Sound Files #2 – Winter 2021
With a brief lull in finishing a bunch of upcoming pieces for 2022, I figured I’d drop another quick Lexingtunes newsletter on such a snowy day. Here’s hoping for a much better and productive year for all of us! [2022 Shawn Chambers / Lexingtunes]
Gear Fab’s New Kentucky Comp
Didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas? Gear Fab is trying to change that! Slated for release in just a couple more weeks comes a robust 2 CD set – Psychedelic States: Kentucky in the 60s. This two-volume set boasts 62 tracks and comes with so much fuzz it probably should have come packaged with a lint roller. While some tracks have been comp’d before there are scads making their debut on disc.
Kentucky music collectors may recognize the Gear Fab label from such releases as their previous two volume set of Soul, Inc or Louisville in the 60s – The Lost Allen-Martin Tapes CDs, but obviously there was a lot of the Bluegrass State still to tap. Thumbing through the full color 20-page booklet is a treat with many regular Lexingtunes readers finding notes and pictures culled from my pieces on bands like The Elite U.F.O, Sir Arthur & Co, The M’Pax, Them USA or Lee Bryant’s great pieces on The Saxons and One of Hours. Also, below this piece you will also find some extended entries to The Exceptions and The Misfits, which I had quickly cobbled together to provide to Max Waller (who delivers fantastic liner notes on all the bands by the way).
Of course, the vast majority of the cuts had to be mastered off existing 45s, but the sound is as good as can be expected and better in some cases. Heck, even the Blue Vistas (with a notoriously lo-fi vocal) sounded somewhat decent. It almost doesn’t matter since many of these cuts are so rare, I am glad to just hear them PERIOD. Seriously, with most of these 45s pressed just in the low hundreds a collector could spend a lifetime and a small fortune and still be lucky to own half of these.
The pre-order on Amazon is less than $21. Hopefully, it will be available at your favorite music store as well. Don’t snooze! No matter what part of ole KY you call home, there is almost certainly a band on here from your neck of the woods. At least for the immediate future it is certainly the most comprehensive Kentucky garage comp out there by far. Do I sound like a fanboy yet? I AM! Set it and go!
Conquering Eminence’s Domain – The Misfits
The Misfits were formed when brothers Estill (b. 10 Feb 1945 – keys) and Wayne Roberts (b. 1948? vocals, rhythm guitar) joined forces with another local boy from Eminence – Connie Scriber (drums) as well as two Shelbyvillians in sax player Van Hildreth and lead guitarist Mike Broughton.
The musical nucleus of the two brothers formed at any early age with Estill plunking the keys around the age of seven or eight. Wayne didn’t start playing guitar until just before his teen years, but like the older Estill, he was a quick study. Music flowed freely in the household with early influences of Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis favorites of not only Estill but Wayne as well. Another influence would include their encouraging mother who played guitar and did occasional radio appearances as part of a duo in Eminence.
Estill was the first to foray into a proper combo while serving time with Donnie Floyd & the Fleas, which featured Little Ira on vocals. Donnie and the crew played Club Cherry and other regional clubs, but weren’t built to last.
With experience under Estill’s belt and a guitarist under the same roof, it was only natural for the brothers to join forces. They teamed to form the Midnighters and shortly later morphed into the Nite Prowlers with some other area musicians and enjoyed some steady gigs before ultimately coalescing with the classic lineup and Misfits of Estill and Wayne Roberts, Scribner, Hildreth and Broughton.
The Misfits were very popular in the Frankfort area and had standing gigs on Wed, Fri and Sat nights. With the pocket money, the guys arranged a trip to Louisville to cut two sides for the new Trump label. The then A-side “I’ll Take You Back” is a classic 60s rocker with backing vocals at times reminiscent of the Beach Boys, but countered with enough guitar to keep it from sounding too tame. It stands up well as a testament to the song writing abilities of the band, but clearly has now been overshadowed by the flip.
Another original “Two, Three, Or Twelve” boasts a title suggested by a friend Terry Roberts (no relation to the brothers), and is the deal! Credited to Van Hildreth and Estill, unsurprisingly it features sax and keys prominently. Hildreth had prior band experience with the Esquires in Shelbyville and here brings a sweet soul sound that balances the wild vocal performance from Wayne who delivers some of the best garage screams to ever blast off the grooves of a Kentucky 45. It is of no surprise to anyone that the record is still highly treasured more than a half century later.
The Misfits cooled while Wayne served in Vietnam in ’69 & ’70, but upon his release he quickly reformed the band in Richmond with original members Mike, Connie, and Estill. Local musician Butch Edwards was added on bass and the band worked the classic EKU college circuit with shows at Speck’s and campus frat houses. Of course, they shared the stage with the still very much rockin’ Exiles and once even opened at an area high school for Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods.
The band shifted heavily into Allman-influenced and southern rock style offerings. They were picked up by local talent agency Progressive Productions and finally achieved the level of musicianship they had hoped for, but timing just was never right to break it bigger. They had a chance to pursue an opportunity in New York, but … life. Wayne had a sick daughter, Estill was tired of traveling and Mike wanted to pursue higher education.
