Billy Spears Band

The Opera House/Free State Opera House/Red Dog/Liberty Hall
on Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas, in 1977

To review, the new band included:

Billy Spears - fiddle, electric mandolin, and vocals

Jim Ray Law - rhythm guitar and vocals

Andy Curry - bass and vocals

Bob Case - pedal steel guitar, banjo, and electric lead guitar

Mike Roark - drums and backup vocals

Carol Spears - vocals and second fiddle

I got an upright bass, an old Kay in order to play Bluegrass as well as electric music.

Bob, Michael, Jim, and I travelled in the band bus to Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Festival in Beanblossom, Indiana in the Summer of 1975, accompanied by some good-time girls.
Boy, was that fun! I'll never forget Bill Monroe's disapproving comments to us young hippies dancing at the side of the stage (our dancing was "ruining the waltz)."
And, of course, there was the music, played by giants of the genre (Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Ralph Stanley, and many more), and the jamming around campfires well into the nights.

In addition to a trip to Michigan for the Odee Festival in the early Spring (click here for some nice photos),
we played gigs in and around Lawrence and Kansas City. Billy already had a good following, so we were well received.
At that time, our dances were attended by hordes of long-haired dudes in jeans and young women in knee-length skirts and heavy boots.
Everybody stomped to the fiddle tunes.

Here are song cuts from recordings made of the band May 13 and 14, 1975, at Madame Lovejoy's, a club in Kansas City's "River Quay" area. Jim Bee came with us and sat in on harmonica, and Janet Jameson, from the old band, showed up to sit in a little as well. Bob played quite a bit of electric six-string guitar here.

Lowdown Ways - Marshall Tucker Band
Settin' the Woods on Fire - Fred Rose, Hank Williams
Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad - Tammy Wynette
Space Buggy - Asleep at the Wheel
I Dreamed of Highways - Hoyt Axton
Fiddle tune, name unknown
Mean Woman with the Green Eyes - Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Route 66 - more in the style of Chuck Berry than Nat Cole
Ride Me Down Easy - Billy Joe Shaver
My Window Faces the South - Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys
Hey, Good Lookin' - Hank Williams
Tried So Hard - Gene Clark
Mind Your Own Business - Hank Williams
Willin' - Lowell George
I Can't Stand Me - Merle Haggard and the Strangers
Six Pack to Go - Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys
Big Joe (fiddle tune)
Fiddle Tune, name unknown
I Can't Help It If I'm Still in Love with You - Janet Jameson sits in and sings this Hank Williams classic
Jailhouse Rock - Lieber & Stoller, Elvis Presley
Monkey Time - Carol delivers this Major Lance hit; not sure why we tried to do this tune!
Panama Red - Peter Rowan

The other recording I have with Mike Roark on drums is from a biker party south of Lawrence in June of 1975. It's interesting in that Jim Stringer sits in with us. Jim Bee joins us on harp, as well as one of the worst trombone players I've ever heard.

A jazz tune which I've played lots of times but can't remember the name of. Jim Stringer, Mike Roark and I do a beer-fueled but serviceable job on this, and if you can listen past the damned trombonist, it's good.
Leavin' Trunk - Jim Stringer sings this blues number, again marred greatly by Mr. Trombone
Silver Threads and Golden Needles
I Don't Want No Woman - the Bobby Bland classic
Six Days on the Road - Dave Dudley
You Can Have Her (I Don't Want Her) - I don't know why we didn't keep doing this tune - I like it.

Our first trip to Colorado.

In early 1975, we stayed mostly close to home.
Early that year, however, we "went on tour," with stops in Hays, Kansas and Julesburg, Colorado, and on to Denver and the mountains.
We were in the bus that Spears had bought from the Penetrations, the 1960 International Harvester.
The bus was hardly worthy of being on the highway, much less making it up steep grades at high elevations. Most of the time Bob or I drove the bus.

Michael almost buys the farm.

We had a week-long booking at the Timberline Inn in Evergreen, Colorado, about 20 miles west of Denver.
On our last night there - I think it was Saturday night - Jim, Bob and I found "alternative arrangements" and left the bar with companions.
That left Billy, Dwight, and Mike to drive back, in the bus, to our lodging in Idaho Springs.

