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.

JACK MITCHELL – THE STYCKS

"We auditioned Stevie Ray Vaughn to join Stycks as a favor to Jimmy Vaughn. I could tell he was a natural but we really needed somebody that could play the cover tunes. He was really good but we needed guys that could fit in our style, he was still a little wild. Then a couple of year later we are playing The Cellar and this band called Blackbird comes on and all of a sudden here comes Stevie. Wow. What a change. The guy was an absolute phenom. That was the week before this happened. We were up at Louann's during the day trying to work in the new guitar player that we had just hired and had left all our equipment up there. This was April 1st of 1971. I get a call from a friend of mine telling me that 'Louanns burned down last night'. I tell him 'that's not funny' thinking its a April Fools joke. Turns out it was true."

KIRBY ST. ROMAIN

I was playing with The Roadrunnners at some school and they had a special guest, Scotty McKay. And we backed him up. After the gig, he came over and asked me if I wanted to play a job with him. I thought he was asking about the whole band. He wasn't. To make a long story short, I had borrowed money from my dad to buy a bass guitar as we didn't have a bass in the band. And I was quite literally new to it, but Scotty liked the way I played and ended up leaving the band and playing with Scotty for a long time. As a matter of fact Scotty is the one who got me into the recording studio to do my own stuff. It turned out to be "Summers Coming" which I wrote in the back seat of his car on the way to the studio. We already recorded the A side of the record with a tune called 'Walk On' and needed a B for the release. Two DJs from KLIF heard it, Chuck Dunaway and Bill Enis and they played it for Diamond Records in NYC and they agreed to distribute it. Made it to the Top 50 nationally that year. The next time I walked into KLIF, they said 'You want to be on American Bandstand in Philadelphia?' I says 'sure, I guess...' So I went on the Dick Clark tours.

MICHAEL NESMITH

The first time I saw a show advertised in Dallas Morning News, Bo Diddley was gonna play at Louann's. Because by that time, I had heard that song, "Bo Diddley," and I had heard "Can't Judge A Book by Looking at Its Cover," and "Who Do You Love." And, well, I could recite the name of every song on that album. There was something in my mind about the way that album sounded. It went to the fact that it was on a 78 LP record, which is to say that it was thin. And I didn't feel the pulse. I thought, "There's something else going on in this rhythm that makes it so meaningful." And the more I studied it, the more I realized there is a counterpoint that's being played against what Bo Diddley has played. So, I played the record enough to wear the grooves off of it, but I also discovered in that record that there was a low drum part.

LOUANN’S – PART 3

"I really loved working at Louann's, all those bands and people. It was really exciting! We would go in every morning, stack the chairs on the tables, sweep the floors, stock the bars. There were two, one in the front and one in the back. And Ann was really the guiding force behind Louann's. She was inventive. She added the 'To Go' place on the Lovers Lane side. We cooked hamburgers and pizzas, she added a Barbecue pit and we cooked brisket. Ann's sister, My Aunt Stella and her husband came down from Chicago where they had a pizzeria. Uncle Pete was a master pizza maker. He did everything from making the dough from scratch, ground the cheese, sliced the pepperoni. So he taught us how to do everything." Pat Martinkus