MEMORIES OF DALLAS PARTY AT OZONA WITH THE WOO BROTHERS!

 

August 3rd, 2019 7pm at Ozona for our…

AN OAK CLIFF GIRL

We had no car, and I’ll resist the story that we walked a mile to school in the snow, but yes, we walked to school, no matter the weather. If we needed to go where legs wouldn’t take us, we would ride the bus. Sometimes, we had to take a paper transfer from the driver, in order to reach our destination, but we rarely left Oak Cliff. In fact, I distinctly remember my Mother telling us, “There is no reason to go to the other side of the Trinity River.” We took the Dallas Times Herald newspaper. It was known as the paper for “our side of town.” We had paper boys who rode their bikes and we knew all their names and where they would throw our paper. Our mail was delivered by a mailman (never a woman) who would walk to the door and put the mail in a metal box by the door.

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.

AFTER TRYA HEATH

The 25th of June 1979 was a warm day in Mesquite, children were out playing, enjoying their summer vacation and it was a relatively quiet day in the city. However that all changed the afternoon of that same day when six year old Tyra Heath left apartment #1051 at Cascade Park to play outside. Ten minutes later her mother Janice Heath called for her to come back to their apartment however she did not come home and a quick search turned up that she was no longer where she had been playing earlier.

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.

THOMAS “HOLLYWOOD” HENDERSON

"Tom Landry didn’t want to waste a No. 1 draft pick on a guy from a HBCU. That’s 'historically black colleges and universities'. So, Red Hickey and Gil Brandt challenged him and said he’s the best player on the board. So, Landry went with his scouts and picked me 18th in the first round on January 29, 1975. I was in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and the phone rang. My roommate answered and he said, hey man, it’s the Cowboys. The Cowboys are on the phone. There was no watch party. My family wasn’t dressed up like we were going to church. I got on the phone and it was Gil Brandt, and he said we just picked you in the draft, 18th, in the first round. He says can you get to the airport? This was about 10:00 in the morning. He hollered back at his secretary. Hey, what time is the nonstop coming from Oklahoma City and she goes 3:30. He said can you be there at the airport by 3:00. I go yeah, I can be there by 3:00 and that was my draft day."

GENE COOK, ‘BOOGIE MACHINE’ & PLAYBOY

So many headliners at Playboy - Chevy Chase, Jesse Lopez, Mel Torme, Charley Pride, Professor Irwin Corey - we didn't get along so well. He was a grabber and grabbed Cathy's tush. I chased him all across the club and folks thought that it was part of the show. Luckily for him Tony Signori grabbed me and got me to settle down! The dance team that was there had moved on and were working the Playboy Club circuit. That was the 'Dance Machine'. While I was Maitre'd I spoke to our boss Tom Labella about our dance group, "The Boogie Machine" with Cathy and Rick Marshall. We auditioned for Joe Cimino and he hired us. Our time there at Playboy club is what truly validated us. It put us on the map. Before that we were working different places around Dallas, Texarkana and other small gigs. We had to work to book them, but when we got the gig at Playboy, it was really the start of something special. Doors really began to open for us, not to mention the other stuff like having a seamstress to make our costumes which we had always done ourselves.

VICKI HANKS RODGERS

"I worked at some rock and roll clubs like Sneaky Petes, Mother Blues, but primarily at Sneaky Petes there in Medallion Center. Then I heard about the Bunny search in the summer of 1977. It was absolutely crazy. They had us go through all the different preliminary, sending in pictures, resumes. That was the first elimination. Then they notified us, then we all came in. You came in through this big gate, filled out your information, attached some pictures, they would look it over and then they would setup callbacks if they liked you. Then after that interview, they would let you know if they wanted you to come back in for the final group. They did a story on me when the Bunny search happened in the Scene magazine for the Dallas Morning News. I was pretty cocky back then and told them 'I may not be the best looking, or have the best body, or be #1, but I can definitely be #99!'"

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."