Here is Dwight's chilling recollection of that night's events:

"I was actually about to drive the bus from The Timberline to Idaho Springs but Mike talked me into letting him drive.
Spears..., Mike and I were the only ... bus people that night.
As I was warming up the bus, I went back to the bunk to check on Billy, and Mike jumped into the driver's seat. He drove, and soon laid it over on the right side.
Mike fell down the stairwell where his right arm was caught under the bus. He was trapped, lying in a pool of gasoline.
I turned off the headlights, kicked out the windshield, grabbed the jack and quickly tried to get the bus off his arm. It was immediately apparent that it was a futile effort so I ran back to the bar.
It was a run I'll never forget.
It was a mile and a half (seemed a lot longer) at 7000 feet and very cold. I was very afraid and extremely challenged trying to make the run. (Adrenaline saved Mike's life that night.)
Fortunately, there were still people at the bar. We called for help and drove back to the scene.
I was very impressed how quickly the emergency equipment arrived. They winched the bus off Mike, put him in the chopper and flew him to Denver.
He had, by then, lost a lot of blood. They said he nearly died from blood loss.
It was a night I'll never forget and hope to never experience again."

Michael survived, thank God, but he was done playing drums for a long time. No one else was hurt seriously.
My Kay upright bass was crushed (not that that's in the same universe of seriousness - it's just part of the story).

We paid some jackleg a few hundred bucks to fix up the bus. It was a little bent, so precut glass would have been impossible to find; the new windshields were cut from plexiglass!

Buddy to the rescue.

Drummerless, we considered our options. None of us wanted to go back home to find and "train" a new drummer. There weren't many drummers who could play properly the stuff we were doing.

I knew one guy who could come in and pick up his part quickly, and that was Bud Pettit.

At the time, he had quit the show band he had been touring with after leaving the Lee Stover Trio and was living with a woman in North Dakota.

I called him with my best sales pitch and he said okay.
I think he came directly to Denver with his drums and his clothes.
This picture was taken later, after he'd been Spearsified.

Here are a few songs recorded live at the Off-the-Wall Hall, 737 New Hampshire in downtown Lawrence, in, I would guess, late 1975.

We sound happy - who wouldn't be, with such an enthusiastic crowd?

At the time, there was a music store in the front, called McKinney & Mason Music. It was a good store; I got my upright bass there. Jim Baggett - whom you can sometimes see doing appraisals on the Antiques Roadshow - worked for the store, as did Dave Wendler.

The Off-the-Wall Hall is now The Bottleneck.

**** NEW 8/2009 ****

Recently, Noah Smith of the Twang Brothers - a band we hung out with in Kalamazoo - sent me some wonderful photos of a joint appearance we did with them at the Off-the-Wall Hall in 1976. Junior Brown was in the band at that time.
Click here to see!

Big Wheels - a Merle Haggard number sung by Jim
Jailhouse Rock - I sing this request, forgetting the last verse; did anyone notice?
The Kind of Love I Can't Forget - twin fiddles, with Carol also singing this Bob Wills/Tommy Duncan vehicle.
Rocky Top - Carol sings the Osborne Brothers bluegrass standard.
Lost Highway - Andy on this cautionary tale by Leon Payne. I hadn't seen NOTHIN' yet...
Ragtime Annie - fiddle tune.
Sweet Nothings - I love this Brenda Lee song, sung by Carol with the guy's part done by me. Nice rockabilly guitar by Bob.
unidentified ballad - sung by Carol.
Old Slewfoot - a Johnny Horton tune, I think. Billy starts a different song, but it all comes together.
That Mothertrucker's Mine - a Carol Spears original, warning those "pretty little waitresses down on 59" to keep their hands off her man.
Maiden's Prayer - the Bob Wills classic, slowed down a bit for heavy breathing on the dance floor.
Choo Choo Ch'boogie - the Louis Jordan song which became a staple for us.
Truck Drivin' Man - another "always-play" song, sung by Jim.
Move It on Over - Carol sings this Hank Williams blues number.
Steel Guitar Rag - Bob's rendition of Leon McAuliffe's smash hit.
San Antonio Rose - Billy sings, with Andy and Jim on harmonies.
Cattle in the Corn - this fiddle tune modulates from major to minor.
Nobody's Business But My Own - Carol and Andy sing this Ernie Ford/Kay Starr duet, with Billy on the mandocaster doing a pretty good of channeling Jimmy Bryant's crazy guitar solo. This must have been our first performance of the song, because Andy had a little trouble with the words.
Space Buggy - a ridiculously fast rendition of the Asleep at the Wheel song, sung by Carol.
Billy in the Lowground - always one of Billy's best fiddle tunes.

Billy and Carol playing twin fiddles!

The whole band almost buys the farm.

We were on our way to play at the Vail Hilton in December of 1975 (for $650/week plus room and meals - that's for the whole band...) .

