| The Savvy Stories by Steve Jones (continued) |
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Chapter Twelve – Green Acres; The Place For Me! RJ may have had the band connection to the ladies that Kenny enjoyed, but Kenny had something RJ needed; a credit card! RJ was a cash and carry kind of guy so he needed a room-mate who could qualify for a lease. Bob Lemmon was a Savvy regular and a good friend of RJ's. He witnessed how wild and wicked life was with RJ - and with Kenny out of the picture he made his move. Because of his steady job, Bob was able to swing the deal for the lease on the house on Green Acres. RJ, Chris, Ricky and Ricky's dog Nigel moved in with Bob. Chris was more like RJ's perpetual houseguest. I'm not sure if he even paid rent or not. He would crash wherever there was space available in RJ's room. Bob had the spacious master bedroom, RJ had the front, and Ricky's back bedroom had a sliding door that led to the pool. Two bedrooms were off of the huge living room, but Bob's was on the other side of the kitchen in the opposite end of the house. That left the formal dining area in the front of the house which was rarely used - if at all.
By the time I backed the rented U-Haul up to their front door late on the night of August 13th, 1980, the house had taken quite a beating from the guys who were already living there. Since Ricky Lynn, RJ, Bob and Chris had commandeered the bedrooms, I used a bit of ingenuity to convert the front dining area near the entryway into a bedroom for myself. The dining room had rounded bay windows that protruded from the front of the house. Upon entering the house, the dining room was off to the right. From the dining room, a large opening connected to the kitchen. My first task was to seal up the door to the kitchen with plywood. With that doorway blocked, I completed the conversion by putting a folding door over the other opening. The room was just big enough to put my huge waterbed in the middle, with the headboard against the bay windows. I put black marble contact paper over the windows to make it dark inside so I could sleep in the daytime when I needed to.
With the waterbed set up, there was just enough room along one wall for my three-piece desk / dresser set (for my clothes) and to put shelves at the foot of the bed for my stereo / recording equipment and records. My TV, VCR and microwave were stacked on the dressers and desk. It was packed in tight, but when it was done it looked great and was very functional! There were some problems, though. Because I was next to the front door, I was woken up every time anyone came or went. The TV in the living room was against a shared wall to my room - and the TV was ALWAYS blaring. The guys didn’t clean the kitchen, take out the trash, or keep dirty clothes from piling up - so the rest of the house had a roach problem. I invested in enough Raid and roach hotels to keep my room under control. The biggest problem of all, however, turned out to be the lack of security to my temporary room. There was no way to lock the cardboard folding door, but there would be plenty of good times to be had before the security weaknesses would be noticed. About half of the people who went to Savvy’s had known about my long relationship with Lilly. Of those, only about 1/4th of them gave it any thought. But there had been a certain faction of girls who wouldn’t date me because of it and guys who would rat me out if they knew. For the previous six months we'd mostly gone our own ways, even though we were still living together. We didn’t talk about it. As word spread around the club that we'd finally broken up and weren’t living together, my options opened up tremendously. I was free to date whoever I wanted. I could go wherever I wanted, and didn’t have to answer to anyone! I couldn’t believe I’d subjected myself to such seclusion for so long. It was completely ridiculous to try to maintain a meaningful relationship in our situation. It wasn’t possible. So we all got really good at pretending. The really smart girlfriends understood this and took it in stride. The really, really smart girls knew to just date and have fun - and not get involved. At least not during our heyday. Suddenly, some of the girls who had been avoiding me like the plague since I’d joined Savvy were coming around. I was going to movies, restaurants, theme parks, and became the zoo’s best customer. Unlike most of my Savvy brothers, I enjoyed going on dates on my nights off. One of the first dates I had after moving into the house on Green Acres was with a girl named Libby. Yes, the name was strikingly close to "Lilly" but the resemblance was strictly a coincidence. I'd been bugging Libby, trying to get her to go out with me for over a year, but she'd had a crush on a guy in another band. She also knew that at the time I'd been living with Lilly and she didn't want to get mixed up in all that. Once she knew I'd broken up with Lilly for good, and she was ready to try to get over her other crush, she finally agreed to go out. Libby was a really sweet, beautiful girl. We went to see Lodella play at "I Gotcha." Six Flags called and asked if we would be interested in opening a concert for a Teen Beat Magazine Tour featuring Scott Baio (then at the height of his career), along with the young boy star from the TV show Alice. We didn’t understand why they were interested in us since we were rock and roll and they were sort of teenybopper pop oriented. After tracking down Baio’s people, Hudson found the answer. The Teen Beat show was on tape and the stars lip-synched everything. They wanted a back up band that could pretend to play the music during the performance. Hud told them emphatically "NO!" But he did offer to let them use our equipment if they would let us play a live opening set. We called up some of our local musician friends to be the fake musicians. It turned out to be a really fun show. The young teenage girls packing the Music Mill Theater screamed all through our opening set - much to our delight! By the time Baio and company took the stage, we had