PEABODY'S TALES OF THE ROAD
The Soul SceneTHE OTHER SIDE OF SAN ANTONIO. HORNS, SOUL, R&B, AND TEJANO SCENE .......
I'd like to pass on my experiences and history as a drummer growing up in SA during what was probably the greatest era in bands & clubs. You hit the nail on the head buddy! One of my first observations about your site is the lack of Hispanic or "mescan" bands, but then again we were somewhat in our own world also. We didn't play a whole lot of rock' n' roll as much as maybe R&B & soul stuff, plus covers of course. Most had horns, as many as we could get, so you played a lot of BS&T, Chicago, Sly, Motown...anything to keep the horn section happy. What I admired the most about some of the "Rock" guys I knew was that it seemed like they stayed together longer & invested more into the groups that we used to.
THE SUMMER OF 64'
I started playing the summer of 64', mostly with neighborhood garage bands (South side), and my first "real" band was with a guy by the name of Henry Pena, Henry & The Kasuals. He was a DJ for KUKA, a Spanish station that had a local request show in the afternoons. He worked the board with a guy by the name of Jesse Vallado, who had a band called Little Jr. Jesse & The Teardrops! (How did we come up with these names?). Being somewhat connected, we did a lot of really nice gigs, private parties & car lot openings! The best gig I can remember is working the Municipal Auditorium with Sunny & The Sunlinners & a bunch of other bands. We also did a few sessions at a studio owned by Abe Epstein, 2 tracks, looped forever.
THE WOOD SHED YEARS
From there I jumped around a bunch & worked with anybody who I thought was better than me, in order to learn. Did some more recording with a group called The Lovells, Jimmy Jimenez / guitar & a bunch of guys I can't remember. And then at the ripe old age of 16 I started working with a group of guys who were calling themselves The Dell-Tones; Ricky Hernandez / keyboards, Ernie Garibay / vocals, J.J. Martinez / guitar, Sal Rodriguez / bass. We used to play at the Blue Note on Blanco, & they actually used to sell me drinks! Like I looked like I was 21. From there we moved to a place called the Satin Doll, off of Nacogdoches, owned by a guy by the name of Rudy Limon. This was in the days were bands stayed in one club until you couldn't draw anymore, & we were there probably close to a year. During that time we added a vocalist by the name of Sarah Fulcher, Benny Rodriguez / trumpet & flute, Charlie DeLeon / sax. I was bumped by a much older & experienced drummer by the name of Armando Alba, who worked with Sunny forever. I was devastated, but the good thing that came out of that is that I really had a chance to play with more groups & more clubs.
THE HOLIDAYS
The Holidays, Joe Zapata/bass, Charlie Fernandez/guitar, Denny (an Air Force dude from PA)/keyboards. We worked Circus Circus on Fredicksburg, The Red Robin on St. Marys, The Landing Strip (another Rudy Limon club), King Arthur's Court (owned by Rene Villarreal, who was a sidekick of Rudy's), the Scotsman, the Sheraton on Austin Hwy. had a club I can't remember.
THE JOKERS
I worked with Henry Carrera / bass, Richard Hall / keyboards & Al Reyna / guitar as The Jokers. Played Frisky's (there was a permanent virus at the club, so you always got sick), all the River clubs, back when the river stopped at Ricardo's. The Mai-Tai , Bwana Dik , The Garter. Nice clubs, cool people, great chicks.
THE COMING DRAFT AND THE ARMY
I knew I was going to get drafted so I went on the road with a couple of Tejano groups. One was Roy Montelongo out of Austin, & the other was Joe Bravo, who were both seminal stars in their own minds. But it was great playing, traveling & actually making some money. I'm going to break for now to regroup my thoughts and let you know about the groups I worked with when I got out of the Army.
