If playing gigs was the standard, then my freshman year in high school was a total bust. Football and basketball took their tolls on my time, as did the never ending quest to keep my head bobbing above water in the classroom, and I could never garner enough interest from anyone to get a group together. I felt sad about it all, and walked around in a mostly depressed state. The only thing to be happy about was my growing record collection. I put every nickel into bringing home new music. Mom’s job at The Big K figured mightily into the equation when she’d had first crack at a stack of albums and bundled packs of singles a night before they officially went on sale.
As might have been predicted, some of the selections were busts, though I don’t fault my mom because she was running blind. That she scored as well as she did was a miracle, all things considered. An album that stuck to the present was After Bathing at Baxter’s, by Jefferson Airplane. I’d read a lot about the album when it had been current (a few years before), but had never heard it. I also got a couple of singles by The Doors, and one of the greatest singles ever released, The Memphis Train, backed with I Think I Made a Boo Boo, by the incredible Rufus Thomas. He soon had the nation prancing with his hit, The Funky Chicken.
I’d dodged the coach and pretty much stayed out of the way rather than playing football in the spring. I never liked playing in the cold, and I figured a musical opportunity might come my way and I didn’t want to miss that, so football was a memory. I had no intension of playing the next year or any other time.
Billy D came around to invite me into a new group he was about to join. He had left The Thumbers, who were themselves going through some sort of change, and was thinking of singing with a new group. To my surprise, The Truck drove us over to the first practice. In fact, The Truck was a little surprised to see me because his plan was for Billy D to play the organ, since he already had enlisted another guy to sing. We drove around for a couple of hours waiting on the bass player to get home so we could set up and practice. I think we ran through a single song when the guy arrived.
No one contacted me for two or three weeks after that, but one night The Truck dropped by to haul me to practice. When I asked about Billy D, everyone in the car laughed. “He’s gone,” The Truck said. “Whatta ya mean, gone?” I asked. “He’s in the National Guard. He got married and joined to stay out of the draft.” This was news. I wasn’t ready for it. I’d always had Billy D to fall back on, to direct me when I was in a fix. I didn’t know what to do. The band rehearsed a few times, then fell apart. I liked all the members, and the rhythm guitarist seemed to want to mentor me, but there really wasn’t enough of anything to hold the group together.
The local music scene played possum for a while. I saw The Thumbers playing at the Gudger Community Center
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