I was driving the bus - our first bus, the 1960 International Harvester which had already fallen on its side in Evergreen,
putting Mike Roark out of commission.
We had just come out of the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70, on the west side of the Loveland Pass.
If you've ever traveled that way, you know that there is a 7% grade for six miles; truck drivers are warned to USE LOW GEAR to avoid "runaways" -
a situation where a heavy vehicle can not stop or slow down because the brakes heat up and fade, and engine braking is not enough to overcome the vehicle's weight.
I think there are runaway ramps now, but there were none at the time.
A few hundred yards down the mountain, I went to touch the brakes, and... my foot went to the floorboard. No brakes.
I announced our predicament to the fellows.
We quickly devised a plan:
Someone would pull on the parking brake lever enough to slow down so that I could shift down to a lower gear.
Then, we would repeat the maneuver until we were in low gear.
Thank God, it worked.
Finally, I got the bus stopped by steering into the mountain at the side of the highway.
Had we been a little farther down the slope, we would not have been able to stop without serious damage to us and the bus.
We were towed into Vail.

Bud learns the mandolin.

Mike Roark had played mandolin.
Now, carrying on that tradition, Bud learned to play it too.
He got himself a nice old Gibson A-style and was soon pickin' up a storm.
We typically began our sets with three or four bluegrass numbers before reverting to electric instruments.

Here's a photo of one of those bluegrass sets, fairly early on
(I know it's early because the bass-drum head is the one Bud used in the Penetrations, and he's not wearing a hat!):

The Winnebago.

After Mike Roark's accident and our near-death experience with brake failure - not to mention the fact that the bus's six-cylinder engine wasn't adequate for long stretches of highway and pulling us up mountain sides - we procured a Winnebago.
Not a big one, but big enough to haul us in comfort while pulling a trailer with our gear in it.
418 cubic inches of Mopar V-8 power, walls of styrofoam, and best of all, air conditioning.

The boys and the Winnebago. Looks like Hays, Kansas as I recall it.

Andy (emulating the cover of Bobby Bland's Two Steps from the Blues album),
and Carol with the Winnebago in July 1976.

The boys sporting during a break in the comfortable confines of said Winnebago:

1976.
Our primary goal in 1976 was to stay busy enough to keep going.
We played pretty much wherever we could - Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri...
and we were very popular in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for some reason...

I Got a Gal (or three or four or five) in Kalamazoo (zoo, zoo,...)

For some reason - probably the Odee Acres Festival(s) - we were extremely successful in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
We played at three different bars and had big crowds always. Two Kalamazoo bars I remember playing in: Big Daddy's and Fairway's.
I remember "Take It to the Limit," "Good Hearted Woman," and Peter Frampton's "Show Me the Way" over and over on the jukebox.

We made friends and hung out with members of a local band, the Twang Brothers.
Their bass player, Lonnie Goodwin, seemed to be in awe of my playing, so much so that he took me to a music store and
fronted the money for an unused 1972 Fender Precision bass to replace the Gretsch I was using.
We had the owner of the store put a tortoise-shell pickguard on it and swap necks with another guitar, so it was a "custom" piece.
I came to love that "P bass," but I don't think I ever paid Lonnie back fully.
Sorry, man, if I ever hear from you I'll do it.

(That guitar, as well as a Gibson ES-335 I bought from Corky Bell for $375, were stolen from my house in a burglary in the nineties. Miserable bastids.)

One time when we were in "the zoo" we visited the Gibson factory, which was cool.

	Here are some cuts recorded at the "Second Annual Billy Spears Boogie" outside of Kalamazoo in May of 1976. The first picture on the left is of the actual gig, and the remaining ones are at a party, where the real fun was to be had. Cuts recorded at this event: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke Everyday I Have the Blues Heartaches by the Number I'll Fix Your Flat Tire, Merle I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (over You) Move It on Over Through the Bottom of the Glass Six Pack to Go Roly Poly
	Between music makings. Labrador retriever in the foreground, Winnebago in the background. Throughout our time on the road, parties like this one provided a lot of fun for us as well as cementing our relationships with fans.
	Bob, Billy, Andy, Bud (yellow shirt), and Jimmy.
	Bud, Billy, Andy, an old-time fiddler whose name I've forgotten, and Bob.
	A pensive Pettit. Note the "Big Eat" T-shirt!
	What will we play next?
	I'm sure there was a hog inside of this contraption, and I'm sure I ate some of it. Not my thing nowadays...
	Bob giving free lessons.
	Billy, perhaps wondering how his life would be different if he'd had sons...?

Here are some pix from Big Daddy's:

Andy, Jim, and Billy enjoying postprandial stupor in Kalamazoo, late 1975.
I do know the young woman's name, but I'm not telling. She's responsible for the thing around my neck.

Left: Buddy, pay attention to ME!
Above: Bob, Lawna Spears, and Carol enjoying Kalamazoo hospitality.
Lawna passed away April 26, 2007. Rest in peace.

Colorado

Colorado was our main "gigging ground," as our agency, Stone County, was based in Denver.

We played Georgetown, Evergreen, Vail, Breckenridge, Idaho Springs, Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, Julesburg, Nederland, and more.

Bud.

Dwight.

