I remember being at Les and Opal Roudybush's house watching and listening as Les and Opal would play music. Les on that guibanjo, Opal on the chord organ, their son in law Kenny Prazak on the snare drum, and sometimes Opal's dad Homer Davis on fiddle. It always seemed like so much fun. That's where it started. The guibanjo had 4 strings tunes as a banjo and I could play the chords upside down. As I got a little older I heard my Mom's 2nd husband Tom play guitar and sing Hank and Marty Robbins. By the time I was in high school I'd flunked music and learned to play the guitar I bought at Tempo for $15 with a book on chords. This image is of the IVth Illusion. My very first job in a band. At the time I was the front man. Standing on stage with a 5 piee rock band at my back was a real hoot. It was all magic and convinced me of what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know it at the time but I was destined to perform on and off for the next thirty years.
When I came home from school just before the end of the first semester of my senior years and told my folks that I had just been asked to join this rock and roll band my Dad's response was, "Who's going to pay to watch you play?" We didn't get paid much at first. barely enough to cover the cost of equipment rental to perform. But we PLAYED!!! By the time I left for the Marines a little over a year later I was making $50 a night. Pretty good money for the late 60's considering I was earning $3.60/hr as a union laborer. A 40 hr week would net $115, give or take a buck or two. So it seems as though there WERE folks who would pay to watch me play...
This period of my life was MAGIC! I had wanted to play music, guitar mostly, in a band of one sort or another in particular. My comrades at the time didn't understand. I remember Gary Peterson asking me at one point, "What's the matter, you too good for us now?". Seems I didn't hang out with those guys too much after I started playing with the IVth ILLUSION. But the thing was...we rehearsed once or twice a week...and I discovered how much fun it was to make friends with people who shared an interest in music...a passion...so to speak. It was something, when we rehearsed, nobody showed up needing to LEARN the song. Everyone already knew the music, reharsals were where we arranged how WE would perform the piece. And these guys were good. I learned so much from them. Imagine my surprise when I discovered over 30 years later I was the only one of that band that really pursued music later in life....
Thing is, the MAGIC did not go away!!
In February 1969 I enlisted in the Marines with Tom. Tom and I had know each other since 3rd grade and it seemed like the thing to do at the time. But the music bug had me. Bought a cheap guitar at Camp Pendleton and draged it around with me till a better one came along. Sat around the barracks with the other guys that could play entertaining those that couldn't...or just had nowhere else to go. After returning home in early '71 I worked at a couple jobs till autumn arrived a construction slowed. A friend from my days in the Scouts and were commenting on the sameness of the dancers and bars one night and I mention the Western Whirlybird Club in Newport, North Carolina. Next day we're on Highway 65 south with our thumbs out. We hitch hiked 1600 miles in three days to find a different bar to drink beer in. The day we arrived at the Whirlybird I was hired as a bartender. The following Wednesday evening two guys came in with a guitar, amp, and trap set. "Did I know any bass players?"..."Well not really", I replied, " but there's a bass and amp in the office. I'm not really a bass player, but would you mind if I set in?" "Let's jam!!" Well, even though a south paw like me had to flip that axe upside down I knew the neck of that old P-bass and every song they played. We'd been entertaining the folks in that bar for about an hour when the guy that owned the bar and the guitar and amp I was playing came. Seeing the bar full of people dancing and drinking to our tunes he told the bartender to send us some FREE BEER!! AND KEEP IT COMING!! Later he asked me if it would make playing that guitar easier if I strung it backwards and that he would pay us each $20 if we could be there Friday nite and another $20 for Saturday and that he could find us work in other clubs as well. The rest, as they say, is history!!!
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