The Dearly Beloved

Although they initially were completely unimpressed with the song that scored as their biggest hit, Dearly Beloved’s “Peep Peep Pop Pop” was successful enough locally to attract the interest of Columbia Records. While the Tucson group eventually headed to Los Angeles to record several songs for the national label, Columbia’s disinterest and the unfortunate death of the Beloved’s leader during a car trip home short-circuited what could have been a very successful recording career. Lead guitarist/vocalist Terry Lee, however, still looks back at his time as a member very fondly.

An Interview with Terry Lee

60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?

Terry Lee (TL): I came from a ‘Western’ family. That is, my parents and most of my relatives were ranchers and horse people. Music is big tradition in that culture and I remember country family reunions where fiddles and guitars came out of closets and from under sofas. There was usually a piano in the parlor and everybody stayed up (including the kids) into the wee hours of the morning, singing and playing. My Dad was always a main attraction at these events, playing guitar and singing. For my own part, I tinkered around with harmonica and piano until I was about sixteen years old. In 1962, I attended a ‘sock hop’ at my high school and heard a band playing surf music. That was it for me. I spent the next year obsessed with guitar, playing The Ventures, Dick Dale and whatever else I could learn.

60s: Your early musical career included stints in several different groups, primarily The Intruders, The Quinstrells and Dearly Beloved…

TL: During my senior year in high school, I filled every free moment playing guitar. My neighborhood pal, Tommy Walker got his own guitar and we spent hours playing ‘lead and rhythm’ together. In the fall of 1963, I went to NAU at Flagstaff (Arizona State College, in those days). I and a friend put a band together up there called The Cardigans. We played surf music and some blues standards for the college crowd. Eventually, we threw our own dances and made enough money to pay for school and to buy new guitars and amps. That year, the President was shot, The Beatles came ashore and I fell in love with rock & roll. I came home that summer and Tommy and I decided to form up a band. The band was me on lead, Tom on rhythm and a friend of Tom’s named Pete Schuyler on drums. A neighbor named Steve Keller lasted about a week with us (three guitars is one too many). Pete brought Larry Cox to practice one day and he became the lead singer. We called ourselves The Intruders. We played for a month without a bass. Our first gigs were at drive-in theaters. Pete’s brother, Cort worked at the Prince Drive-in Theater. The manager, Jim Hilkemeyer (who became the band’s manager), came up with the idea that we could play in front of the projection booth during intermission. It was a big hit and soon we were playing at different drive-In theaters every weekend. One night, at the Rodeo Drive-In, a tall blond surfer guy came up to us and said he was a bass player. We walked over to his car where he popped the trunk and showed us a brand-new Fender Precision bass and a Fender Bassman amp. We hired Del Livingston as bass player without hearing him play a note.

After less than a year, Del decided to get married about the same time that Shep Cooke came along. Shep was riding by on his bicycle and heard us practicing in Larry’s dad’s garage. He demonstrated his ability to sing and play anything you put in his hands. He became our new bass player and we started practicing at his house. About six months later, Dan Gates (a local DJ) became interested in us and decided we needed a new name. There was a bookshelf in Shep’s living room (where we rehearsed) with a book named Dearly Beloved. We all decided that would be our new name. About a year after that, Rick Mellinger replaced Pete Schuyler as our drummer.

By the summer of 1965, we had gained enormous popularity in Tucson. Our gigs were always jammed and our records sold locally. We cut three records under The Intruders name. I wanted to try an experiment using an unfamiliar name on our next record to see if people were responding to our music or our band. I came up with Quinstrells (five minstrels, get it?) and the 45 was released under that name with two of my songs- “Tell Her” b/w “I got a Girl”. The response was not as good as under the Intruders name. The evidence was in. Same band, different name; it was the beginning and end of the ‘Quinstrells’.

60s: Where were those early songs recorded? Did any of them become local hits?

