Coachmen
The Stillwater, Oklahoma rock and roll scene was a surprisingly active one in the 1960’s, and one of the bands at the forefront was
The Coachmen. Patterning themselves after Paul Revere & The Raiders and dressed in full Coachmen attire, the group was one of the
more popular bands in the entire state. After they dissolved, bassist Dave Pye went on to Toad, a Cream-influenced power trio.
An Interview with Dave Pye
60sgaragebands.com (60s): Where and when was The Coachmen formed?
Dave Pye (DP): The Coachmen was started by guys from two rural communities outside Stillwater, Oklahoma, which provided three other members, and three C.E. Donart H.S. (Stillwater) students. This was in 1966.
60s: Who all comprised the band?
DP: The original lineup was Donnie Keesee on lead guitar/vocals; Ronnie Thomason on Farfisa organ; Arron, whose last name escapes me (he quit just after I joined) on rhythm guitar; Jim Samples on vocals; Rick Passerelli on drums; and Larry “Spider” Dehls on bass. Larry was drafted in 1967, so I auditioned among six or so bass players, and got the job in summer 1967. Jim was a very strong vocalist, Rick was a talented drummer, and I (modestly) brought a lot to the rhythm section. Back then, a good beat and good vocals was probably the most important thing to success, and we had that in spades!
60s: Whose idea was it to dress in Coachmen outfits?
DP: Apparently someone, probably Donnie, came up with the idea after watching WHERE THE ACTION IS (NOTE: with Paul Revere & The Raiders) way too many times. Donnie was the showman of the group. We had them custom made by a local seamstress. They looked cool, and we had the three-pointed hats and the knee boots, too.
60s: Where did the band typically play?
DP: We played a lot for WKY and KOMA radio station disc jockeys, as well as many frat dances and teen hops in many Oklahoma and Kansas towns and cities. We played two gigs at the high school I attended as a senior (the others were in college). Both were battle of the bands.
60s: Did The Coachmen participate in many battles?
DP: Our commitments to the two radio stations put us in many battles of the bands, maybe two dozen or so per year. We lost once against The Noblemen, an Oklahoma City band that was good! I remember Squatty and The Botties, Spider and The Webs, Boss Tweed, Harlem Riot (nine-piece soul), and an almost endless list of other Oklahoma City bands. We didn’t do much in Tulsa for some reason. We usually creamed (take that word as foreshadowing or a pun) the other bands, as we had a deal with a local music company that loaned us Super Beatles, Sunns, Fenders, and such. We had enough equipment to overpower the other bands both visually and with volume! We had, at times, 2500+ watts (RMS worth of amps). Plus, we looked like a rock band; we had long hair, big amps, etc.
60s: How would you describe the band's sound? What bands influenced you?
DP: We were not unique in any way. We just covered dance hits from 1966-1968, songs like “Gloria”, “Louie Louie”, “Wild Thing”…you get the idea. And, of course, nearly the complete Paul Revere and The Raiders catalog! Once the psychedelic sound came around, we lost three members (to the draft) and became a power trio (before they were popular). We played frats, dorm parties, and teen hops.
60s: What was the Stillwater rock and roll scene like in the '60's?
DP: It was actually really incredible! There were at least two bands as early as 1962 - The Magnificent Seven and The Inn Keepers. The Seven was a house band at a local college club, and did quit well, financially. The Inn Keepers had mixed success, undergoing a lot of personnel changes. The final incarnation was really good! In all there were six or seven legitimate working bands, due in part to lots of frats at O.S.U. and dorms. We all played a lot at local clubs on the “Strip.” There were at least six places to play every weekend. And, Norman, Oklahoma (University of Oklahoma) was only an hour away.
60s: Did you play any of the local teen clubs?
DP: I wouldn’t call them teen clubs; they were 3.2 beer bars, Stillwater being a university town. The Coachmen played a lot of Sock Hops for radio DJs but never played an actual teen club. We played lots of armories and VFW/American Legion venues, and such. There were few teen clubs in those days. Interestingly, we practiced at a picnic shelter at a lake on the north side of Stillwater. Many of these rehearsals drew 200-300 kids, and although the police checked us out, there were never any problems. Same thing with practices held in my family’s two-car garage. Those would gather a crowd of 100 or so kids. And, again, no problems!
60s: Did The Coachmen have a manager?
DP: Donnie handled everything, including the money. The radio DJs served as managers of sorts - and usually left early with a disproportionate share of the gate! Except for Bob Hamilton. He was a nice guy!