Junior joins the band.

We were playing at the Golden Inn in Golden, New Mexico, which is about twenty miles northeast of Albuquerque, heading into the Sandia mountains.
The Golden Inn was a faux-log-cabin place which specialized in booze, drugs, live music, and buffalo burgers.
The guy who ran the place would shout from time to time, "Lines on the baah!", as I believe he was from back east somewhere.
I don't recall actually seeing any lines on the baah, but I think there was some of that going around.
Bud Pettit reminded me recently that, when we walked into the place to set up, there was a leaving of dog poop on the stage.
Some things I've just blocked from my memory...

One night, a young man calling himself J.B. Brown came into the place.
We struck up a conversation, and it turned out he was on hiatus from playing with Dusty Drapes and the Dusters,
a Colorado band that was somewhat like us but a little more into contemporary and not so much into "roots" music.
We had seen Dusty Drapes in Boulder on our first trip to Colorado.
One thing led to another, and J.B. sat in.
The guy was AMAZING. He could sing like Ernest Tubb and Ray Price AND play guitar and pedal steel guitar like nobody's business.

That night, he invited me to go back to his place after the gig, and I figured it couldn't be any worse than sleeping in a room with my flatulent band buddies, so I accepted.
We drove to his trailer in Cerrillos in his powder-blue 1952 Cadillac.
That night, J.B. and I had a long drunken talk about music and other topics, far into the wee hours.
He gave me some ginseng for my inevitable hangover, and it worked.
The next morning, we took a ride around Cerrillos in his OTHER Cadillac, a massive 1938 touring car.
When I returned to where the band was staying, I had a talk with the other members, and we decided to offer him a job.
We did, and he accepted, and that is how J.B. Brown, known subsequently as Junior Brown, came to be in the Billy Spears Band.

Junior Brown, shortly after we knocked on of his trailer in Cerrillos to take him away with us... I love this photo.
And after he had made himself presentable.

Junior had a bad back, which exempted him from toting heavy equipment, and he was often cranky and made us mad, but he sure could sing and play.
He also introduced me to a vice which has stayed with me these many years, dipping Copenhagen snuff.
When I talked to Junior at Billy's 60th-birthday party in 1990, he told me he'd quit a long time ago.
I quit smoking in 1989, but I'm still dippin' snoose - not that I'm proud of it.

My wife and I caught Junior Brown's act in May of 2008 in St. Louis. He can still play and sing just fine, and I think he's doing just what he needs to do in performance. He's a real American Original!

Also, Junior managed to show up for Billy's 78th birthday party in November 2008. He still has the Gibson ES-330 dot-neck and can still play the hell out of it.

Saw Junior at the Grand Ole Opry in October 2013.

When we got back to Lawrence, we had a new publicity photo shoot.
This photo was taken on the stage at the Off-the-Wall Hall, with cool vintage instruments supplied by McKinney & Mason Stringed Instruments,
who had their shop in the front of the hall.
Notice that Carol is not in the picture, as she was taking some time off to be with her new husband, Carl Latham.

On the Road Again

On stage at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa.


* NEW * Here are a few tunes we recorded in a studio in Kalamazoo around that time (1977). It's evident that we didn't have as much studio time with these as we'd have liked, but it's good stuff nevertheless: Cattle in the Corn, a fiddle tune. Big River, the Johnny Cash hit. A Western Swing instrumental number. I really like this one and wish I knew the name of it. Pretty Please, a song I wrote but am not particularly proud of. Nice playing though. Walking the Floor Over You, nicely done by J.B. Even now you can tell that Junior learned a lot about singing and stage presence from Ernest Tubb. Every Fool Has a Rainbow. Billy always did a wonderful job with this Merle Haggard number, and it's obvious that he really likes the song. Ragtime Annie, a fiddle tune we did a lot.	Billy Spears Band, 1977. I believe this picture was taken in a bar on Central Avenue, Route 66, in Albuquerque, but I can't be sure. Tight quarters for sure. Patsy Miller made that shirt for me. I still have it, but it hasn't fit me for a long time...

Our third vehicle: School Bus #2

I don't remember why we got rid of the Winnebago. Perhaps it was the expense of renting a U-Haul trailer for weeks on end?
Actually, I think it was because we couldn't lie down and sleep in it while we were moving.

We went to the used school-bus lot in Kansas City and picked up a 1968 Chevrolet 60-passenger bus,
painted it gray, pulled out all but four of the seats and turned two of them around so that they faced each other, fitted it with an equipment area at the rear,
a shelf for my upright bass, a little closet, and four hard-but-functional bunks.
We put in a cassette deck and a couple of little speakers, which you could hear okay as long as the bus wasn't moving.