TL: I really can’t completely remember our record anthology. I know our first recording was a 45 with the first song I ever wrote called “Let me Stay” on the Galaxy label. It was the first prize for a local battle of the bands. The recording ‘studio’ was some high school kid’s living room with a Wollensak tape recorder and two mikes. We recorded between doorbells, phone calls and toilet flushes. The record got local radio play and sold well in Tucson. The flip side was “Everytime It’s You”. We recorded three more 45s up in Audio Recorders in Phoenix. Those records were on our own label ‘Moxie’ and got more airplay and good attention.

So…recorded songs by The Intruders include “Let Me Stay” b/w “Everytime It’s You”, “Why Me?” b/w “Then I’d Know” and “My Name” b/w “Now She’s Gone”. By 1965, we were on top in Tucson. The Quinstrells had only that one 45 with “Tell Her” b/w “I Got a Girl”. The Dearly Beloved released “Peep Peep Pop Pop” b/w “It Is Better” on the Boyd and Columbia labels. Later, Dearly Beloved released “Merry Go-Round” b/w “Flight 13” and “Wait ‘Til the Morning” b/w “You Ain’t Gonna Do What Do Did With Him To Me” on the Splitsound label.

60s: What year did the band finally settle on the Dearly Beloved name?

TL: Good question. I think it was in the fall of 1965. Dan Gates told us that a Detroit soul group took The Intruders name and we should change.

60s: Did Gates ever serve as the band’s manager?

TL: Dan was never our manager but he was sort of a fan/mentor. Our first manager, Jim Hilkemeyer sort of stepped aside for Dan Peters who went on the road with us. Dan Gates, if I recall, brought us the demo for “Peep Peep Pop Pop”. How we hated it! But Dan accurately forecast it as a hit. Of course, Dan helped a lot with local airplay.

60s: The band wasn’t originally impressed with “Peep Peep Pop Pop”…

TL: Dan Gates told us he had this song we just had to record. He said it was a “stone cold hit” so we gathered around this reel-to-reel to hear this great music and out came a scratchy, almost inaudible recording of three guys singing acapella:

“I got a girl so sweet
She knocks me right off my feet
But when I wanna kiss, all she says is this,
‘Peep peep pop pop mm oh oh’”

We said, “You gotta be kidding. Get out of here. No way are we ever recording this.” As a kind of rebellion, we arranged the tune so that the hook was in four-part harmony. To everyone’s surprise, it kind of worked. We recorded it with enthusiasm.

60s: Were you completely shocked that it became the huge local hit that it did?

TL: Yes. But there was this local popularity thing, so being a big hit in Tucson was sort of expected. But it was also a hit in Phoenix and Albuquerque where we not so well known. That was a surprise. The record was originally released on the Boyd label. The fact that we were listed as the “Beloved Ones” is indicative of Mr. Boyd’s focus on our band: “You know, Dearly Ones, Beloved Ones, something like that.” Bobby Boyd was some kind of promoter who came into our life just in time to put his label on our record and book us on a tour. We made a loop into New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma on his behalf. When we got back, we were told our pay for the gigs went to cover his promotional costs. Apparently the regional success caught somebody’s attention at Columbia. They bought out Boyd’s interest and re-released the tune on their label. That’s when we went under contract with Columbia. We never saw Bobby Boyd again.

60s: Columbia flew the band to Los Angeles to record an LP. Apparently 20 songs were recorded. Do you recall any of the song titles to these songs? Do the recordings still exist?

TL: The Columbia recording session was at the end of a tour that lasted about a month, in the summer of 1966. We had been performing live gigs twice a week and traveling and partying like maniacs. By the time we got to L.A. we were ready for rest and recuperation instead of a studio session. This was a very strange recording session. We were put back in this enormous studio at Columbia, which was obviously used for recording orchestras and/or big bands. We wrote and arranged the tunes in our hotel room during the day and recorded at night. I think we cut around twelve songs in three days. Everything was done in a perfunctory way, as if they were just going through the motions. I remember that during those three days we would take breaks, and in a cozy little studio down the hall, Paul Revere and The Raiders were recording one song (“Hungry”, I think). I remember saying, “there’s something not right here.”