60s: How popular locally did The Coachmen become?
DP: We and The Noblemen were easily the most popular bands in the state, with one Tulsa band, whose name escapes me, being very popular, too. The Coachmen introduced me to the concept of groupies, so to speak!
60s: How far was the band's "touring" territory?
DP: We were all over southern, western, and northern Oklahoma, and south-central Kansas.
60s: Did The Coachmen record?
DP: Yes, two times. One was at a studio in Oklahoma City with an engineer called Gene, who was pretty good sober…and not bad drunk! The Box Tops recorded “The Letter” there. We also recorded in WKY studios for Ronnie Kaye’s teen show (local AMERICAN BANDSTAND). We did original material when we recorded. I wrote the music, and the lyrics were usually a combination of Donnie and me.
60s: What do you recall about the recordings? Do you remember any song titles? Were they released as 45s?
DP: Okay, it's been nearly 40 years, but I remember one was called "First Class," which addressed a garage band making it and living large, as it might be put today. Another was called "Seeds of Life" and contained some veiled sexual references. The others I simply can't remember exactly, but it seems we did a rocking cover of "Dizzy Miss Lizzie" (rearranged the riff just a tad) and a cover of "Gloria" that was...different, to say the least. (I think they were the B-sides for the original stuff I wrote). The tempo was at least 120 beats per minute, with more of a riff than the original. It flat out rocked everyone who heard it.
What was cool was we were warming up, and Gene, the recording studio owner/engineer, was working and enjoying some beer(s) while waiting for the real recording to start. We were jamming, and went into what became that version of "Gloria." Gene had the Ampex rolling, and with some editing, we had one heck of a song! But, at close to five minutes, it was too long for airplay. Two years later, jocks were playing “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” in its entirety! We were ahead of our time, maybe...
I do remember now that it was Gene Sullivan who engineered the recordings at the studio he owned, and he released the 45s on his label. We might have actually sold some. I think sales were in the hundreds in Oklahoma City alone. One jock, Bob Hamilton, played it on his WKY radio overnight show. If memory serves me, Don Wallace, a very popular WKY jock, played it on his show, too. We sold some at their sock hops.
A Mr. Watson at WKY turned the dials in that studio for our Ronnie Kaye studio adventures ("The Scene"), which were recorded prior to the show by at least a week.
Actually and additionally, we were popular enough that we demanded to be able to play live on Kaye's Saturday afternoon show. No other band had played live before, as Kaye didn't want to chance a screw-up by a band. There was some haggling, but we won, and did the usual allocated two songs live (30-minute show). The dancing kids on the show, about 35-40 of them, went wild. Positive mail poured in to Kaye! Modestly, we rocked! One of the band's parents recorded, off the TV, an audiotape of that performance. I assume it might be in a landfill somewhere now, and would have been there for a while.
Both songs were covers of popular rock/soul dance songs of 1968-1969. We'd added a sax and a trumpet, so I am fairly sure they were James Brown, Otis, or Sam and Dave-type songs. Now that I think of it, we rocked R-E-S-P-E-C-T, more like Otis Live than Aretha. The other still escapes me. It was interesting to see Mr. Watson scurrying about in the control booth with his pots (knobs), as it was his first live rock band broadcast! We had done a sound check for mic placement previously, but that kind of went down the tubes (and transistors!) when we started playing live for the show.
60s: Did The Coachmen write many original songs? Who was the band's primary songwriter?
DP: We wrote five songs total as the original Coachmen. The trio-era had 10 originals, and I wrote all the songs. This was 1968-1969, and was not like Cream, but more like speed metal years before its time. Our cover interpretations of the San Francisco-era songs were, well…let’s say interesting! Imagine “White Rabbit” almost twice as fast! And we think we made Quick Silver, Canned Heat, and such better with an infusion of energy, of which we had no shortage…straight!
60s: What year and why did the band break up?