Billy. It's what he did. A motel parking lot in Breckenridge.	How can I roll when the wheels won't go?
Gotta get to the gig!	Billy in his hole, ready for a long ride.

We spent long hours, often ten hours at a stretch, on the bus. Billy slept in "his hole" a lot.
But what I remember most was the long poker games. Quarter limit, five-card stud, five-card draw, seven-card stud, Texas Hold 'em.
Most of the time, Bob and I shared driving duties. I don't think Billy or Buddy ever drove.
If one of us felt a need to recycle beer or coffee, we'd just open the door a little and hang it out in the breeze. Don't try this at home.

Jimmy and I put a new engine (courtesy of Norman Hamm) in it after the old one threw a rod on I-70,
and the picture above of me pretending to tow the thing came, I believe, as we were preparing to put in a new clutch in a muddy parking lot in Colorado.
Fun on the road, people!

*** NEW - LIVE RECORDINGS ***

One of the cassette tapes I borrowed from Carol this year (2008) contains the only live performance I can find with J.B. I don't know where it was recorded, or when, but it was the last set; I know that because there was an encore.

The crowd - and the band - were obviously having a good time! You can hear our shouts and comments to each other, as well as the audience's.

It was during a time when I played only upright bass, and although you can't hear the bass very well, you can infer it; our rhythm section clearly had a tight, swinging, organic feel to it. I like it very much. Enjoy!

Fragment of a bluegrass banjo tune

Why Not Confess? - we got this one from The Maddox Brothers and Rose, and it was one of our bluegrass staples.

Your Name Still Lingers (on my Lips Tonight) - this phrase was uttered by Jimmy a few times after amorous adventures, and I liked the phrase so much that I wrote a song using it as a title. The better version was recorded in Mountain Ears Studio (below).

I Can't Stand Me

Bring It on Down to My House - A standard of several different genres, we treated it well.

Billy in the Lowground

Everyday I Have the Blues

Phantom 309 - this is a "talking tearjerker" song, a hit by Red Sovine. Junior really nailed it. Listen!

Truck Driving Man

Lonesome Fugitive

Big Joe (fiddle tune)

Whisky River - a la Johnny Bush

No Money Down

Sittin' and Thinkin' - originally by Charlie Rich, I think. We got a great Texas shuffle going on this.

Medley: San Antonio Rose and Deep in the Heart of Texas. Shoot low, sheriff, she's riding a Shetland! AA-HAA!

Orange Blossom Special - of course.

Encore: Roly Poly and a short fiddle tune

Garton's Saloon, Vail, Colorado.

We played here several times, as well as other Vail venues "The Nu Gnu" and the Hilton Inn.
One night while we were there, Susan Ford, the President's daughter, came in with friends and Secret Service agents.
She was nice, and good looking too. Billy bummed a cigarette - or tried - from her.

Our Conn Strobotuner is on top of Billy's amp. It's what we had back then!

Junior is playing a dobro here in one picture.
I honestly don't remember his having one or playing one, but I'm sure he did it justice.
When we did our bluegrass sets at the beginning of each full set, he generally played pedal steel.

The Billy Spears Band in front of the Cain's Ballroom, Tulsa. We played here twice:
Once to warm up for Asleep at the Wheel, and once on our own.
It was a great place. Lining the walls are pictures of the stars of yesteryear who played there,
and it was, I believe, the "home base" for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys for a number of years.
It boasts "the Southwest's first spring-loaded dance floor."
On one of our appearances, my Uncle John, who lived in Tulsa, brought my grandmother, who lived in Bartlesville, to see us.
She wondered what the funny smell was,
and when Uncle John told her it was marijuana, my grandma wanted to know if she could try it.
The dog really makes the photo, dontcha think?

Here are five songs we recorded at Mountain Ears recording studio in Boulder. We were going for a pretty organic sound, and I think we got it. Buddy, for example, insisted that the drums be recorded with just one microphone, overhead. We recorded more songs than these, but these are all that survive.

The story of how we came to possess these recordings is pretty amazing. Here's what Barry Lee, a DJ in the Lawrence/Kansas City area, wrote to me:

"... about 2004 or so, kory willis told me that he had a
reel to reel tape of billy's he had found when KAW radio was in the basement of liberty hall. i believe someone had indeed thrown it out. he mentioned it to me one day when i was in love garden and i told him i had just bought a studio tascam reel to reel from a studio that went out of business in lawrence. i transferred the tape to cd for him and gave him a copy, and kept one for myself to play on the radio. (i'm a dj at KKFI in KC). "

Ultimately, Billy was contacted and got the tape.

Jimmy Ray Law plays all the acoustic guitar.
Buddy plays all the drums, as well as the mandolin parts.
I play the upright bass.

Below are the only two photos we have of that recording session, both of J.B.