The songs we recorded there (as best I can remember and not all of them were finished) are as follows:

“Merry Go-Round” (Larry Cox)
“Flight 13” (Terry Lee)
“Wait ‘Til the Morning” (Tom Walker)
“Music Revolution” (Terry Lee)
“Keep it Moving” (Terry Lee)
“I’ve Got a Girl” (Terry Lee)
“Strange Feeling” (Manny Freiser)
“I’m Not Coming Back” (Manny Freiser)
“You Ain’t Gonna Do What You Did to Him to Me” (Manny Freiser)

There were probably a couple more that I don’t remember. My recollections of that session are fuzzy. It was a weird time. “Merry Go-Round”, “Flight 13”, “Wait ‘Til the Morning” and “I’m Not Coming Back” were re-recorded later at Audio Recording in Phoenix and released as 45's on the Splitsound label.

60s: It sounds as if Dearly Beloved wrote many original songs. Did the band rely on outside songwriters at all?

TL: We wrote almost all of our own stuff. After the successful recording of “Let Me Stay” I was encouraged to write original material. Our early gigs were all covers of other people’s material. Gradually, we worked our own stuff into the sets and by the end of our time together we were trying to do about 60% or 70% originals. I was the primary songwriter for the band. Tom Walker wrote “Wait ‘Til the Morning”, Larry Cox wrote “Merry Go Round” and “Peep Peep Pop Pop” was written by some anonymous guys. I wrote the rest of the music alone or in collaboration with Larry or Shep.

60s: How long did Dearly Beloved remain in L.A? Did you perform there at all...or record the LP and then head home?

TL: We made several trips to Los Angeles and to be honest, they are all kinda mixed up in my memory. I mentioned earlier that we recorded with Jimmy Haskell in late ‘64 or early ‘65. Our next trip back was probably in late ‘65. We were doing a kind of audition. Several bands were being showcased at the Hullabaloo Club up the street in Hollywood. Agents and recording people were in the audience to evaluate what talent was up-and-coming. The band ahead of us was The Byrds. I remember being shocked to see Crosby using a capo on his guitar (that was for folk music, not rock!). We got an agent named Mike Casey with a big office in the 9000 Building. We played Gazzari’s on the strip, ate at Hamburger Hamlet, cruised The Whiskey a Go-Go and generally fell into the L.A. groove. We moved for a while into an apartment in North Hollywood and nearly starved to death. The Gazzari’s people convinced us to play their La Cienega Club (down the hill from the strip) and we played for the bartender for a week. We were broke and dejected so Mellinger and I split back to Tucson. The rest of the guys followed shortly. We were in and out of that town a few more times, the last being the weekend of July 1, 1967. We played the Magic Mushroom, over in the valley (I think we were billed with The Leaves) and headed back to Tucson around 3:00 am. We crashed near Yuma and Larry was killed. That really was the end of the band. It limped along for another year, but the band died with Larry. He was the soul.

60s: Regarding the accident…what are your recollections of Larry Cox? How different do you think things might have been for Dearly Beloved had the car accident not happened?

TL: Larry was one of those one-of-a-kind guys and a real people person. He was always up for a good time and was super extroverted. He loved being on stage and the crowd loved watching him. He had charisma by the bucket load. I was kind of shy, so being around Larry was my ticket to a bigger world. His family became my family. My parents were divorced and my stepfather and I belonged in separate zip codes. Larry’s Dad, Charlie and his Mom, Ruth brought me right into their family like I was born there.

Charlie would play guitar with us all night long and supported our efforts in the band every way he could. I lived with the Cox family off and on for a while and Larry and I became brothers. As to what might have become without the crash…who knows? Sometimes when someone asks me that, I say “Well, on the bright side, we would have become big stars and lived happily ever after”. On the down side, we could have ended up playing ‘lounge hell’ in Las Vegas. We had our shot. It just wasn’t in the cards.

60s: Do you recall why Columbia decided against releasing a Dearly Beloved LP?

