In the summer of 1976 there was a county western band that went by the name "Billy Dee and the Ramblers". The lead singer was a rotund 5 foot 3 " individual with a powerful voice. The band didn't have much success with country music, but when it played a few 50's rock and roll tunes, the crowds seemed to come alive.
In the early 1960's, in a town along the Hudson River, there was a guy who parked cars at the Tradewinds nightclub. He thought he could sing. Turned out he was right.
So..after too many nights of playing for folks who seemed half asleep more than half the time, we decided to become an oldies band. Now this was right up Billy's aisle, considering he grew up in the fifties. We were booked at a dude ranch that weekend to play country music but the prospect was less than exciting. The first song that the Big Edsel Band ever played was Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock. We did the song complete with a dash of choreography stolen from Sha-na-na. During the instrumental break the guitar players came to the front of the stage and stood in a line and raised and dipped the guitars in unison, in time with the beat. Not particularly original and certainly not difficult, but it got some attention. The night went well enough, but we didn't get the reaction we had hoped for. It was better than country but mediocre still. At the end of the night we sat in the lobby and tried to figure out what to do for tomorrow night's show.
Billy decided that if we were going to be an oldies band we had better look like one. "We're either doing this or we're not." he said, "tomorrow we play in leather jackets, shades, chains, like Sha-na-na or we don't play at all." So the next night we did. The only room to change in was the men's room in the lobby, and in order to get from the men's room to the stage we had to pass through a lobby packed with vacationers. So we did..And the crowd parted like the Red Sea as we walked to the stage and followed us into the room where the band was to play. From the first song we had them. People were standing on tables to watch. We didn't have much of an act at that point though, but it was enough, thank God. The week after that we did a live radio show from Newton, New Jersey. It was supposed to be a country show that we had booked for the old Billy Dee and the Ramblers country band. Again we showed up in greaser clothes. The poor host spent the first hour apologizing to the audience, but when the hall began to fill up with people who had been listening on the radio, he came around. He even slicked back his comb over by the end of the show. I have a tape of that show taken off the radio. It's pretty bad. Maybe someday I'll put it on here if I get the nerve. Well that's how it started and through personnel changes, bad weather and bad late night diner food, it lasted for twenty four years.
