After my stint in the U.S. Army, I took up residence at my parents’ new home in University Park, in the middle of Dallas. The first thing I did was to buy a 1967 Triumph Bonneville 650 and begin tricking it out.
My dad, Spike, wasn’t pleased. He felt that a loud motorcycle in the Park Cities was unacceptable.
“Okay,” he growled, “you have this bike now. Where are you gonna live?” I replied calmly, “I’ll live on the bike.” He shook his head and smiled, realizing that I wouldn’t be under his roof forever.
It wasn’t too long before I received a phone call from someone out of the past. It was Doug Verver. He had gotten my parents’ number from my buddy Dale McFarland. Doug was looking for a drummer.
He told me that he was with the house band at the Cottage Inn, called Joe Banana & The Bunch. I laughed out loud and said, “Sure!” And with that, I was in.
Joe Banana & the Bunch… Music with Appeal!
The first thing I needed to do was to buy a new drum set. In my absence, my youngest brother, Robert, had deliberately burned down the Den of Iniquity at the old house. Everything went up in smoke – including my cherished drums!
I jumped in my mother’s car and hurried downtown to McCord’s Music at 1916 Elm Street. I ran into the store and eyed a Black Oyster Pearl Ludwig drum kit on display. A young salesman approached me and chirped: “Nice lookin’ drums, eh?” I nodded and said, “Yep, I’ll take ‘em. How much are they?” I agreed to the price and got out my wallet and paid him in cash. “You need to hurry up,” I said, “I’m double parked out there!”
I had purchased my new drums in record time, and was off like a prom dress!
Thursday afternoon, a week later, I showed up at the windowless Cottage Inn at Bachman and Loop 12. I unloaded my drums from mom’s car and hauled them inside the club. The place was what we called a “red carpet club.” Basically, a colloquialism for a dark, smoky lounge made to seem like a classy uptown joint… but failing miserably.
I started that night!
As I set up, Doug casually introduced me to my new band mates. Joe Wilson, AKA Joe Banana, was an outgoing, charming character who immediately put me at ease. We were pals from the git go. When he wasn’t smiling, he looked like a mafia don, but when he smiled, which was most of the time, Joe could light up a room. A commanding presence, Joe actually disarmed mean drunks with that infectious grin (or that Cosa Nostra evil eye if called for). He was a good-looking man in his mid-thirties and the boy could sing… and played harp like Jimmy Reed!
He was the life of the party – the perfect front man.
The bass player, Jack “Flash” Castleberry, Joe’s age, was the spitting image of Clint Eastwood. Tall, hair combed back, dressed to kill, Flash was a smooth operator, the proverbial ladies’ man (in the sultry sense). He was friendly but reserved. Many female fans fell under his seductive spell. I couldn’t help but admire him. So did the other losers.
Then there was Doug Verver, my age. (We were the young guns.) He was a handsome, easy-going gentleman, the consummate professional. He had a wonderful voice and played a mean guitar. We had met before I joined the Army, but now we were to embark on a weekly musical adventure that would last for 16 months.
All three of these guys could really sing. I sang some harmony, but not enough to offend anyone… too much. But if the management ever needed to clear out the joint, they’d get me to sing lead.
We were a cover band, a commercial dance band. And we put on a pretty good show. Joe and Flash had been playing for quite a while and knew exactly what their huge following wanted to hear. We started out playing three nights a week. And then the crowds got so big we went to four nights. The song list was expansive and any new songs were perfected on stage due to the fact that we never, ever rehearsed. We didn’t need to; and the large crowds loved us and spoiled us silly. We could do no wrong. (Not to mention Joe was a badass showman.)
Our motto: “There are two kinds of mistakes: the regular kind – and then the kind that don’t sound too good!”
We played a mish-mash of material. Pop, rock, country, ballads, and blues like Ray Sharpe’s “Linda Lu.” There was a funny little song called “Cherry Pie” that had subtle sexual connotations: Gimme some a dat! And when Joe sang “The Green, Green Grass of Home” there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. No kidding. “Joy to the World” was very popular at the time, although I wished we played much more Three Dog Night. (I actually saw them – up close – one late night at the Cellar after their concert at the Convention Center in 1969.)
It was packed every night we played. A great deal of our crowd lived in “dry” Irving so it was an easy drive over to the club. (A little bit more challenging getting back, I assumed.) All of the thirty- and forty-something men wore white shoes and belts, and had goofy Buck Owens haircuts. The women dressed nicely with heels… and plenty of cleavage. Some of the older women even sported bee hives. And then there were younger folks with longer hair and shorter attention spans who dropped in, out of morbid curiosity. What they found was a smoky psycho ward taken over by the frolicking inmates.