TL: I couldn’t be sure then but in retrospect, I don’t think Columbia ever intended to release a record by, or promote, Dearly Beloved. There was a practice among record companies then, of contracting and ‘shelving’ the competition so the company could focus its assets. That recording session was so rushed, slipshod and uninspired, that I think we were just being placated and ‘shelved’.

60s: What about the rumors of an apparent White Whale Records contract?

TL: To be honest, I have almost no recollection of the White Whale deal. I don’t know who came up with them or what they were specifically offering. Whatever it was, it never came to pass.

60s: Larry’s unfortunate passing apparently voided the contract.

TL: I was told later that his death voided the deal. Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less. Larry and I were like brothers and his death was a distressing personal experience, beyond the implications for the band. In fact, Larry’s family and I became even closer after his death and remained that way until the passing of his parents years later. We went back to L.A. that fall of 1967 with Jim Perry as lead singer. He was a good vocalist, but couldn’t match Larry’s charisma and showmanship. Perhaps more importantly he couldn’t fill Larry’s shoes in the family that the band had become. Tom Ripley became our lead singer after we returned to Tucson late in 1967, through early 1968. We played local gigs with Tom and he was good but the magic was gone. By the late fall of 1968, I decided to move on, married my wife, Lil and made preparations to go back to college. I think Tom and Shep kept it going for a few more months before re-grouping with other bands.

60s: Do any other Dearly Beloved recordings exist: Are there any vintage live recordings or other unreleased tracks?

TL: I’ve heard there are some live recordings out there. I think Rick Mellinger mentioned knowing about one. Also, there are those recordings of our first sessions in L.A. with Jimmy Haskell. We recorded two of my songs called “I Was Never Told” and another called “All The Sparkle”. I may have the reel-to-reel tape somewhere.

60s: Who all comprised the band at the height of its popularity?

TL: The Dearly Beloved was Terry Lee - lead guitar/vocals; Tom Walker - rhythm and lead guitar/vocals; Larry Cox - lead singer; Shep Cooke - bass, flute, rekorder, guitar, harmonica, vocals, etc.; Pete Schuyler – drums; and Rick Mellinger - drums (replaced Pete).

After Larry’s death, we tried different lead singers including Jim Perry and Tom Ripley. During Shep’s stint with Linda Rondstadt, Val Valentino filled in on bass. After the accident that killed Larry, Rick Mellinger was unable to play drums for a while. Lenny Lopez filled in for him during that time.

60s: How far was the band’s touring territory? Did you play out of state often?

TL: Prior to the Columbia recording contract, we mainly stayed in Arizona and New Mexico. We did, however, as I mentioned travel to Los Angeles, even in our first year, to record. We taped about six songs in early 1965 with Jimmy Haskell in some little studio that was also being used by a band called The Byrds (yeah, those Byrds). Those tapes are around somewhere. After we signed with Columbia, we hit the road for Oklahoma City, playing a couple of places in Kansas and New Mexico on the way. Later, we toured with Buffalo Springfield through New Mexico ending up in concert at the Dallas Coliseum. Shortly after, we toured (by air) through New Mexico, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was at the end of that tour that we cut our ‘three-day wonder’ album at the Columbia Studios in Los Angeles.

60s: Where did the Dearly Beloved typically play? What type of gigs did the band land?

