- Mike Roark, drums - he'd grown up in Lawrence, playing in rock
bands in high school
- Billy Berosini, bass - from a famous circus family, the "Flying
Berosinis"; he'd played with Brewer and Shipley
- Janet
Jameson, vocals and second fiddle - from the KC area,
formerly of Cole Tuckey, with
a rock
background
- Bob Case, pedal steel guitar, banjo, and electric guitar - a
Stanford graduate
- Gordon Cleveland, acoustic guitar and vocals - an aficionado of
early "roots" country music
- Carol Spears, Billy's oldest daughter, on vocals
- Pat
Cleveland, vocals - Gordon's wife
- Jim
Stringer - lead guitar
The recordings presented here include all of the people above except
for Jim Stringer. The sound quality is not very good, but it was
evidently a high-energy, freewheeling band.
These cuts are from a feature show on Lawrence's public-access TV
station, Channel 6, some time in 1974:
Introduction to show
Nine-Pound
Hammer
medley with Steel Guitar Rag; Gordon singing lead
Mean
Woman with the Green Eyes, one of Billy's staples
Billy in the
Lowground, a fiddle tune Billy played in virtually every gig
Any Old Time; Gordon
sings this Jimmie Rodgers song
Rollin'
in My Sweet Baby's Arms
Stony Creek, a banjo
tune with Bob featured
Interview with band members;
I don't know why they went outside for this, as the noise is bad.
Maybe to smoke?
Someday Soon; Janet
torch-sings
Your
Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad; Carol sings this Tammy Wynette favorite
What I Gave Away;
Mike sings! I don't think I've ever heard this song before.
Gypsy Song Man;
Bill Berosini sings. Another one I've never heard.
Big Joe; a fast fiddle
tune.
Love,
Oh Love, Please Come Home; a bluegrass standard sung by Gordon and
Pat
Carroll
County Blues, segueing into Orange Blossom Special
The following are cuts from a live gig on October 19, 1974, somewhere
in Lawrence:
Happier
Days Over Yonder Horizon - a long power ballad led by Janet
Fiddle tune, name
unknown - kinda fun because the audience is stomping and Billy starts
playing with the stomp tempo
speaking of tempo,
Pick
Up the Tempo, a Willy & Waylon song sung by Billy
Slew Foot, one of Carol's
standards
Silver Wings, a Merle
Haggard standard sung by Billy
Lonely Wind - Gordon
sings lead with high-volume backups from Pat and Janet. This is a
great Drifters song and not one I would have expected to hear.
Truck Driving Man
- Billy sings this. When Jim Ray Law joined the band in 1975, he
took over this song.
I Can't Stand Me -
one of Billy's Merle Haggard standards
Billy in the
Lowground
Red Haired Boy -
twin fiddles with Billy and Janet
Someday Soon - Janet
sings this song written by Ian Tyson and performed by many from the
Kingston Trio to Suzy Bogguss
Sheetrock Two-Step
- sung by Gordon, it's probably a cute song but I can't make out the
lyrics
Some song by
Brewer and Shipley, don't know the name of it, sung by Billy
Berosini, who played with B & S earlier in the decade
I think this song is called
Down Home Girl but I'm
not sure - may be a Loretta Lynn number, sung by Carol
Your Good
Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Carol
Rollin'
in my Sweet Baby's Arms - Gordon, Pat, Janet
My Window
Faces the South - Billy
Six Days on the
Road - Gordon
Berosini
introduces the band
The following information came from
Jim Stringer in a couple of emails:
Just
a couple of things... I played with Billy in 1973/1974... along
with Janet, Billy Berosini, Mike Roark & Bob Case primarily playing
steel at that point. I could never do all the gigs since I'd just
started my job in the sound dept. at Centron and was out for location
shoots all the time. However... I was there, though, twice for the
Billy Spears Blue Grass Festival... it rained like hell both years and
I think Dwight or whoever was behind it just totally had his ass
handed to him financially... ... I had to get off the pot and he hired
the guy who I think was named "Link" who had been doing all the gigs
that I couldn't -- he played an ES335 guitar... do you remember him? I
don't recall the remainder of the band at that point...
I don't think Janet ever performed with the Pat & Gordon version
of the band, nor did I. I may have done a gig or two with Billy after
his accident -- I recall something in a tent somewhere, but that could
have been another band, another place, another time -- maybe that was
just something with you and John Lomas and Buddy??? Still, I credit
Billy with reviving my interest in country and western swing music.
He'd start off one of those lightning quick fiddle tunes that I'd never
heard, play one chorus, complete with 3 beat bars, extra 5's, etc.,
then turn to me and say "Take it Straaanger..." (his pronunciation of
my name, of course.) My contribution to Billy was that I taught him
"Sugarfoot Rag" -- we played a kick-butt duet with him on his
four-string electric mandolin.
I'm a little sketchy myself about the Pat and Gordon years, except I
recorded Billy down at Centron while Pat & Gordon were part of the
band. It may have been actually later than that... I might have a track
sheet from that session, though I doubt it. I'm really not sure who was
what at this point... Pat, Gordon and Bryson Roberts had a band called
"Cowboy X", too... I'll have to go back to the tapes and see if I have
dates on any of them. I think I sent all the 4track stuff to Billy
after I copied 'em off to digital, so I may not have ANY historical
record at all. Memory is a poor record!
|
Obviously, Jim was mistaken that Janet wasn't in the
band with Pat and Gordon... we all have to learn to deal with fewer
working brain cells!
This band broke up at the end of 1974, and from
listening to these tapes, it's not hard to figure out why. There
were too many people with strong talents and correspondingly strong
egos, and they did not seem to gel. The people who stayed with
Billy at that point were Bob Case, Mike Roark, and, of course, Carol
Spears.