DP: It died a quite death in August 1969 when Donnie got “Born Again,” drummer Billy Robbins (who replaced the drafted Passerelli) got drafted, and I helped form Toad (in August 1969 officially but May 1969 unofficially). There’s almost an interesting story in this band’s formation. Grab a drink, sit down, and get comfortable. Bobby Going, guitar/vocals had a band that had booked an out-of-town prom date. But the other guys, one by one, couldn’t make that gig that night. I’d jammed with Bobby several times, so he called me, and I agreed. He was quite vague as to who the drummer would be. That was because the drummer, Bruce Hueston, was in high school band with me and was a real jerk to me! Bobby knew I wouldn’t have agreed to play with Bruce. Meanwhile, Bruce was kept in the dark as to who the bassist was to be. I arrived at the site of the gig, saw Bobby, and then Bruce and I saw each other. If looks could kill! But, we had a gig to do, and we started with “Sunshine of Your Love”. The song lasted 20 minutes. The three of us could jam! So, the remainder of the prom was more of a show than a dance! Mostly, the only songs we all knew well were by Cream. And, not to brag, we could pull off most of the parts, or at least the spirit. Bruce killed them with the song, “Toad” (Ginger’s drum solo song). Bruce apologized for the high school stuff, and he and I became the best of friends, continuing to this day…we are like brothers! And as we played a few bar gigs (Bobby had a habit of booking gigs without a band) word spread that there was a power trio doing Cream, and the drummer could actually do “Toad”…which Bruce could! It amazed me to watch and hear him play that song! I found out a year ago, Bruce used to watch me on my solos with the same respect and amazement…I was fast and creative, in the model of Jack Bruce.
60s: Did Toad record?
DP: No, we never did outside of turning on the two-track at rehearsals, because we had a tendency to jam. Four songs made it on a somewhat crude tape at a concert: “River Deep Mountain High”, “When I Was Young”, and “I’m So Glad”. Three other songs from that gig should have been released: “Sky Pilot”, “South California Purples”, and “Crossroads”. All six were good enough to have had at least regional success. We also could nail Grand Funk Railroad.
60s: When and why did Toad break up?
DP: In 1970, we added another guitarist, Phil Bisset, which allowed us to do Stones songs really well! We changed our name to Jack Creek. Bruce had a Jagger-style voice, whereas Bobby’s was a cleaner voice. I was married, and in 1971 my wife and I moved out of town (and area) so my wife (now ex) could take a teaching job. A friend of Bobby and Bruce’s returned from Viet Nam, and took the bass duties over. That incarnation lasted another college school year, never achieving the success of Toad or the earlier version of Jack Creek.
60s: Do you still play at all today? If not, what keeps you busy?
DP: I last played in a band in 1987, and hung up my bass and amps, so to speak, when wife number two and I moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. She’s an ex now, too. I hadn’t touched a bass from 1987 until four months ago, when we took our (wife number three, a keeper) seven-year-old son to a music store. I was envisioning a three-quarter size bass for him…I ended up blowing the walls off the place, a few notes and I was back in bass mode! Now, I am a family man, a magazine editor, and heavily involved in Cub/Boy Scouting! Will I ever play again? Let’s see what happens when the kiddo gets a bass in a year or so…
60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with The Coachmen?
DP: Chicks, chicks, chicks! I moved up on my high school’s popularity scale at a skyrocket pace! It was an experience that couldn’t happen these days. Those were unique times. As to Toad and Jack Creek, it was the first time I hit a groove with a band, which is an amazing experience! I bought the Cream at Royal Albert Hall CD and DVD last year, and called Bruce halfway through the first listening…sooooo many memories! Do you happen to own a time machine?
We did a lot of sock hops for Don and Ronnie, some attracting upward of 1,000 kids in little towns out in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma, and In the Sticks, Kansas! We'd make $600-$800 for every Wallace gig we did, and that was in 1966-1967. That's more like $3,000-$4,000 in today's money. Not bad for a two-to-three hour drive and a three-hour gig! Divided by five, since Arron had quit, minus some gas at 30 cents a gallon, the money wasn't too bad for a high school senior. My W-2 for that year (1967-1968) was $12,000+. My teachers made $5,500 back then. The principal, with whom I was always in trouble, due to my "long" hair, made $10,000 a year. It was a Beatle haircut, but longer hair was sort of a necessity to look like a "real" band. I did develop an "attitude" of sorts, if I recall, since I needed out of school at 1:00 every Friday.
With the formerly mentioned equipment loaned by Kenny and Lucille Driver, of Driver Music, Bethany, Oklahoma (OKS suburb) and longer hair, we looked real. Four Dual Showman amps (with JBLs) and a P-Bass worked well for a bass player! The guitars (a Strat and an SG) used two Super Beatles, and the Vox Continental was working two Super Beatles, and, new for the times, two 50w Leslies. This was before you mic'ed instruments. Mr. Watson made us a PA using Crown amps, an electronic crossover (yes, bi-amps with separate Crowns), a nice professional mixer with eight inputs (three specifically for the Ludwig drums), and four box-type speaker cabinets with twin JBLs, and on top, JBL drivers and horns. That baby put out more than 700 watts total, and moved some air!
