Back to the “Grind”

It was the Fall of 1975, and the big tour was behind us. We all took some time off to just “be,” but the “suits” had been busy with their planning.

The Red Onion, Aspen, Colorado

Liberty had been designed around a hometown crowd that knew us and our music. Our music was drawn from a bunch of different genres, and there were lots of instrument changes that allowed us to plan our set lists around the music’s flow. Each of us played at least two instruments, and though Jan Garrett and Dan Wheetman did most of the lead vocals, Vic and Kent contributed songs as well.

In terms of instrumentation, we had two basic configurations. There was what we called the jazz version, in which I played bass and Vic rhythm guitar. The alternative was the country band, with Vic on bass and me on pedal steel guitar. We enjoyed the opportunity to mix those and other genres in an hour-long set, but it resulted in a lot of dead time. Jerry Weintraub and other management folks had us reorganize our shows to create more music and less shuffling around onstage.

Weintraub was also a big believer in toughening up his “charges.” So after the tour was over, he wanted us to stay on the road and acquire a lot more experience performing. To that end, he arranged for us to play a room at Harrah’s at Lake Tahoe. We began that stint on November 6, and we performed there six days a week through November 23. We alternated in this club-like room with several other acts, including Kenny Rogers, who had about reached the end of his association with the First Edition and was preparing to launch his solo career. About a year later he had a big hit with the single “Lucille.” He was generous with his time, and I remember a meeting with him in which he gave us some tips about the business.

That room at Harrah’s turned out to be a good choice for Weintraub’s toughening program. We played three shows each night. There was a clock mounted in the floor of the stage. The curtain would go up automatically at the appointed time, whether the act was ready or not. The idea was to be playing your first song as the curtain went up. The same happened at the end of the set; the curtain would go down, and you were supposed to be nearing the end of your final number.

The only anecdote I remember from that gig was the night Dan Wheetman launched into his version of Hank Williams’s “Kaw-liga the Wooden Indian” as the curtain rose. The character in the song is somewhat stereotypical, so when we noticed an elderly Native American man in the audience who we were told had just lost all his money, there was some embarrassment and nervous laughter onstage.

Upon returning home from that stint in Lake Tahoe, someone organized an outdoor photo shoot for the band. Here’s a typical promotional picture from that series. In it I see evidence of the confusion with which the music “suits” regarded us. Five of us had adopted stage clothing reminiscent of the period of jazz we performed. And there I am in a fancy cowboy shirt, representing the “country and western” component.

We leaned soon after the shoot that John Denver and his management folks had finally decided not to pursue their association with Liberty. For one thing, they couldn’t figure out how to market us. We had two front people, Dan Wheetman and Jan Garrett, and that was an uncommon configuration. Next, we played all those different genres. Our hometown audiences found those changes of pace interesting and fun, but the powers that be…well, we didn’t fit into any marketing plan they could think of.  And then there was the resistance they sensed in us, resistance to contracts and packaging and studio production values that were in routine use at the time.

Vic Garrett remembered us making verbal agreements with one another, before going into the studio, not to use any of the then-current pop-recording techniques, such as vocal doubling, self-harmonizing, and so on. We wanted to be able to perform our record onstage. The band was highly collaborative; we all took turns writing and fine-tuning set lists, and my notes from that time show many of them.

I do remember one incident during a session in which we recorded a wonderful song by Kent Lewis, “Song of Wyoming,” which John Denver recorded on his next album. John came in, listened to the playback, and gave us a “talking to” about production values (meaning, no doubt, stuff he would have added). Consequently, we recorded background vocals, including lots of “oohs,” and I think the result did in fact enhance the song.

In contrast, when we recorded a cover of “Sweet Papa, Hurry Home,” a Jimmie Rodgers song from 1932, Jan wanted to experiment with her lead vocal. After we recorded the basic track, she put down three versions, and then we all took a lunch break. We returned to discover that the three vocals had been mixed together to produce a composite with self-harmony, which whoever was producing that song had decided would do just fine. This didn’t please Jan at all; it was an interesting lesson in the alternative Golden Rule, which says, “He who has the gold makes the rules.”