PICKING UP AFTER THE ARMY
When I got out of the Army in '71, I came back to SA, and after a few months of playing w/Joe Bravo again, I worked with Rene & Rene, of "Angelito" fame. I then hooked up with a group called "Brown Brandy". This was the original group & not the bunch of un-creative dudes who would use the same name later. The group consisted of Henry Parrilla/keyboards & vocals (Henry Lee, Little Henry & The Laveers, Sunny & The Sunliners), Joe Jama/bass & vocals (Royal Jesters & a bunch of other kick-butt bands), Frank Ortega/guitar, Jerry Garcia / trumpet, (Royal Jesters , Sunny & The Sunliners), Charlie deLeon / sax, (Latin Breed). We prided ourselves on being the SA version of El Chicano. The horns gave us the ability to run the board, much less with the strong vocals in the group. We developed a strong following & packed them in wherever we played. We did a circuit of clubs that ran from Albuquerque NM , Boulder CO , Billings MT & usually back through El Paso TX. We played at a place called "Chances Are", next to the Billy Mitchell bowling lanes, and had just settled in at "The Chandelier" when something happened that changed my life.
THE PLATTERS AND THE BIG BREAK
One night a bunch of black cats walk in & someone said they were "The Platters". They had finished their gig at the "Tropicana Hotel" downtown, & were looking for a cool scene. A couple of them sat in & afterword's the bass singer, Gene Williams, mentioned that the group was going to be replacing their keyboard player & drummer. The next day Henry & I went to the hotel & met with Buck Ram, owner / manager, producer / songwriter for the group. Buck was responsible for keeping the original group together, writing most of the hits (Only You, The Great Pretender, Twilight Time, Magic Touch.....), and maintaining the current group. He asked, we said yes, and one of the best adventures in my life started. After a bit of a stumble, we started with the group, with Ernie Garibay on bass. We traveled to every state except Alaska, overseas at least a couple of times a year (England, Ireland, Scotland, France). Along w/ Dobie Gray, we were the first act to perform to a mixed audience in Johannesburg, Durban & Cape Town, South Africa. The group was based out of Las Vegas, so we worked quite a few places there, Reno & Lake Tahoe at Harrah's. It was a blast. During that time we replaced bass players a couple of times, but always tried to get guys from SA. Frank Salazar & Ruben Pina were a couple who were willing to chase the dream. In 75' things started changing for the worse, we were getting bummed playing the same show night after night. Consider 19 one-nighters in 21 days, traveling in a bus too old to be on the road & a laundry list of other stuff.
THE HEAT OF THE DISCO ERA
Henry & I came to SA the latter part of 75'. There was a group playing at the "Hypothesis" called SugarJammer, (Ralph Cortez/vocals & percussion, Ambrose Fernandez/vocals, Gary Botello/guitar, Tony Pena/bass, & someone on drums I don't remember). It was a cool place to play except for watching beautiful chicks kissing on each other, but we could play what we wanted, & they truly appreciated it. I think it had been a strip club, because it had a backstage w/dressing rooms & it's own entrance. But this was in the heat of disco, & most clubs were starting to change their attitudes about booking bands for extended gigs. The group changed direction somewhat, some cats left. Gary was replaced by George Gonzales/guitar & most of the gigs turned out to be Randolph, Ft. Sam, Lackland, Kelly NCO clubs. Which would later turn out to be a blessing in disguise. We were playing at the "Bwana Dik" when we Gilbert Velasquez/guitar joinged the group. (I loved those waitresses!). That summer a cat by name of Abel Cortinas opened a club called "Heaven Discotheque" on Blanco Rd. It was probably the only club done in blue instead of red & he was packing them in. He offered us his Tuesday's since it was his slowest night, so we said OK but we won't go on until 10pm & we'll only do two 1 hour & a half sets. Tuesday's became Tues & Wed., which became Tues, Wed, Thurs & when he realized he was making more money during the week than on his weekends, he gave us Fri & Sat. So to my knowledge, we were one of the few groups working 5 days a week, 10 till 2. He built a stage, added lights & his disco booth became our sound booth. Life was good!
BACK TO THE ROAD
In late '76 were were approached by the DOD (Department of Defense) to do some overseas tours. DOD tours are much better than USO tours, cause you get paid, commissioned as officers, base privileges & bunch of other perks, but one catch... you have to have a chick in the band. On one tour to Thue , Greenland we took Edna Rodarte/vocals (daughter of Frank Rodarte/sax, Dell-Kings, Los Blues). On another we took Sunny Planto/vocals, (sister of Bob Shulman / bass, Six Part Invention). That one took us to The Azores, Portugal, Spain, Morocco & Italy. For the the third we just hired a dancer... which was much better "eye-candy" anyway! Anytime we were back in town, it was back to "Heaven" so it became somewhat "our" club.
MORE TO COME ......
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