Shine, Shave, Shower - Junior is featured on this Lefty Frizzell number, and we achieve a very nice vintage swing feel, I think. He plays the electric guitar and Bob plays the steel guitar.

Your Name Still Lingers (on My Lips Tonight) - this is a song I wrote, inspired by a phrase uttered by Jimmy Ray when remembering a young woman's charms from nights before. Bob plays banjo and Junior plays steel. I wish someone had told me I didn't have to "put on" a bluegrass twang in my singing. Buddy sings the high harmony.

(Could it Be Your Love for Me Is) Out of Season - Jimmy Ray Law wrote and sings lead on this song. I take the low harmony and Carol takes the high. Junior takes the six-string electric, Bob the pedal steel.

Janet's Tune - an instrumental song that Billy wrote (or borrowed). Junior takes the pedal steel, Bob the six-string electric.

Truck Driver's Queen - a staple song of Junior's repertoire, originally done by Reno and Smiley, I think. Bob plays pedal steel. I take the low harmony, Buddy the high harmony.

Photo-shoot photos
One of the pieces I borrowed from Carol was a couple of contact sheets of an entire photo shoot, taken on a live gig.
One of the wonderful things about the digital age is that you can image a contact sheet and easily enlarge the tiny little rectangles - and they look pretty good!
All of the photos are individual shots. You see "X"s on some, meaning that we chose them for printing.
There are too many to put on this page, so you can click to look at them if you wish.

Andy Bud Billy Bob Jim Ray J.B.

Houston.
We spent an entire four weeks in Houston, during the Summer of 1977. It seemed longer than that.
The club we played was nice but not popular, and we never drew a crowd.
It was the time of disco, Urban Cowboy, and the Cotton-Eyed Joe.
On a night off, we all visited a disco, just to see what it was like, but we couldn't get in unless we took off our hats. We didn't.
We also had a TV spot on one of those afternoon "Around the Town" shows.
Mary Prewitt reminded me recently that the host asked Billy about our schedule, and Billy's reply was "Well, we're tryin'."
Houston was hot and humid, and the traffic was bad,
reinforcing in my mind my mother's assertion that Houston is the armpit of the U.S.

Our Drummer for a Month: Johnny Moore.

Sometime in late 1977 or early 1978, Bud was stricken with mononucleosis, and the doctor ordered complete rest for a month. What to do?
Good musicians who are free to travel immediately and for a specific period of time, especially in as small a community as Lawrence, do not grow on trees.

We asked Johnny Moore, and, luckily, he said yes (or his wife did).
I had heard Johnny play jazz from time to time; he played with a childhood friend of mine, Alan Klebanoff, and Paul Miller, and I believe he also played in Paul Gray's dixieland band,
and, I'm thinking, the Nairobi Trio, with Paul Miller and Bill Lynch. None of these, of course, were anywhere near full-time things, but they were all high-quality musical enterprises.

We were booked for four weeks in Albuquerque. The first few nights were LONG.
Johnny was a really good drummer,
but he'd been playing modern jazz so long that we had to teach him to "reconnect" with vintage swing styles (like playing quarter notes on the bass drum) -
it's like relearning something you'd forgotten long ago.
He did "get it" after a short time and did a fine job.

I'll never forget Johnny's coming up with the best-of-all-time name for a punk-rock band (something new at the time): PUS.


	We all got a little crazy from time to time...

Junior's Departure

In the Spring of 1978, we were in Lawrence, and our next road gig was in Dillon, Colorado.
J.B., as I recall, had not come back to Lawrence with us, wanting to spend some time at home in Cerrillos, New Mexico.

I had two 1956 Chevies and was in the midst of making one of them roadworthy by swapping engines.
My first had a 265-cubic-inch V-8 with a bad automatic transmission, and my second had a 6-cylinder engine which was a-knockin' and a-smokin'.
So, I took the V-8 out of the first and put it in the second. I didn't get done with the job until early in the morning of the day we were to play in Colorado.
The rest of the band took the schoolbus, and I drove my car. Miraculously, and with a few stops on the way to adjust the points, I made it to the gig on time.

But Junior didn't make it. That was how we found he had quit the band. We heard that he rejoined Dusty Drapes and the Dusters, an offer he couldn't refuse, I suppose.

Lisa Spears and Carol Spears, above.

Lisa, at the age of 15 or 16, was taken with the pedal steel guitar and started learning to play it.
With two steel players in proximity, she picked up a lot very quickly and soon became a good player.
When Junior left the band, Carol rejoined and brought Lisa, who sat in for a few tunes on each gig.
It was becoming more of a family band, as Billy's nephew Clint Spears, from Oklahoma, also came along on trips.
Clint was learning the drums and would play with Billy at times over the next few years.

