------------------
CJC

Is there any chance you can email me, just with one word if anything. I'm checking the settings on my email server as I've had a few problems with it of late.

Regarding the Squeakin' Deacon show, in an interview Ralph Mooney has mentioned playing as the house band there with Joe Sisk and Buddy Houston, he was playing the LA clubs with Joe Sisk as early as 1949 and at the Deacon's show, a little kid called Wynford Stewart used to show up. He started calling himself Wynn a little later.
Buddy, Joe and Ralph split for Vegas and while there were there in 1950, it was a short time, but long enough for Ralph to write a song called 'Crazy Arms'.
Ain't history grand.

I would love to hear some tapes of the Golden State Boys, the closest i have is the CD by the Hillmen which was cut in 1963 into 1964 with ex-Golden State Boys, the Gosdin brothers with Don Parmerly and Chris Hillman on mandolin while Vern switched to guitar, a great set, great singing too!

Hey Jason,
I sent you an e-mail to check out your system so you should have it by now. I sent it to the address on your profile. As far as the Golden State Boys go, I remember a guitar player/singer named Hal Poindexter and also a tall Dobro player named Skip something or other.

------------------
Have a good one! JH U-12

[This message was edited by Jerry Hayes on 25 April 2000 at 09:54 AM.]

My memory banks have hit a short-circuit. Was it Skip Conover that was the Dobro player?

The band with Chris Hillman, Don Parmeley, and the Gosdin Bros. was called the "Blue Diamond Boys" on Cal's Corral. The recordings they did got changed to "The Hillmen" as a result of Chris' success with the Byrds.

Memory fading fast... system dangerously low on resources... zzzzzzzzz....

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

I was interviewing Bob Warford on the Golden State Boys.
Bob wrote:

quote:

---

On the other hand, I do recall seeing and hearing Gene Davis and his band on "Cal's Corral", a live television show broadcast from the Huntington Park Ballroom, Huntington Park, California, every Sunday afternoon during the early 1960's. I was in a bluegrass band, the Golden State Boys, starting in early 1964, and we played regularly on that show as well. The version of the band that I was in consisted of Hal
Poindexter (lead vocal and guitar), Larry Rice (mandolin), Eric White (bass), myself on banjo, and Bobby Sloane on left-handed fiddle. That same band (without Larry, as I recall) toured in early 1964 for a couple of weeks with Marty Robbins, playing dates in Colorado, Idaho, etc. On the television show, Skip Conover would play dobro on occasion.

---

Also guys, I have seen a picture of the full
1964 GSB's with Larry Rice, Hal P., Bobby S, Bob Warford, Eric White and Skip on dobro. They played the LA country music Jamboree put together by the Local 47 in '64.
So yeah Herb Skip Conover was the dobro player.
There were quite a few versions of the group especially in the end, in 1964 Bob Warford went to school, The Rice family relocated to Florida, where Tom Khuel ended up working in a group 'Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party' with Larry. While Bobby Sloan{e} went on to J.D Crowe's group with Larry and later Tony Rice.

Herb, regarding the Blue Diamond Boys, I believe you are right about that being their name. Don Parmerly's version of the GSB's had to change their name as there was two versions of the group operating by late 1963, thanks to a management rift, etc.
Once the Hal Poindexter GSB's got more active the Don Parmerly GSB's became the Blue Diamond Boys.
I think you are right and the Hillmen name was only used when the LP originally came out in 1969 to cash in on Hillman's name.
The weird thing is, Chris Hillman has actually started going along with the story that they changed the group's name to the Hillmen while he was still in the group!
Go figure...
Then again he has also mentioned in various interviews that he replaced Herb Rice in the group, but I've seen a photo of the group from around August 1963 with Hal Poindexter and Don Parmerly with Vern Gosdin playing mandolin!

Hmm, also a bit more on the trivia front, Larry Rice also remembers doing a couple of gigs with Del McCoury in the group in 1964.
Del went on to lead the group into 1965 with Billy Baker on fiddle, while Don played banjo and guitar.

------------------

[This message was edited by Jason Odd on 26 April 2000 at 05:53 PM.]

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

I think every West coast picker with an acoustic instrument must have gone to one of those gigs, even Del's first solo LP in 1968 came through a contact on that West Coast stint with Monroe. Ry Cooder has even laid claim to getting up on stage one of those nights with the 'Big Mon'..I've heard that most of the Pine Mountain Boys, butch Waller and allwere there, various KC's and GSB's were in that crowd!

Ed Neff, Bruce Nemerov, Butch Waller, Rick Shubb, Grisman, all came down for Monroe's visits, usually once a year. Ry was there and played, but soon afterwards gave up bluegrass music. He said Clarence was going to say all there was to say in bluegrass guitar and he (Ry) was going to pursue other musical avenues.

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

Jessie Lee Kincaid's real name is Nick Gerlach. I went to high school with his younger brother, Quentin Gerlach. Their uncle was an old leftist folkie named Fred Gerlach who used to run with Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, the east coast leftist crowd in the 1940's. Fred used to build 12-string guitars that were huge.

Anyway, Nick goes back east and meets Henry Fredericks in Boston, and Henry changes his name to Taj Mahal. Together, they move out to LA as an acoustic blues duo, in 1964.

In 1965, the "Rising Sons" was formed to play in the Martin Guitars exhibit at the 1965 Teen-Age Fair in Los Angeles. The booth was organized by McCabe's Guitar Shop and I was working the booth demonstrating Martins. You have the correct personnel (although the original drummer was Kevin Kelley ). After this short gig, the group felt viable and continued for a little while, replacing Kevin with Ed Cassidy. They played the Ash Grove and were seen by a young guitarist, Randy Wolfe, who was the nephew of Ed Pearl (Ash Grove owner).