The boys are well remembered in Madison County and in their hometown of Eminence. Connie’s family restaurant (Scriber’s Station on Elm) played host to a reunion show of sorts in the late 2000s to an enthusiastic crowd of locals.
Estill passed away in 2006 and had worked as a disc jockey on WKX in Eminence. Van Hildreth relocated to New York. Wayne, Mike and Connie remain in the central Kentucky area.
Exceptions To The Rule
The Exceptions were formed in 1966 while Tom Clark was a student teacher of Mathematics at Louisville’s Highland Junior High. Tom (only in his early 20s) bonded easily with his teenage students and in particular the talent of 9th grade drummer Hal Yeager caught his ear. With a school year to kill before moving on to grad school at Notre Dame, Clark (already a guitarist and songwriter) found a potential bass player in neighborhood friend Greg Kraus to accompany Yeager as well as backing vocalists in his sisters Patsy and Sharon Clark. The Exceptions were born.
Given the young ages of the band members appearances were mostly relegated to school dances, but Tom and his two sisters did enjoy a guest spot on Randy Atcher’s Hayloft Hoedown on WHAS TV where they performed in the country/pop style of the Browns.
The late winter Trump release in 1966 featured two Clark originals. “Still On The Run” might have raised a few eyebrows in the school with its romantic theme of an older man / younger woman. The idea for the song was actually proposed by Hal Yeager as a “what if” to Clark – imagine if he started dating a student. Certainly, the theme is much more questionable to modern ears, but the band recalls no real negative reaction at the time. The flip “Just For Today” is a more standard tale of love and loss inspired by some true events in Clark’s dating life.
The resultant recording is a bit more unintentionally frantic than Clark had hoped for and could be chalked up mostly to the enthusiasm of bassist Kraus. Clark had been loaned a twelve-string guitar and effects pedal by a Bardstown Road music store, which he meticulously cleaned and tuned until he was very happy with the tremelo and overall sound. During a backing vocal overdub of Clark and the girls, Kraus found a tambourine lying around and innocently began banging away with abandon in a small booth separate from the vocalists without realizing he was being mic’ed! In an interview discussing the record, Clark recalls writing basslines for Greg to memorize and wryly notes “Obviously, however, I didn’t have to teach him much about playing the tambourine…”
As expected, the record was pressed in a very limited quantity (likely just a few hundred) and sales and promotion were confined to school dances. Clark and crew got a break, however, in a student who was the daughter of the station manager of WAKY. She was able to get the record in rotation as part of the nightly telephone request gimmick and the student body did what teens then did best – burned up the phone lines! The nightly influx of calls from the Highland Jr High student body kept the single blasting on the airwaves for weeks over that winter.
Though certainly not a studio only project the Exceptions were short-lived. Tom Clark’s teaching position was temporary as he was soon off to finish his doctoral degree. While they existed only for a brief moment of musical time, the band is still remembered some fifty odd years later by former students who saw them live.
Book ’em, Dewey!
With live music nearly at a standstill these days you gotta get your fix wherever you can. I’ve been slowly catching up on my book pile and wanted to give a nod to Dewey Pope and his excellent book from 2017 – Action Unlimited: The Band of Gold.
This is a great first-person account of Pope’s rise from drumming with Winchester’s early rock band the Monzzas to joining up with some ex- Maroons (Richmond’s EKU super group) to form Action Unlimited. Dewey’s writing is casual and fun, but crammed with sharp details about the boys’ journey crisscrossing the country with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars before landing solid gigs out West in Vegas and California. The shows, the stars, the clowning, the recording… oh yeah, don’t forget the fantastic psyche-tinged two-sider for Parkway in ’66. Trust me when I say a copy of “My Heart Cries Out” should be on your shelf. 
Action Unlimited was truly on a golden trajectory – right up until the moment they weren’t. Settle in for a solid read that you won’t regret. Used copies show up on eBay sometimes and it is still available for less than $20 at Amazon. Treat yourself!
On the Scene, But Not Heard… Dry Ice
I always love to slip in a tribute to a band that never made a record, but lives on in the photos and memories of their hometown. The Dry Ice of Mount Sterling were easily one of the youngest bands around. Despite this, they managed to fight above their weight class and landed some meaty gigs such as in these photos showing them at political rallies for Wendell Ford’s successful gubernatorial bid in 1971. Dry Ice singer David Malone drifted by Lexingtunes in the past with a comment on his brother James’ band – The Soul Syndicate, Inc.
I idolized my older brother’s band. I sat in on one rehearsal playing keys (poorly) for James Tripp. The guys weren’t impressed! The inspiration eventually led to a group of middle school boys starting the Dry Ice. It was a lot of fun and we were actually really good (for our age) as most of us were in high school band. Three of us became professional musicians. We always looked at Soul Syndicate, Inc as the band to emulate. After a fifty year hiatus we reunited with mostly old members and were booking gigs when Covid temporarily shut that door.
Until next time…