, he’d call us and say, “Would you guys come over and tape a song?” We would come by, go out by a swimming pool or something and tape our newest tune for him. We were on that show four or five times with the Knickerbockers and Paul Revere and the Raiders, so we were hot stuff. We did a lot of work with Dick Clark's Caravan Of Stars and wherever that took us, that's where we would go.

WHEN DALLAS ROCKED, THE KIRBY WARNOCK STORY

I heard about Jimmie Vaughan growing up because he was in The Chessmen and I was in high school at the time. Whenever we’d come through Dallas, we’d hear about the Chessmen with KLIF or something like that. When I saw them, you understand, this was back when people played live. You didn’t watch it on YouTube. You had to go to the club and see them play in person. And they just had a presence or a skill set that was just above everybody else. It was just Jimmie and Stevie, and there was everybody else.

A FALSTAFF AND A GLOBE

Long before the idea of Louann's came around Lou and Ann Bovis were running the Falstaff Tavern in the English Village. Not too long after the Centennial kicked off, Ann's brother Anton Martinkus joined them. Anton was an old warhorse, serving under George C Patton long before he became General Patton. He knew him better at Major Patton back at Fort Sheridan. He stayed with Lou and Ann until WWII broke and he went back to kicking butt and taking names at places like the beachhead at Leyte.

DROWNING IN A WHISKEY RIVER

So Whiskey River opens. Gatemouth Brown, Rusty Wier, Gary P. Nunn. We also had Ray Wylie Hubbard and Michael Martin Murphy. I had dinner with Michael at The Pawn Shop and he came over to Whiskey River and we really hit it off. B.W. Stevenson was there. Hoyt Axton. Delbert McClinton, Bees Knees, Shake Russell, Bugs Henderson all played there I’ll tell you one story - Paul McCartney from The Beatles came in one night. I think he was with Wings then. He was sitting with the Five Americans, I think Freddie King was playing that night.

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DOWDY FERRY ROAD, THE JOHN FORD COLEY STORY

Back when we were kids, we would to go down to Dowdy Ferry Road years ago with our pistols. And we would shoot at the cottonmouths. We probably killed half the cottonmouth population over on Dowdy Ferry. Dan was always looking for something that’s a little bit more unique. And so, that was one. It was like 'Dowdy Ferry Road' was short, and every other song we had was like, “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” “Nights Are Forever Without You,” “We Don’t Ever Have to Say Goodbye” it was like, geez, let’s just pick something that’s three words.

JOURNEY TO TYME, THE MARK LEE STORY

My mother and dad went to some party at the Lamplighter Motel. Kenny and his band were playing poolside and Mom got a business card and that’s how it got back to me. I put it in my pocket and kind of forgot about it. I had found myself in a position of booking or helping to book a nightclub, not a nightclub in the regular sense of the word, but they had these apartment clubs back in those days. And there was an apartment complex over in Northwest Highway, off Webb Chapel. I think it is called La Fontana. A friend of mine, an older friend that worked for my father had been placed in charge of promoting and building this club up at the La Fontana Apartments, he took me along, and he said 'What do you think will work here?'. And I immediately said, 'a band'. Now my Mom had just given this card the night before while we were watching TV so I reached in my wallet and pulled out Kenny’s card and the rest is history.

JERRY SMITH, KASUALS, WOO BROTHERS

We did a lot of openings too about that same time. We opened up for The Beach Boys, Sonny & Cher – God, there's so many, I don’t even remember them all. and we also played on WFAA's 'Sumpn'Else' TV show. We also opened for the Turtles at Louanns. I think we played in the big room that night. We also played the smaller room quite a bit. We were buddies with The Chessman who would play there all the time, Jimmy Vaughan was with them then. We would go over to Jimmy's house and there would be Stevie, a little gawky kid (with a laugh) hanging around. We would say 'Hey Stevie' kidding of course (in his best big brother's friend voice) and pick on him a little. but he was a good kid.

OH CRAP, IT’S CARTER!

Noblemen was my first band, then the Fantastics, Flag was also one of the early ones. Hard Rock band playing mostly cover tunes with very few originals. We opened for the Who at Dallas Memorial Auditorium June 1970, also Night Hog. We played mostly at The Cellar in Dallas and Vulcan Gas Company in Austin. Opened for Bubble Puppy at Vulcan Gas Company. I have a poster of that show that says 1970 so it was probably after Flag disbanded. Short lived band. Then Bullwinkle. Good tight cover band. We played the hot spots at the time, The Fog, Soul City, The Rickshaw Club etc. Only notable because the singer was John O'Daniels of Point Blank fame. He and I remained friends & connected until he passed away not long ago. I guess Blackbird came after that. The original line up was myself, Jack Morgan on guitar. Tom Wagoner on Bass, and Christian Plique on Vocals. We replaced bass player Wagoner with Ric Webb. This was an awesome band. Band was mostly original versions of very old blues tunes. Christian Plique was originally in Blackbird with Stevie Ray Vaughn.