Cecil Jones (my dad) and his sister (my aunt Bettie) checking out the Airplane Cake that mom
and I made for him. Nobody at the party had ever seen anything like it before.  

Here is a partial guest list for that event;

Kenny and Sally Jones,  Grace Geisen, Okie and Madeline Jones, Betty and Maurice Couch, Iris Martin,  Harold and Joanne Lyon, Herman and Clydie King, Ernestine King, Elvin and Jackie Sparks, Fred "Papa" and Idell Calhoun, Al and Mary Hudson, Kathy and Kim Early, Ray and Terri Jones, Lonny McLoud and family, RJ and Marilyn, Chris Jones, Rhonda Cunningham, Jim Wise, Cliff and Carla Valentine, Rubil Hickey and wife, Joe Samples and wife, Carolyn and Freddie Everich, Sharee Everich, Bobby and Mary Aycock, and many more.  

Dad's party came after a really bad week in Waco. Our equipment kept screwing up and attendances were down. While we were in Waco, the Ft. Worth club was raided for drugs. Tips were coming from a variety of places, letting us know that Savvy's Nightclub had become a new favorite target for the local drug agents. This was bad news for a couple of my band mates, as well as for those who peddled drugs at the club. Frankly, I welcomed it. While I didn't want to see anyone get busted, I reasoned that it wouldn't hurt for some people I knew to have to cut back on their vices for a while. In particular, cocaine had become a preoccupation with some on stage and I was noticing the effect it was having on the band as a whole.

There was a lot of downtime scheduled in January. The week after the Waco trip, we took five days off. Then after five nights at the Ft. Worth club, we took another five days off. It was during the latter that Rick and Rich went on a ski trip to Lake Tahoe with family, co-workers, and friends of theirs. They'd been several times over the years, but hadn't had a chance to go since RJ and I had joined in '79. I was asked to house-sit for Jan and Wayne (Rick's sister and brother-in-law) at the house with the hot tub while they were gone. Rhonda and I had split up again and Yolanda was coming around with her friend Kerri. Yolanda was a dental assistant in the Air Force, stationed at Carswell. Until recently, she'd had a boyfriend living with her at her apartment, but she'd decided to break up with him in hopes that she and I could get together. She moved in temporarily with Kerri, and Kerri's sister Karen, while her boyfriend moved out of the apartment. It was quite complicated - too complicated for me. I was still on again - off again with Rhonda. Even though we had a lot of compatibility issues, I had a feeling that once the band thing went away, we might have a chance. But for the time being, we were off again, and Yolanda was being persistent. 

The situation with Rhonda had become problematic. Trying to have a relationship built around the band and the club was making us both miserable, but we couldn't seem to officially break it off. We would get together and talk about it, but somehow, we would always ultimately make up. It didn't help matters that the band was having a lot of stress because of falling attendances. When the club had a bad night, Rick would get bummed out, and that meant we would all have a bad night. It just wasn't the same as it had been in the good old days, and we were all having to come to terms with the new reality.

I produced a video tape of dad's party using my Atari computer to make the credits. More "Ronald" money came in so I bought a new telephone answering machine. RJ came over while Ricky was out of town and we cooked steaks and played computer baseball. Michael Jackson's hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. My favorite TV show was Night Court. 

Dad was finally retired and I was so pleased for him. At long last, he could kick back and do things he wanted to do. He was like a big kid, taking on lots of new hobbies. I went with him to fly his planes. Mine wouldn't take a charge for some reason, so I just watched him fly his. Ricky and Laurie were having a tough time getting along. Ricky's guitar player, Jimmy Nielson, told Laurie about Ricky's escapades on the road. She stormed over and took all the pictures of her out of his room and left. I can't imagine what Jimmy was thinking. There seemed to be a loyalty problem with Ricky's new personnel. Rhonda came over planning to stay the night, but she wasn't feeling well and left.