I have to say, there were a lot of pretty women who graced us with their presence. Some nights it was like a smorgasbord. A tempting assortment of delicacies. Life was good!
One night we took a break and I followed Joe off the stage. A loud woman sitting at a table with her girlfriends stopped Joe and said: “You know, Joe, you’d be a good-lookin’ man if you lost that beer belly!” Joe sucked in his gut and said: “I look pretty good now, don’t I, darlin’? Let’s see you suck in those big thunder thighs.” That was Banana. He could think on his feet, and he had a joke for every occasion. And his delivery was always right on.
Flash had one-liners, too, but his forte was drinking. On break, he’d have a mixed drink and then take a fresh pitcher of beer back up to the stage. I played on stage left at an angle, Flash stood next to me, Joe was next to him, and Doug was on the other end. Jack must have had a double on break – he toppled into Joe and Joe fell into Doug and all three fell off the stage! Suddenly the music had stopped, except for the drums. I kept on playing – and laughing. They propped Flash up against the juke box and we all finished the damn song to a standing ovation. (It would have been cool if the song we were playing was “Domino.”)
I moved into one of Doug’s mother’s rental houses on Community Drive, only seven blocks from the club. The place was a godsend. My only transportation was my motorcycle. I had set up my drums at the club and there they remained for sixteen months.
The house was the new Den of Iniquity – party Central. I asked a high school buddy, Bud Albaugh, to move in. He was my partner in crime and my personal body guard. Together we made quite a team. After gigs we’d invite folks from the club over, but only the pretty girls were permitted to stay into the witching hours. My favorite girlfriend was the lovely Linda. We had a lot in common: she was a nymphomaniac and I was a maniac.
Later on, I met the beautiful Marlene. She was a rich divorcée, 17-years older than I, but age didn’t matter. I had purchased her piano and had written a love song for her. She was deeply touched; and suddenly, we were in love. She taught me about candlelight, soft music and romance. And loving women for who they are. I owe so much to Marlene.
In about May of 1972, my old guitar player, Don Dillinger, brought a mutual friend of ours up to the club. Her name was Lisa, and she was a temptress to be sure. She contacted me the next day and soon became a fixture at my house. All of the lessons learned from Marlene were tossed aside. I had broken her heart… and damaged mine. Lisa couldn’t stand the “party central crap,” and insisted that I move in with her at her townhouse in the Oak Lawn district.
A few months later I rode up in back of the townhouse and noticed a friend’s car parked in my space. You guessed it. Lisa was entertaining this guy in our locked bedroom. There was a scuffle, but Steve made it out in one piece. Lisa tried to explain it away but the damage had been done. Now I was reverting to my old nasty habits in earnest. As for Steve, he later died of a rattlesnake bite. So at least I had a little closure. Lisa took off to Chicago and became a Playboy Bunny at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. (She appears in Playboy magazine, October, 1972 edition: Best Bunnies of 1972. Her pseudonym: Liz Asher.)
Born under a bad sign
Been down ever since I begin to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck
I wouldn’t have no luck at all…
— ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ by William Bell and Booker T. Jones Jr.
I soon moved in with a friend, Greg Gross, in East Dallas. Now, I had quite a ride home after the gig… in all kinds of weather. Yikes! Things were starting to go downhill.
Then, in August, the Feds seized the Cottage Inn. Our gig went up in smoke. It seems that the owner and his cronies were part of the Dixie Mafia. It was purported that they had been counterfeiting $20 bills. (That’s strange. We were always paid in cash – $20 bills!) Whatever happened, we were out of a gig, and were lucky to get our equipment out of there.
Joe got us into The Frontier Lounge on Harry Hines – yet another house gig. But things weren’t the same. I started going south fast.
Out of the blue my army buddy, Hatch, from New Mexico, called at my parent’s home. I phoned him back and was happy to hear his voice. He suggested that I come out to Tijeras Canyon, east of Albuquerque and partner up with him. He talked about traveling to Boston and catching a tramp freighter to Europe. Hmmm. Sounded pretty good.
I quit the band, traded my Triumph Bonneville for a relatively new VW Beetle, and headed west. I had high hopes and prayed that I wasn’t jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
DC has been a frustrated musician for over fifty years, and now has decided to become a frustrated writer. Learn more at DCDuncan.com. He’ll keep you posted.