their audience warmed up for them. We were pretty warmed up too. My brother Chris brought along a super 8 sound movie camera. He filmed the equipment set up, sound check, and even a bit of Scott Baio backstage. When the shirtless Baio saw us goofing with the camera, he took interest and came over. He asked if there was film in the camera and if we were making a movie. My brother Ray, who was holding a microphone connected to the camera, answered Scott by saying he was with Channel Two News. (That was always our stock answer when anyone questioned what we were doing with the camera.) Baio seemed to be enthused and went into "Chachie" mode saying, "Oh yeah! You want to interview me?" Brother Ray snapped into action and without missing a beat said, "Yeah! That would be cool. Is it true you are Fonzie’s illegitimate brother?" Baio stopped in his tracks. He’d been PUNKED before PUNKING was cool. He was a trouper about it and, after pausing a second, jumped back into character and said, "No, I’m his sister!" As August 1980 rolled on, a lot happened. Chris bought a new super 8 sound projector. Ricky Lynn’s birthday bash at the club was a smash. On the 30th we did an outdoor concert at Malibu Grand Prix in North Richland Hills, sponsored by Q102. Chris filmed it. The guys in the band were more excited about getting unlimited free rides in the Grand Prix cars than we were about playing. The management loved our band and literally gave us bags of the Malibu coins so we could play free whenever we came in. (I still have several of those old coins.) Ricky and I ended up getting close while living together at Green Acres. We found that we preferred a lot more privacy than was possible living in that environment. The parties were great; but sometimes we just wanted to relax and enjoy some piece and quiet. That was not going to happen at the Green Acres house. It was like Grand Central Station around the clock there. After every gig, people followed us home and continued the party there. The next day as I tried to sleep they would wake up and leave, one by one. The phone never stopped ringing. Ricky and I started discussing moving out and getting a place together. For the first time in my life I was living in a place where I didn’t know the address or phone number -- nor did I care. This was just a temporary pit stop for me. I was really glad to have it, though..
The Labor Day Telethon was a big success. The club stayed open 24 hours a day for two days of non-stop live entertainment provided by area bands. Proceeds from the door, auctions, and percentage of the bar in the amount of $13,000 went to MDA. I loved the Telethons at Savvy's and would sometimes take catnaps in the dressing room to avoid leaving. The band made two appearances on TV at the Six Flags Southern Palace as we presented checks from our telethon to Harold Taft and Bobby Wygant, Channel 5 TV personalities. The on-air presentations usually took place early in the morning and more of us than not would could be seen wearing shades to conceal our red, tired eyes. As we wrapped up our check presentation, I noticed a few people from McDonald's gathering in line to come up next, including none other than Ronald McDonald! It was a little strange for me seeing someone else in my costume, and probably weird for the McDonald's contacts seeing me in my rock-and-roll garb. At least all the strangeness on that day was for a good cause.
Some of the local bands playing the 1980 Telethon at Savvy’s (besides Savvy) were: Big D Stuff, Madison Avenue, Fancy, Project 111, Charles Tennison Band and others. The club leased a Winnebago and parked it in the alley just outside the back door of the club for us to use as a "green room" during the Telethon. We affectionately dubbed it "The Caligula." Good friend, "Big" Mike and I were the last two standing by the end of the ’80 telethon. We celebrated by having beers for breakfast. The MDA Telethon at Savvy’s nightclub was a labor of love, and an around the clock love-fest all rolled into one. September 1980 also brought a death in the family. My Aunt Sarah had been the apple of my Uncle JT’s eye for several decades. She was the only one who kept him sober for any length of time and had been his angel here on Earth. But cancer finally took her from him. I couldn’t imagine what he would do without her. (He would somehow end up outliving almost the rest of his entire family.) We had nights lined up at the Dallas Agora and days booked in the studio to work on our album project. I ran into some interesting situations while going full throttle in my dating endeavors. Rusty Burns from Point Blank sat in at the club. Point Blank’s new album, The Hard Way, was just out, and their song "Nicole" was getting a lot of airplay. We worked the song up as sort of a tribute to Rusty so he could jam it with us when he dropped in. It was a cool song and fun to do. Ironically, Point Blank picked up a new keyboard player around that time – Mike Hamilton! When RJ and I joined Savvy back in late 1978, we were replacing Mike and his wife Katrina. Mike had been playing bass for Savvy and Katrina had been the vocalist. But up until that point Savvy had seen a lot of music styles, as well as band members come and go. Mike was (and still is) a phenomenally gifted musician and great guy. Leaving Savvy turned out to be a move in the right direction for everyone involved. I received a message at the club that Lilly wanted me to come by one night. I stopped by and we talked for a short while. I think she had a hard time seeing me having so much fun. She was really uptight and it was obviously going to turn into an argument, so I left. I was cured. The marketing people from the agency that handled the DFW McDonald's account had a going away party for one of their star employees, Kathy Bell. The shindig took place at the Trail Dust Steakhouse in Dallas. I may have looked out of place among all the young, yuppie-looking professional crowd, but I felt like one of the gang. The party continued on with with Bill Farmer and Ron B. long after everyone else had