Ricky was the MC of an event at a Houston club in which the winner of a Foxy Lady contest would get a "Dream Date" with him! We had lot's of fun with that news story for sure! We had a big scene in Waco. Rich was drinking heavily and was messing up his guitar parts. RJ, Dan, and I approached Rick about it, asking him what, if anything we might consider doing about it. The intent was clear. Times were getting tough in the club scene and having someone in the band who was consistently screwing up wasn't helping. In the heat of the moment, we hinted at replacing Rich. Rick Miller was done with all the controversies that had gone on, and was fed up with the monthly attacks on Rich. Without missing a beat, Rick told us that if we weren't happy, we could just find ourselves another band. Rick defended Rich saying that it wasn't as important that he messed up now and then, as it was that their friendship endure. He didn't say it out loud, but Rick knew in his heart that our shot at the big time was over, and we'd likely just be playing for a paycheck from then on out. It wasn't worth cutting Rich Mauch out of the picture anymore. There wasn't any point in even bringing it up again. Rick Miller had given up.  

By saying Rick had given up didn't mean he was quitting the band. It just meant that whatever time we would have left as part of a band would be shared with his old friend Rich, along with whoever else wanted to stick around for the ride. He'd made it clear that he wasn't going to be a party to any more secret meetings about replacing anyone in the current lineup. This was the band. If anyone didn't like it, they were free to leave.  I called Rick the following day and we smoothed over the rough spots. It was an emotional time. The Waco club was barely holding on, and if things didn't improve in Ft. Worth, we'd be looking at problems there too before long. 

My 29th birthday came and went with minimal fanfare, compared to the past few years. This one was spent with my family. We went to eat dinner at Bill Martin's.  I bought a telescope, something I'd wanted to do for a long time. I got my first real close up look at the moon on the night of my birthday, February 6th, 1984. I'd seen pictures of the craters many times, but seeing them in person through the lens of a telescope was a magical experience for me. 

The band started talking about going on a group ski trip together. I'd never been snow skiing before, and was absolutely thrilled.  We planned the trip for the week of March 29th, a month away. Back in Waco, I did the Uncle Ernie character for the first time at that club. It went over really well, and helped lighten things up a bit. Back at home, RJ and I spent a day running errands together. We stopped by C&S Music store to purchase a cassette of pre-recorded drum patterns called "Drum Drops." Then we went to Coors Barbeque off Belknap, where I had a really bad choking episode, due to the scarring in my esophagus. The choking was becoming a regular thing with me. I'd learned to deal with it, but it tended to freak other people out when it happened. I didn't know what to do about it, and didn't have health insurance, so I would just have to keep living with it - for a while anyway. 

At the Ft. Worth club, a big crowd of people came in saying they'd been to check Ricky out at the Roxz, but ended up coming to Savvy's to party for the bulk of the night. At rehearsal we worked up "Heavy Metal", "Looks That Kill", "Shout the Devil", and "Another Thing Coming".  All were so-called "headbanger" type songs, and while we weren't a heavy metal band, we saw the crowds come alive when we played them. Trends in music were very definitely changing.  Like it or not, if we were going to continue to compete with local rock bands, we were going to have to play that stuff, and we would have to make it appear that we enjoyed it. 

Word must have gotten around that we were playing more heavy metal material because the following Saturday night was packed at the Ft. Worth club. We were getting more compliments than we'd heard in months. It felt great to have the old egos stroked again. We were so taken aback by the overwhelming number of positive comments that we started to wonder if maybe - just maybe - we might have one more good run left in us. Then, in the midst of everything else that was going on, Rick Miller and Carla got married. 

The small and private ceremony with the Justice of the Peace took place on February 13, 1984, with a reception at the club for family and friends later that night. Carla hadn't spent much time at the club in a while, and I didn't know how she felt about Rick still being in the music business. There had been a time - only a few short months earlier, when that marriage might have put us on a "Yoko Alert." But by the time Rick and Carla got married, despite the recent positive vibes and good turnouts, we weren't concerned about a wife, or girlfriend breaking up the band anymore. Savvy was already in the process of disintegrating on its own.  

CHAPTER 55:  SAVVY HITS THE SLOPES

SAVVY STORY INDEX

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