Lisa died in March of 2021, at the age of 60, in Lawrence.
Here is a video of Lisa playing steel guitar with Porter Waggoner's band in the early 1980s, on Ralph Emery's TV show.

Bud Gives his Notice

Shortly after Junior's departure, Bud indicated that he was ready to quit as well. I remember trying to change his mind, but what he said made a lot of sense.
Our goal for three years had been to try "make it," not necessarily to the big time but to the point where we had some measure of professional security,
i.e., having a commercially-viable recording and being able to command better pay and better venues.
It seemed fairly obvious that we weren't going to get there. We had no real business plan.
Billy was a great musician, and in a setting of Nashville or Austin or Los Angeles he may have had a better shot.
The band was good and tight and had learned a lot, but we were still barely living from week to week.

Buddy agreed to stay on through our last booked gig, which was the Telluride Music Festival in late June 1978.
He had developed a close relationship with his girlfriend, Nancy Lambert, whom he met in Kalamazoo, and I think he was ready to settle down.

Once we all adjusted to the idea of disbanding, things were fine.

The Red River Festival
In June, we played the Red River Festival in Red River, New Mexico.
A highlight of that gig was getting to jam in the band trailer with Jethro Burns.
Mr. Burns is best as the Jethro of "Homer and Jethro," but he was an excellent and innovative mandolinist who was THE top session guy in Nashville for many years,
recording with the likes of Chet Atkins and everybody else who needed a mandolin.

Evergreen, Colorado, at the Dillon Inn.
Phil and Lynndy, who owned the bar, always treated us great.

June 1978 - back to the way we were
1975 promo shoot outtake

After the Red River Festival, we traveled to Craig, Colorado, a dusty town without a ski resort (and it was June anyway, so the locals were playing softball). It was not much different from dozens of other bars we'd played in Kansas and elsewhere. I do remember that we didn't get much of a turnout, and the patrons would rather have heard "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother" than "Take Me Back to Tulsa." When somebody would yell out "David Allan Coe," we would answer, "We sent him an invitation, but he couldn't make it."

I've included a bunch of tunes here because it shows us as the tight and professional group we had come to be, even when the crowd wasn't that great; and, the recordings are of pretty good quality.

And here are a couple of photos which I didn't really have a place for, but they're too good not to show.

Bluegrass Medley : This set includes:
the opening fiddle tune, which I can't remember the name of, but it probably has "Chicken" in the name;
    Why Not Confess?;
    Three Fingered Breakdown; and
    'Way Downtown.

Buzz Me - Carol sings this Louis Jordan number, with tasty electric mandolin and pedal steel from Billy and Bob.

Corinne, Corrinna - Andy sings, with harmonies from Billy and Bud. Bud learned this way to play the shuffle from Asleep at the Wheel. It's the simplest thing, but I've not met many other drummers who can do it right.

Faded Love - a couple of fragments of it. Included here to show we could pull requests out of our rear ends, and because I love this corny old song.

Lookin' at the World through a Windshield - Jimmy had sung this song since he joined the band. Billy's instrumental break here is brilliant.

Bubbles in My Beer

Stay All Night, Stay a Little Longer - one of Billy's mainstays, usually ending the first set.

Bluegrass set #2 -
    Wheel Hoss, with twin fiddles;
    Mary Ann;
    Theme Time;
    What About You?
    Slew Foot.

Walking After Midnight - Carol, of course. I never did like going to the iv minor on "cryin' on his pillow," but I was overruled.

Long Tall Texan - having the purple Kingsmen album in my youth really paid off for me here: I knew all the words! We'd never done this tune before. Billy on his electric mandolin and Bob on his steel, along with the appropriate backup vocals, make this really special!

Redskin Rag - Bob Case is featured on this Western-Swing steel-guitar tune, with solos from Billy on fiddle and electric mandolin. Nice drum fills by Bud.

Blackberry Blossom - nice bluegrass instrumental.

You Don't Know My Mind - the great Jimmy Martin song.

That Was Before I Met You - bluegrass love song in waltz time.

Laughing Boy

Heart Over Mind - a Mel Tillis Texas shuffle, sung by Jim.

I'm Gonna Give Myself a Party - Carol sings this Jeannie C. Riley number.

Troubled in Mind - one of Andy's "greatest hits." There is much to recommend this cut: Carol plays a nice fiddle solo, Bob demonstrates a very tasty steel solo, and Bud and Bob emulate a train leaving the station. Billy, of course, is brilliant.

The Last Gig : Telluride Music Festival

On June 25, 1978, we arrived in Telluride, Colorado. We had been assigned the last slot in the music festival's lineup: Late on Sunday afternoon. Not a desirable slot, but we had played the night before in Craig, Colorado, and it was the only slot for which we could be sure of getting there in time to play.