One of the last lineups of the Coachmen was Donnie, Billy Robbins, and me. Billy was the drummer who replaced Rick, when he was drafted. Bob Hamilton had gone to New York City to work with bands and, eventually, Roulette Records (Tommy James, et al). Bob invited us up to the Big City to seek our fame and fortune. We stayed in his small apartment. Donnie and I were 18, and Billy was 16.
We knew our parents would not allow this trip to New York City, so we told them we had a gig at the New Gnu club in Pueblo, Colorado. We drove the VW van straight northeast toward St. Louis, instead! It took the folks a few days to figure things out! Being short on money on our way to New York City, we began by driving into a small town - usually 3,000-5,000 population - and asked the local burger joint operator to let us play a parking-lot show for all we could eat, and $10.00 gas/bologna-sandwich-makins money. We had a cassette they could listen to, and we promised a crowd. If that didn't work - we started mid-afternoon - we went to his competition or drove to the next town. We worked our way to New York and back that way!
I was cooking pancakes on a Coleman stove in the back of the VW bus while on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, when an officer pulled us over. He'd never seen anyone cooking in the back of a VW bus, and suggested we drive about two to three miles further to a rest area, to be safe. We said, "Hey come join us!" and 10 minutes later, just as I was getting the stove set up on the picnic table at the rest stop, here came the officer with orange juice and some bacon he'd bought at a nearby village. He listened to our tape, and really liked us! It turned out he had been a drummer with some minor bands in the WWII Swing Era. We had pared the equipment down to two Bassman cabinets (JBLs) and one head, a Bandmaster head and cabinet (JBLs), an extra bandmaster head, and a four-piece Ludwig set. A 50w Shure amp and two Bandmaster cabinets (JBLs) made up the PA. Because the VW van had a lower midsection, the equipment fit well, and we used a "topper" on top to store more equipment. That left us room for luggage, and gear, as well as a Coleman Stove and Ice Chest. One of us could actually sleep atop the equipment. We did some audition work at Roulette, and were ready for a contract (I was approached separately to do Bubblegum with The Ohio Express, The Archies, 1910 Fruitgum Company, etc.), but it was getting close to September, and decided we should really be getting back to school (Rod Stewart stole that line!).
Then, there's the story of us going to New Orleans the next summer, 1969, to play Bourbon Street clubs. We ended up jamming with Merle Haggard and Roy Buchanan. We also met Carlos Santana, whose first band was playing gigs in town (Carlos liked a raw egg in his Orange Julius). And, I got to sit in with Blue Cheer when their bassist got sick one night. Three kids: two 19-year-olds and a 20-year-old, playing strip clubs! Hormone storms? Nawwwww!
And, both Toad and Jack Creek had some adventures of their own! Toad opened for Johnny Rivers and Three Dog Night, and Jack Creek opened for Ted Nugent (Ted and I had a 30-minute conversation in 10 minutes!) at local clubs. Toad almost got to open for Grand Funk Railroad. From what I understand, Bobby Going could outplay and out sing Farner, Bruce Hueston could outdo Don, and while a hero of mine, apparently I could outplay Mel. So, the promoter canceled us and got both Bloodrock and Black Oak Arkansas to open for GFR. I also ticked off Nugent when we opened for him by using (unknowingly) his opening move: jump over the stack of amps, using a small trampoline! Afterward, we spoke, and I convinced him it was an accident, and we concluded (quickly) that great minds thought alike. Later, his manager asked if I was interested in being Ted's bass player, because the current one at that time was ill, and frankly, not as good as me. Plus, I could keep up with Ted's energy level, no problem! That didn't work out, but I was flattered. A similar incident involving Judas Priest (early) happened that greatly upset Rob Halford, but made Glen Tipton nearly bust a gut.
I used to see Van Halen, Rex Smith, Sammy Hagar, when he was with Ronnie Montrose (note I separated VH and Sammy with Rex!), Y&T, and others at backyard parties in Los Angeles and San Francisco back in 1974-1975 or so. And, later saw all at the Whisky, Starwood, and other Sunset Strip venues. And, I did some work in bands with both KMET and KLOS. That was the '70s, not the '60s. But, we played a college classroom to help our guitarist with a semester project in his Contemporary Culture class.
Both the New York City and NOLA adventures might top any garage band's list of fantasies. I truly lived the "Teen Dream" for a few years.
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