Buck Cheshire
925-787-6149
bjcheshire@comcast.net
Tim Barnes
John Howard
Greg Johnston
John Koeller
Jeff MacDonald
John Miller
Dan "Jackson" Stanton
Mark "Bogomoe" Volgamore
& Friends
Buck Shot
Buck Shot History - 1
One Friday night in 1950 when I was 5 years old I was awakened from sleep by my parents, dressed in my “Billy the Kid “cowboy suit, and taken to see Dude Martin and his Roundup Gang.
The band included singer Sue Thompson, who went on to record early 60’s hits “Norman”, “Sad Movies”, and her biggest hit “Paper Tiger”. The band was playing at a local Oakland, CA night club, possibly Vernetti’s Townhouse in Emeryville. My mom took me with her during the band’s break and asked Sue Thompson if I could sing the Tennessee Waltz, a Patti Page song I had recently memorized from listening to the radio. Sue asked Dude Martin, he said ‘okay’, and I sang the song with the microphone lowered, and Sue bending over and singing with me. Even at the young age of 5 years old, I knew I wanted to do this again and again. The crowd appeared to love it and I was given Roy Rogers to drink the rest of the night from people who liked the performance.
All through my childhood I continued to sing in school recitals and for my family events. In 1956 while watching Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show and the reactions he received from the women, I asked my mom if I could take guitar lessons. Two weeks later I came home from school and my mom announced, “There’s a guitar in the hallway and your lessons start Thursday.” The guitar was an acoustic Kalamazoo Steel Hawaiian Model. I learned to play it and then bought an electric slide guitar with money I earned from my paper route. After learning to play the classic song ”Steel Guitar Rag”, I traded the steel slide for a National Electric 6 string and started taking new lessons. I wanted to be like Elvis.
One of my childhood friends, Bob Turner, played tenor Ukulele and could sing like Johnny Mathis. Bob and I started singing together and harmonizing The Everly Brothers songs for grammar school shows. In the eighth grade I joined my first band. It was a combo of 4 guys that included a drummer, alto saxophone player, piano player, and me. It was a learning experience that would never leave my memory.
When I entered high school one of my classmates in my freshman year was a local guitar player and band leader named John Fogarty, who went on to form the band Creedence Clearwater Revival. Along with John and three other guys we formed the band The Centennials, named because our class would be the 100th class to graduate from our high school. John taught the band some songs and me how to play basic rhythm guitar licks most of which I still utilize today. Our freshman year we played at a few assemblies and one dance. John left St. Mary’s High School during his freshman year and attended El Cerrito High School from where he graduated. While there he led a band called The Blue Velvets and later The Golliwogs before forming CCR and making the smash hit “Suzy Q” for Fantasy records.
I continued to practice the riffs John taught me, but my musical interest was changing from Rock N’ Roll to the up-and-coming folk music and later folk rock. Two young men who were a year ahead of me at St. Mary’s were Butch Waller and Herb Pedersen. They gave me and fellow classmate Craig Deforce some rudimentary guitar instruction on folk music and some advice on how to play it. They went on to be prominent performers of Folk, Blue Grass, and Country music High Country Blue Grass of California & Herb Pedersen.
I formed a duet with Craig DeForce and we called ourselves the Gruesome Twosome. We’d play anywhere people would listen - mostly teen club shows and parties.
Our idols were The Kingston Trio and we learned most of their songs along with some popular folk and country songs.
After about a year of playing we thought we needed to expand the duet to a trio and high school friend Ricky Sunseri was asked to join the group. Around the same time that Ricky joined the group we met a young woman by the name of Pan Nehls who could sing like a bird. Pan's parents were very supportive and her father, Harold "Froggy" Nehls became our manager, and our friend Tom March our sound man. The group was called The Country Club Singers.
We started to emulate the Australian Group The Seekers and "I'll Never Find Another You".
