Growing Up Bass Player

The duo continues

Bob and I continued with our duo. Most of our jobs were local so we didn’t have to travel. Even though we lived in a small town, the main business district was only 5 blocks long, there were seven bars in those 5 blocks. We never lacked for a place to play.

The late seventies were a great time to be playing music. Rock n Roll was the only music being played in my area. Live music was king. Sundown was playing every weekend and occasionally six nights. Any time Sundown didn’t play Bob and I did our Duo thing. Life was good.

Then in about 1978 something came along that killed live rock music in southeastern Montana. It was called Disco. Ewe, it hurts me to even think about it. We started getting fewer jobs. Later in the same year both Kenny’s, Kenny the guitar player and Kenny the drummer changed there day jobs. Kenny the guitar player, who was a high school teacher during the day, moved to western Montana to be a High School Principal. Kenny the drummer, who worked for the Montana Highway Department, took a position in the department in Helena Montana, the state capital. As far as I know neither have played live music since.

That left Bob and I and our Duo. Neither of us was very pleased with the drummer in the duo so we went in search of a live drummer. Who we found was Gary; yes the Gary who was the original drummer in Sundown. Gary was now divorce and living the life of a single man. He jumped at the chance to come play with us. We got together, learned some new song, revamped some old songs and went looking for a gig.

Playing rock was not a possibility at this time so we went back to our county roots and used some of the things we did in our Duo to engage the audience in our music. Not only did we provide dance music we provide live entertainment also. Bob and Gary were real good at it. Gary was the best. He was down right funny all the time. Me, having a very dry sense of humor, just laid back played my bass and enjoyed all that silliness. We play smaller venues were “ Disco” was disapproved of; small country bars.

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