So, Randy starts a teenage blues band like the Sons, calling it "The Red Roosters." It featured Randy, Mark Andes, Jay Ferguson, and John Locke. This was 1965-66. Ed Cassidy meets and marries Randy's mom and joins the band. This band matures into the famous band "Spirit" ("I gotta line on yooooouuuu, babe"), and Randy Wolfe is renamed Randy California by Jimi Hendrix.

Randy died a couple of years ago, drowning in Hawaii while saving his son from the same fate. Sad. Not many know it, but Randy took lessons from Clarence White (of course, we all did at the Ash Grove) and could play a sh*tload of bluegrass guitar!

Mark Andes lives in Austin now, and when we reminisce about the old days, it sounds like a couple of old farts (we're both 52) talking about WW2! It's fun, though the youngsters we play with frequently don't give a crap.

I've got more trivia, if you ask the right probing questions.

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

I have been trying to find out Mahal's real name for about 10 years!..admittedly I didn't try and find out where his old man used to teach in Boston and all that, but I knew that Taj wasn't his real name.

It's interesting to note that the Cd and the sleeve notes of the Rising Sons follow the line that Ed was the original drummer and by the time of their first Columbia session, Kevin came in to the group to take the drum stool. Everything else I've read has suggested that Kev was the first in and then replaced by Ed.
I've got a heap of photocopies of KRLA Beat, which was the fan mag that was attatched to station KRLA in SoCal and it's got a 1965 article on the Red Roosters. Ed is in the band pic which was taken outdoors, Ed of course was much older than the rest of the band, and bald so they put him so far in the shadows that he's just a shape {LOL}

Herb, I gotta sent you a Canned Heat article I wrote with lotsa help from Mike Perlowin, I think that might interest you as well.

On a note heading back to country style performers, does anyone remember Dave & Lulu Spencer they played around LA, etc the Cobblestone and I think Cal's Corral and the Deacon's show.
Herb, their drummer in the mid 1960's was was Jerry "Stoney" Stonecipher!

Occasionally, Donnie Cagle would sit in. Don was the first openly, swishy, homosexual country singer I ever met. His day gig was running a sweat shop with Mexican women sewing stripper costumes all day.

B. Bailey Brown needs to get in on these discussions, because he was right there in the middle of us at this time, hanging in the clubs, and seeing the bands. That is where BBB and I first became good friends, at the Checker's Club in 1970 or 71.

Stoney was the drummer in "Tex," the band I was in with Boomer C. and Michael Murphey in 1970. "Tex" had broken up and Stoney, Boomer and I were playing with Garland Frady up at the Jack 'O Diamonds in Palmdale. There was a big earthquake in February of 1971 in Los Angeles, and Stoney packed up Wanda and moved to Oregon. BTW, "Stonecipher" is not Stoney's real name, either. I've forgotten what his real name is, maybe Boom can remember.

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

I just got an email yesterday from Boomer as I asked him about Stoney, he mentioned the same move!
Herb, did you get an email from me with a picture of one of the 1963 versions of the GSB's?..my emails have been unreliable of late due to my @#$% server.
I can try to send it again if you like?

The Jack O' Diamonds (and for that matter the Holiday 2 in El Monte and the Cajun Country on Sherman Way in N. Hollywood,) booked a lot of weekend recording talent, and I wound up working a lot with Freddie Hart, Joe and Rose Lee Maphis, Billy Armstrong, Red Simpson, Henson Cargill, the Chaparral Bros., Tom and Ted the Legarde Twins, etc. etc. etc. when I was on Garland's band and also Jimmy Lawton's band.

Your photo of the GSB's came through loud and clear. Thanks. I hadn't seen a photo of Herb Rice in 35 years!!

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

Hey what ever happened to the Sqeakin' Deacon, does anyone know?

------------------
Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite

------------------
CJC

[This message was edited by Joe Casey on 29 April 2000 at 01:07 PM.]

I'll drop Don Felts and Butch a line, I need an excuse to catch up with Butch, as I haven't heard from him in a while.
Have any of you guys heard of Bob Warford, Herb and a few of you might go as far back as his Bluegrass days, with the likes of Golden State Boys.
Herb, Bob mentioned that he had a short lived group that played in the Riverside Area for a few months. It was called the Broken Chains, and the lead singer was Jerry DeMers, who had also worked the Chequers club, sometimes with Dave and Lu Spencer.
The other Broken chains members were Dennis Morse and Eric White, a spin off of Gib Guilbeau's group The Reason, which became Swampwater.

Joe, you mentioned Wayne Kemp and Jerry mentioned Buddy Cagle. I thought Pat Price might drop in as he worked with them both in the Long Beach area. I only really know his talents as a songwriter.

As far a Bob Warford goes I never got the chance to know him but I got to see him perform a few times. We played the Wagon Camp at Knotts Berry Farm on a show once and Bob was there with Freddy Weller I believe. He's the first guy I saw next to Clarence who used a B-bender Telecaster and did it very well. If I remember the show right they didn't have a steel player but Bob did Red's steel parts on Telecaster just like he'd played 'em on the record.
------------------
Have a good one! JH U-12

[This message was edited by Jerry Hayes on 30 April 2000 at 08:05 AM.]

Bob had bender No#2 all right, geez I wonder if he still has it?
I've trying to find stuff thathe played, but it's only a few Lp's here and there, Freddie's '72 LP, one Everly bros song, and the Countryside {Michael Nesmith's band and label} material, most of it unissued or deleted.
Jerry, I'm going to use that line of Larry's now, a classic.