Til The Cows Come Home: Rock 'n' Roll Nebraska
By Bart Becker 1985
7. Revue Robinson to Rock Therapy
Scores of lesser bands and musicians flared up and disappeared. Their brevity and obscurity in no way diminishes their impact at the time or in memory. That's just one of the many delights of rock 'n' roll; some of the greatest bands were one shots or less. Whenever somebody tells me they've heard the greatest band ever, I tell them to keep listening a little while longer. Some people think the reason all obscure bands are obscure is because they're bad. But popularity has nothing to do with greatness. They not exclusive of each other, but they are two different things. Lots of times it is the imitator or derivator who hits big while the true original artist is forgotten his style omnipresent while his personality is unknown. To me, the fact that these musicians are obscure makes them all the more fascinating; to read about the influences of say, local vocalist Revoe Robinson, who told a reporter in 1967, "I try to follow the singing style of 'Walk Away Renee.'"
Beyond that, though, there is a certain purity of obscurity that many Nebraska musicians feel, even as they lust for fame with half of their heart. As Charlie Burton said, after mentioning one of his arcane influences, "If I could just be known as the Pat Cupp of the '70s, I'd be happy." Or as Jon Emery said by way of introducing his song "White Cross on My Tombstone" at the Zoo Bar in 1979, "When I used to live up here I cut a couple of records. The first one sold about 2,000 copies and I thought that was pretty good. Second one sold about a hundred and I thought that was even better."
By the dawn of the '70s popular music was changing, both on the international and local levels. The '60s had seen wave after wave of changes: surf music, Beatles, soul, psychedelic. Finally, the music scene was settling down and, furthermore, many of the smaller ballrooms were ceasing to book bands. The more popular types of music were for getting stoned and listening to, not dancing. There were not as many high school functions for fledgling groups to play. Nobody wanted to hang around school and, anyway, school principals hate a crowd of students worse than just about anything, so the feeling was mutual. Teenagers discovered that it was fun to eat acid, smoke reefer, stone out and listen to music through headphones. The promise which characterized rock at the end of 1968 dissipated considerably during the next three years; it began to seem disillusioned and directionless. Pop was nearly dead, rock was floundering and many fans turned to blues, jazz and bluegrass for excitement.
When the decade was thrown on the music bonfire, it cracked and threw off sparks in all directions. Some just flared up and were gone. Some, fueled by enough quick interest, started brush fires. Some had to wait until the breeze blew from the right direction before they caught fire.
Horn-rock groups carried the legacy of '60s show bands such as the Flippers into the new decade. A group called Music evolved from a couple of other top Lincoln bands. Heaven, Collections, Blackberry Winter and Straight were other Nebraska horn-rock outfits.
In Omaha, the psychedelic Fay Hogan Experiment gave way to Bumpy Action as the most-followed group. Bumpy Action was a classic hippie congregation, shaggy, stoned and grooving out their signature song, Dr. John's "Walk on Gilded Splinters."
At the same time, 1971 or so, Omaha's Music Box was the venue for so-called total environment performances. An organization called Moose Family staged concerts featuring music, dancing and light shows by Retinal Circus. Concurrently, a Lincoln group called Blackjack was breaking ground as a blues band, as well as playing Hendrix and Creedence Clearwater material.
On another front, an interest in bluegrass was building. This was fostered largely by the Brownville Music Festival which attracted some of the area's best pickers, but became too popular for its own good. Unmanageable crowds as large as 30,000 forced the organizers to shut down for a few years following the 1975 event. Brownville provided some early public recognition of Lincoln musician Steve Hansen, a phenomenal player on all string instruments. Leading the Bluegrass Crusade on banjo, he honed the Lihcoln and Omaha audiences for bluegrass. As a studio player he made invaluable contributions to the recordings of C.W. McCall, including the No. 1 novelty hit "Convoy" and released an album called Pick and Choose under his own name in 1979.
Another popular country and rockabilly performer was Omahan Jon Emery. Known for his good-natured ability to incite a crowd, Emery played solo and with various combinations of backup musicians known as the Missouri Valley Boys. He put our several single disks before moving to Austin, Texas in 1977. Emery continued to appear occasionally in Nebraska and was performing with Leroy Preston (formerly of Asleep at the Wheel) until 1982.
Another band that made a splash at an early '70s Brownville festival was Sour Mash. The group was originally a folk and country trio. A number of personnel changes during the decade resulted in a seven-piece group specializing in country swing and jazz arrangements and a schedule of constant touring in the Midwest and western states. Two LPs, Sour Mash Drinks and Goes Home and Sour Mash preserved the band's approach for posterity.
Country rock was alive and well in the middle of the state, too. A group out of Kearney, Timberline, cut several records before disbanding when vocalist Jim Salestrom moved on to work with Dolly Parton's touring band.
Another sliver peeling off the rock tree produced a renewed interest in jazz, especially in Omaha and Lincoln. Both towns sprouted Jazz Societies and local jazz players came out of the woodwork. Lincoln featured the Neoclassic Jazz Orchestra and many smaller combos.
Toward the end of the '70s most of the better and more popular eastern Nebraska rock bands were based out of Lincoln rather than Omaha, something of a reversal from 10 years before.
Charlie Burton formed the Star Spangled Wranglers, a country-oriented group. Then he started the Megatones, an extremely popular rhythm and blues band. Finally Burton hit on the contemporary rockabilly format he's been searching for: Charlie Burton and Rock Therapy. The group was outstanding and they were wild, with Burton on "throbbing vocals." Their live performances were crazed and their records on the Wild label, most notably "Rock and Roll Behavior," were lauded. They paved the path for renewed area interest in inventive rock groups.
Other mainstays on the scene in the later '70s were the Boys, an Anglo-influenced band with several records, and a little later the social-commentator Crap Detectors. Indeed, in Nebraska, as everywhere, the punk and new music explosion left its mar. The main artifacts were in stacks of records, many of which sounded like they were made on a portable tap recorder over somebody's lunch hour, and time marched on, it left many would-be anti-stars new-waving in the breeze.
The stream of blues bands continued to flow, too, with Cotton Blues Band and Blackjack as examples from the late '60s and early '70s. The Homecookin' Trio played organ jazz and blues and later expanded, dropp8ing the "Trio" from its name and playing jumping arrangements of blues-based material.
At about the same time Homecookin' was burning out, around 1977, another blues band was starting up. Little Jimmy Valentine and the Heart Murmurs was a popular blues group, touring the area and releasing an LP Live At The Zoo in 1979.
While Nebraska certainly has had plenty of unique characters and bands and participated fully in the music of all eras probably more so than it is given credit for it would be a mistake to think the state was crowded with musical visionaries who, but for the fate of geography, would have reshaped the world. Without selling Nebraska's activity and contributions short, the state is simply a microcosm of the larger musical world: some genuine talent, some hype, some records, some flashes in the pan, intriguing bits of trivia, fascinating band names.
On hot and humid Nebraska nights the boom of amplifiers carries a long way over the prairie. Radios tuned to KOMA, kids tooling down the blacktop on the way to hear the Flippers, the Rumbles, the Coachmen, Spyder and the Crabbs. Or maybe an area outfit would be sending out their best: the Six Wild Brakemen, the Echoes, Blackjack, Smack Dab, Bumpy Action, the Heart Murmurs, Rock Therapy.
Coming to your town soon.