TL: Of course, where we played changed a lot over the years. Our first gigs were in people’s living rooms or kitchens; just local parties. Our first public venue included the Del Rio Lounge (aka The Bashful Bandit, these days). We played one set and were asked to leave - without pay. Our other public gigs were at local drive-in theaters including playing at the Premiere of A Hard Day’s Night at the Midway Drive-In. We were mobbed by girls after the set and made the local papers. We also played a local teen dance club called The Web. There were a couple of other teen joints in the early days; Sunset Rollarama (skating rink) and Jerry Stowe’s Teen Beat Club. The company Jim Hilkemeyer worked for not only owned all the drive-in theaters but also a big bowling alley called Cactus Bowl. We played dollar-a head teen dances there that were huge successes. Thousands of kids packed in while we played on a stage set up over the billiard tables. Two other clubs were big for local bands: Iceland (also an ice-skating rink) and The Hi-Ho Club (we played the other Hi-Ho club in Phoenix). Believe it or not, Iceland was where I saw The Hollies, Jimi Hendrix and The Knickerbockers perform. By late ‘65, we were sort of the house band there. Before we had a national record and a contract with Columbia Records, our road gigs were limited to Phoenix, Bisbee, Tombstone, Flagstaff, Safford and Yuma, Arizona. The Lewallen Brothers (another Tucson band) and The Dearly Beloved were regulars at the club in Yuma. We and our Hilkemeyer later opened our own club called Moxies and for two consecutive years we threw our own Christmas dances at the old Conquistador Hotel. The last year ended with a spectacular brawl involving Jim Hilkemeyer, our band and some local ‘tough guys’. We also played various battles of the bands and high school graduation parties. Fraternity gigs were our favorites and were very uninhibited. We opened for The Mamas and The Papas when they played at the local Ramada Inn and we had the audacity to play “California Dreamin’” while they were waiting in the wings. They laughed and thought it was great and we all partied together afterward. We also opened for The Turtles when they played in Tucson.

Once “Peep Peep Pop Pop” was released and we had the Columbia contract, our gigs were very different. They were mostly on the road, playing concert-style, opening for bigger name groups or participating in giant Rock Festivals in places like Denver and San Francisco, playing with bands like The Cyrkle and Jay and The Americans. Back home in Tucson, we opened for Buffalo Springfield, The Young Rascals, Paul Revere and The Raiders and others.

60s: Did the band make any TV appearances?

TL: We appeared lip-synching our record on a local TV station in Oklahoma City in 1966 (probably long-since taped over). Ironically, when we first started up, in 1964, we used to do live Saturday morning TV appearances on KGUN, Channel 9 in Tucson. I remember Linda Rondstadt being there, too. It was broadcast live with one microphone for the band and a couple of mikes for the vocals. I never heard the broadcast but it was probably pretty awful. And they rated “Peep Peep” on Dick Clarks’ American Bandstand and it beat out “Psychotic Reaction”. That was a kick.

60s: Did you join or form any bands after Dearly Beloved?

TL: After Dearly Beloved, I worked for a couple of years as an architectural draftsman and went back to college in 1971. My wife, Lil has a great voice and always wanted to be in a band. That year, she joined up with Val Valentino, Mike Cooke, Rick Mellinger and Jane Norris. They convinced me to come out of retirement and I began playing with their band that year. Val left after a year and we re-formed as Sweetback with Rick Mellinger on drums, Mike Cooke on bass and Richard Gomez on Hammond B3. Starting around 1975, Lil and I started a band called Pepper, playing local gigs all over Tucson, until 1989. Members included Mike Cooke, Rick Mellinger, Fred Porter, Roger King, Jerry Canella, Bill Cashman and others. We finally hung it up in 1989. Lately, Lil and I have been talking about getting a group together again. Rick Mellinger is up for it.

Since 1974, I have been a professional architect, opening my own firm in 1978 and specializing in commercial architecture nationwide for over 20 years. In 1998, I closed my offices and moved my practice home, focusing on designing and building custom homes. We live in some of these homes for a year or two and then build anew and move on. We have one under construction now. Our music is restricted to the occasional request to perform for friends at weddings or parties. I still write and Lil and I hope to do some recording in the very near future.

60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with Dearly Beloved?

TL: The entire Intruders/Dearly Beloved history only spanned a little over three years. But what a three years they were! I am so grateful for having that experience. There were things I learned there that formal education could never provide. It was a real ride, full of euphoric highs and stunning lows. The camaraderie that formed between we five band members was incredibly powerful. I suspect that people who join the military or gangs or fraternities must find a similar level of interpersonal intimacy that we had in that band. The band was an adventure and the music was the vehicle. We were much more than a rock band. Dearly Beloved was my tribe, my family.

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