Billy Spears Band

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Billy Spears, a member of a musical family from Hartshorne, Oklahoma, was taught to fiddle, in the bluesy style native to Oklahoma and Texas, by his Uncle Earl Spears. Billy began playing professionally in the early 1950s and travelled with some stars, including Ferlin Husky, Jean Shepard, and T-Texas Tyler. Here's a picture of Billy (far left) in Tyler's band in 1953:

He met his future and only wife, Doris, at a gig in Western Canada. They settled in Lawrence, Kansas and raised four daughters: Carol, Lawna, Sally, and Lisa. Billy played in local bands throughout the sixties, but his day job was Food-Service Supervisor at the Kansas University Student Union.

In addition to being a hell of a fiddler, Billy sings and plays a Fender electric mandolin ("Mandocaster"), in a real jazzy style. The use of electric mandolin was popularized by Tiny Moore as a member of the Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. It is pretty natural for a fiddler to play mandolin as well, as the tuning is the same.

In 1971, daughter Sally was murdered by her boyfriend. Perhaps feeling that life was short and that a person must follow his dream, Billy decided to start his own band. In addition to Billy, some of the people who were in the band during those years were:

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"

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

Pat Cleveland, vocals - Gordon's wife

Jim Stringer - lead guitar

It was a very eclectic bunch, both personally and musically. I never got to hear this band before they eventually broke up in 1974. Click here to listen to some recordings by this band and read more information.

Through 1974 and into the beginning of 1975 I was working at the Village Inn Pancake House on Iowa Street in Lawrence. Management sent me to the home office in Fort Collins to learn how to be a Village Inn kitchen manager, and while I was there I got down to Denver to see Bobby "Blue" Bland one evening, and Fats Domino another. But I digress.

Bob Case and Mike Roark, from the earlier B.S. Band, were playing for Dwane Richardson (the Richmen Express), and I got called to join them as bassist/singer. I remember playing quite a bit at the Golden Horseshoe in Topeka, for not much money. Eventually, I guess I proved my worth, as Bob and Mike asked me to join the next incarnation of the Spears band with them. What the hell. I said yes. The band was Billy, Bob, Mike, myself, a singer/guitar player named Jimmy Ray Law, and some of the time, Carol Spears, singing and playing second fiddle.

The other person involved in the band - and he was just as important as any of the rest of us, if not more so - was Dwight Haldeman, the band's manager. Dwight kept us as organized as possible, ran sound and lights, talked to agents and club owners, took care of the equipment, wrote the checks... you get the idea. We would never have gotten off the ground without Dwight.

The picture of Dwight in the tux was taken at his wedding in Summer 2006! He looks a lot more respectable now than he did at the Oklahoma border in 1977. But then, so do I.

In these earliest days, we practiced in a house where Bob and Dwight lived, south of Lawrence in the Wakarusa valley. Here's a picture of an early band practice in that house.

The Billy Spears Band, 1975-1978