gone. Bill Farmer worked for the ad agency and had been the person who saw me on the Mr. Peppermint Show while home sick one morning. Ron B. was the original Ronald McDonald in North Texas, and was only filling in from time to time as needed by that point. His focus had shifted to the world of producing and directing by then. We seemed to be the nocturnal one's of the bunch and enjoyed hanging out and visiting. Things were much looser in the 80’s: Everyone liked to party. I don't know why, but I started having a gut feeling that Rusty Burns was meeting with Ricky behind the rest of our backs, in an effort to lure him away from Savvy. They were chumming up a lot and having huddled discussions. It was part of music business, but something felt out of whack about it. (I always had a very keen 6th sense about things.) When I asked Ricky about it, he assured me nothing was going on. (Years later I would find out that I'd been right about my instincts. Ricky had actually flown to Houston to meet with Point Blank’s manager, Bill Ham of Lone Wolf Production and manager of ZZ Top. The story I heard was that Ricky was being considered as a possible replacement for Point Blank guitarist, Kim Davis. Ham apparently Liked Ricky, but he didn’t get the gig. Davis stayed with Point Blank and Savvy dodged a silver bullet by not losing Ricky.) Lilly had a big birthday party at the club. I had my own party in the dressing room.Other big news during September was my hooking up with Bernadette, the girl from the pages of Playboy! We spent a week together during the middle of the month, mostly at her place. There was too much going on at the house on Green Acres to have any privacy. We really enjoyed each other’s company and had a great time, but she was in big demand at the time and I had to settle for that one week of bliss. (I saw Bernadette years later at a McDonald's event in Gunbarrel City, Texas. She had settled down and was having babies.) Q102 DJ, Gary Shaw, started making his presence felt at our recording sessions. He was still interested in managing us, but we'd already forged a relationship with Hud. Gary brought some ideas for opportunities to the table from time to time. One was for us to possibly open a show for Lou Ferigno, of Incredible Hulk fame. We had some good laughs about that one, but turned it down. The phone on Green Acres was turned off because nobody paid the bill. It didn't matter to me. I didn't know the number anyhow. Jeneth Mallicote and Jo Evelyn Murray (from High School) came out to the club. My friend Earl Dromgoole and I had taken them (respectively) to the prom. Actually, they asked us to the prom; they were Seniors. I was a sophomore and Earl was a junior. (I have photos of us posing in front of my house that evening in our tuxes, but you won’t see them posted here. I was wearing shades I’d found at a 3D movie. Very cool – or at least I thought so at the time.) The TV in the main room of the house on Green Acres was connected to some kind of early cable system. It kept getting turned off because the bill wasn’t paid on time. I put up a TV antenna so I could get reception in my room on my own TV. That plan backfired when everyone would end up on my bed watching TV when the cable was out. Devo was all the rage, so we learned "Whip It." It turned out to be one of the easiest cover songs we ever worked up. The staff from the Mother Blues Club in Dallas started coming out to Savvy’s on their nights off. We became good friends with them. Then more tragedy struck. On the 24th of September 1980, my Uncle JC Dacy was killed in an accident while he was driving an 18-wheeler. JC had been married to my dad’s sister, Bettie. Growing up, I'd always thought of him as the spitting image of comedian Jackie Gleason (from Honeymooners fame), and everyone who knew him loved his great infectious laugh. Before driving trucks he’d been a barber; Uncle JC gave me my first hair cut. Bettie, JC, and my cousins Ronnie, Timmy, Julie and Calvin grew up in the house on Onyx Drive South in North Richland Hills where my brother Chris now lives. That great old house had been ground zero for all the family reunions and get-togethers during my childhood. (It is where my current band, The Jones-Miller Band, practices.) Family came in from all over the country for the funeral. RJ’s brother Greg came in from Colorado and hung out with us for a night at the Green Acres house. They hadn't seen each other since childhood. Still, the passing of a favorite uncle overshadowed that short reunion.
October turned out to be a great month for us at the Dallas Agora. Rusty Burns called and asked if he could ride with me to one of our Agora gigs one night. During the half-hour drive, he played some new songs from Point Blank's next album. After the show, the drummer from Easy Street rode home with us. I don’t know how he got back to Dallas, but that was how it was in those days. A blonde girl that I dated from time to time named Stephanie replaced brunette Elaine in the band Pandora. Drake Hall from KTXQ (the Eagle), his girlfriend Chelsea and her daughter came to the Agora while we doing a sound check. I'd come straight from a clown appearance in the area and had changed clothes, but hadn't had a chance to remove the makeup yet. The only people in the club were employees, band members, and a few friends. I did the short sound check wearing a baseball cap and dark shades, but the red nose and mouth were spotted by Chelsea's daughter. Once sound check was done, I spent a few minutes "clowning around" with the little girl. She was all giggles. I did a big McDonald's gig in Mineral Wells where I met Jim Wright (politician), Michael Murphy (famous singing artist), Larry Mahan (famous bull rider) and Freckles (world famous rodeo clown.) Between my two jobs I was definitely keeping company with a very diverse group of people. Who could I possibly meet that would be more of a thrill than meeting Tom Landry, or Roger Staubach – or even the legendary Freckles the Clown? I was about to find out. |
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