Thousands of people were still there, the biggest crowd we'd played for since the Odee Festival in 1975. They were a wonderful crowd, and I think our energy combined with theirs to make a magical afternoon, all the more memorable for us as it was our last "official" gig as the Billy Spears Band we had been for over three years.

Our bluegrass set at the beginning is omitted here because the sound crew had trouble amplifying my upright bass, resulting in some feedback, and it mars the recording. However, they are the same tunes you can find above recorded in Craig the preceding week...

Mean Woman with the Green Eyes

Walkin' After Midnight

Nobody's Business but My Own

Troubled in Mind

No Money Down

Medley: "Remember Me" and "Big Joe"

Two songs featuring Lisa Spears on steel:
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone

Midnight in Old Amarillo

Rocky Top

Buzz Me

Red Haired Boy

Medley: "Little Rock Candy Baby" and "Billy in the Lowground"

Encore calls and "I Can't Stand Me"

"Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" and "Orange Blossom Special"

An ending of sorts

Here are some of the places we played in our three years:

All over Kansas
Tulsa, OK
Hartshorne, OK
Houston, TX
Austin, TX
Sherman, TX
Kalamazoo, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
Champaign, IL
East Lafayette, IN
Indianapolis, IN
South Bend, IN
Lincoln, NE
Oklahoma City, OK
Louisville, KY
Spokane, WA
Sandpoint, ID
Albuquerque, NM
Golden, NM
Taos, NM
Cleveland, OH
Kansas City, MO
Parkville, MO
Columbia, MO
Colorado:

Vail
Evergreen
Breckinridge
Craig
Dillon
Denver
Fort Collins
Georgetown
Boulder
Idaho Springs
Telluride
Julesburg
Colorado Springs
Nederland

After we returned from our last road trip, Billy visited his home town of Hartshorne, Oklahoma.
On August 3, 1978, he dove into a swimming hole and hit his head on a submerged tree branch, breaking his neck.
He was paralyzed from the neck down for some time,
and it wasn't likely that he would play the fiddle again, much less walk.
He did heal, though, and he has been playing the fiddle for the last thirty years.

Thanks to Brett Hodges,
who contacted me on 8-2-2006
with the following comments to fill in some information I had forgotten (if I ever knew it):

"As I recall, you and Buddy were leaving the band to play R&B and
Bob was going to Colorado (to play with Dusty Drapes I think). There
may have been more going on here but I was 19 and not asking any probing
questions. The new line-up was going to be Billy, Jimmy, Lisa [Spears] on steel,
Clint [Spears] on drums, and me on bass. We were rehearsing daily while you guys
were playing out a few remaining local gigs. I remember going with the
band to sit in at Good Times in Olathe and the Coyote Club in Wichita.
You were even helpful coaching me not to do anything particularly stupid on bass.
Had Billy not broken his neck, the new band would have debuted at the festival in Kalamazoo."

"The short conclusion of my history with the Spears band of that era:

After Billy's injury, I knocked around Lawrence for a few months playing
pick-up gigs before loading up and moving to Hays, Kansas.
About a year later, Bob and Jimmy came through Hays with a band from Denver called Swing Shift featuring Lynn Morris.
A few weeks later (December 1979?) Bob called and told me Billy was ready to play again and asked if I
would come back to Lawrence and play bass.
This time the line-up was: Billy, Jimmy, Bob, Clint, and me.
We played a disastrous week long gig at a bar in Watertown, South Dakota, over New Years.
Complete with a 15 inch blizzard, about four customers, and I had a bad infection earning me a nickname I will not repeat.
The promoter canceled the rest of our gigs.
A few weeks later, Dwight told me that things weren't working out as planned and let me go.
Billy played gigs with Lonnie and Debbie Fugate(sp?) and I went back to Hays."

Billy Spears continued to play until shortly before his death on July 6, 2013.
There were many other configurations of the band, a couple of which I played in,
the main one being during the "Billy Spears Country Playhouse" era in the early 1980s (think mashup of "Urban Cowboy" and "Boogie Nights").
His last band was Billy Spears and the Beer Bellies,
which played at Johnnie's Tavern on Wednesdays for at least 15 years.

Click here for a few photos of the Billy Spears Memorial Shindig (my name for it), August 10, 2013.

But the 1975-8 band was the one which spread Billy's music to a big part of the whole country and had the best shot at making the "big time." And, if I do say so myself, it was the best.

I've had the honor of showing up and playing with the old band for Billy's 60th, 70th, 78th, and 80th birthday parties. Click here for video and here for photos..

Here's a 1990 article from the Lawrence Journal-World on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.

A young Billy Spears, playing fiddle with a band in San Luis Obispo, CA, circa 1951. I have no idea what the "Circle K-6" on the bass-drum head means. Perhaps the name of a ranch, real or fictional?
Billy 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.