Left to Right -
Mike Sanders, Dave Johns, Bob Turner, Pan Nehls, Bain Cheshire
The Country Club Singers appeared at all types of venues, anywhere they would have us, from The San Francisco Hilton and a brief "one-nightery" at the famous Hungry I Nightclub in San Francisco, to the annual Calaveras Jumping Frog Contest that included a Hootenanny Competition, which we won, and had a chance to sing one song in front of an amphitheater filled with several thousands of people. When you’re 16 -17 years old, that’s quite an experience.
That same year we played Colusa County Fair where we shared the stage with famous Country Artists Freddy Hart (Freddie Hart Easy Lovin' Top 100 Country Songs) who sang the hit “Easy Lovin'” and Johnny Bond, who sang the original version of “Hot Rod Lincoln”, later covered in 1972 by Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen.
However, we mostly played country clubs, U.S. Army Enlisted and NCO clubs, the occasional coffee house in Berkeley, or a college venue.
By the way, our name came from drinking Country Club Stout Malt Liquor not from playing country clubs. Yes, we were teen age drinkers.
After a year Ricky left the group and was replaced by my grammar school singing buddy Bob Turner. Soon after Ricky left, Craig left to pursue other interests, mostly girls and surfing. Craig was replaced by Dave Johns who was a fabulous guitar player and singer.
Left to Right- Dave Johns, Pan Nehls, Bob Turner, Bain Cheshire
Last version of the Country Club Singers
The group changed dramatically and was no longer just a young wannabe singing group but actually displayed some musical talent. We were given an audition at Fantasy Records, then located in San Francisco, and had one headliner star, the great pianist Vince Guaraldi. Vince is probably most remembered for the musical tracks of the Peanuts cartoons and the beautiful song, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind".
In those days no record company wanted to pay royalties, so you had to perform your songs or public domain songs if you wanted to be recorded. We had neither. However, Max Weiss, co-founder of Fantasy Records, saw something in us that he liked and introduced us to singer/song writer Sam Stroud. Fantasy considered Sam too old to perform in the market with young folk musicians and the forthcoming British invasion of singers.
Sam taught us five of his songs which we later recorded on an acetate. One of the songs, “I love You in Many Ways”, was planned to be released as a single after violin tracks were added. An East Coast tour was considered to release the song, which had it occurred would have been interesting since we were all in school and it was the middle of the U.S. Military Draft for the war in Vietnam.
Well, we never did anything; I dropped a course I was failing from a 15-unit schedule and was immediately drafted. The group broke up and I went off to the U.S. Army for three years. Somewhere there exists a cassette of those five songs we recorded.
When I returned from the military I tried to reunite with Pan Nehls as a duet, but the music had changed and Pan was in college. Everyone's priorities were to not get drafted, remain in school, find a job, move out of their parents’ house or find a place of their own.
I continued to play the guitar. I had a Martin Mahogany 015 which I dropped one night and cracked its back while under the influence of booze and drugs. The guitar still played and could have been repaired, but instead I traded it for a Franciscan 12 string valued at $125. I had to borrow $5 from a girl friend to pay the sales tax. When I took the guitar to another guitar shop for their appraisal and told them what I traded, they advised me to see if I could get the guitar back because it was worth at least $300. However, the guy who sold me the 12 string told me there was no getting the Martin back and that a deal was a deal. It was a lesson well learned.
A few years later I married Margot (Maggie May) George and for my 30th birthday gave me a brand new 1968 Martin D-28 12 String Guitar.
My life was changed. I became obsessed with learning songs, mostly old and then-current country, and Southern rock songs by e.g. Charlie Daniels, Marshall Tucker, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Jones and Kenny Rogers. I would take the guitar with me everywhere I traveled and played and sang at any opportunity, usually fuelled by whiskey and Peruvian Marching powder.
Margot and I were married for 8 years.
Are you ready to Rock 'n Roll? Live POP ROCK COUNTRY Music from the 50s thru 80s