a thing of the past but....flat bed trailers and parades

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

When I was growing up, playing on the back of a truck or flat bed trailer was a common thing. These were often rodeo's or small town street dances. On one occasion we played on a covered wagon float in a Gresham, Oregon, parade.

Another facet of playing music in the good olde days was getting to play over local radio stations. On one occasions, we drove more than 150 miles to play a gig down on the Oregon Coast for our whopping 'BIG STAR' pay of $35.00. As we drove into town, the local radio station was playing our bands' 4-Star Records over the air and telling the township that we'd be playing down at the local grange hall. Now, that was BIG TIME, eh?

Later on, we did television shows, one lasting for more than three years while another had as guest celebrity Tex Williams and Rusty (somebody)..... with a full 12-14 piece band including horns. WOW!

How many of you got to enjoy those kind of experiences? Oh, and the local girls really tho't you were somebody 'impotent'. Those were the days!

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

I remember once driving down to Toledo, Oregon to audition for a "band" that had had a weekly radio show there for some years. I met the man and his wife whose show it was and we sat down to play a few tunes. It was a fine playlist of classic western tunes that I liked, although I missed the absent bass, her singing could have been a lot better and I can't say his guitar was really in tune either. Still, I had a wife and a small child to feed and I hung in there hoping for a paying job, but when they told me they were having a heck of a time deciding whether to add a steel guitar or a bass to their radio show I quietly started packing up my gear for the long drive back home...

Cal Sharp · From: the farm in Kornfield Kounty, TN

Hiya Ray,

I played on a flatbed trailer at a truckstop, backing up Dave Dudley, Red Sovine and Dick Curliss. It was a fun gig.

I've played a few other gigs on trailers, at rodeos and once at a mobile home dealership.

At another gig we got rained out and moved the show into a barn and played on some kind of a trailer or farm implement or something. I had hay in my case when I got back to Nashville.

One time with Faron we got all set up on a trailer at a rodeo, with no electricity, and were hauled out into the arena to do the show after the bull riders got done, and had to play without benefit of being able to tune.
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Jerry Hayes · From: Virginia Beach, Va.

We still do it! Every year for the last 4 or 5 years we've been playing the Christmas Party for a local road construction and paving company. In their warehouse they park one of those long trailers like they carry heavy equipment on and we set up on that. It's nice as they always have good food and we're paid pretty good for the event. A couple of the employees usually have to get up and sing a song or two with us but that's OK as it's their event and most years we've received an additional bonus when it was over......

I've done quite a few of these over the years but my favorite was with the Jerry Cole band in SoCal when we did one outside at Marineland of the Pacific for Tat & Tandem Productions (Norman Lear's company). There were a bunch of TV stars at that one but I was more interested in the food, every kind you could think of and we partook............JH in Va.
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Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

In Texas, it's done all the time, but predominantly in the summer and fall seasons, which have the majority of the outdoor gigs.
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Bo Borland · From: South Jersey -

I did one last year, on a low boy flat bed covered in straw.. whats up with that anyway?

The stink bugs invaded my gear and a yellow jacket flew under my shirt and stung me..

I was awesome !

Morgan Scoggins · From: Georgia, USA

Back in about 1957, my buddy Arthur and myself had gotten us each a new Stella 6 string guitar for Xmas and had learned a couple of chords, C and G7.
We walked a couple of miles to local country music singer, Happy Hal Burns, who was broadcasting the show from a trailer parked at a super market parking lot.
We only knew a song called Down In The Valley/ Birmingham Jail and for some strange reason, we thought Happy Hal would let us sing it on his show. Well of course, that never happened, but we had a great time and Happy Hal was a great guy. He was around Birmingham, Alabama for many years and was a very popular local Country Western singer
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Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

The last time I played on a flatbed truck was the Ross Coleman Invitational in Molalla, Oregon. My sound company was providing the sound for the post-show party and the "band" found out beforehand that I played pedal steel and asked me to bring it to the show and sit in with them.

This turned out to be something out of NC called "Sunny Ledfurd" which consisted of a singer with an acoustic guitar, a drummer, and a buddy of theirs ("Bubba") who had a little drum pad thingy that he had programmed to play the eight bass notes that he needed most. They had put a rap song on the internet about Ross Coleman successfullly riding an "unrideable" bull and the head of the PBR circuit fell in love with them, sending them all over the country to play at PBR-sanctioned events.

They would start a song and go full tilt until the singer had sung the parts he remembered, at which point he would segue into another song, again until he couldn't remember any more words and he would just start up another without stopping. This went on all night, if the singer needed to take a pee break "Bubba" would take the guitar mid-song and keep things going until the singer came back. My mix engineer told me that the steel guitar was the only thing that sounded like music coming from the stage, but the drunken kids all loved it and sang along with every song, including some that I had never heard before.

The only cover over this stage was a 10' x 10' tent in one corner, not for the band but for the bull riders who had their own several cases of beer set aside there, where they could party and watch without being crushed by the drunken crowd. At one point I turned and saw beer all over the stage behind me, a few minutes later the beer was all over my guitar case, then my amp, then my cables. When the beer started splashing on my VP I knew the guitar was next so I finally said something to the closet celebrant about trying to keep the beer off my equipment.

Now here's the notable observation from this event: With probably two six-packs down in the space of an hour, one the toughest, most macho bull riders in the entire world says to me in all sincerity "I'm sorry sir, what do we need to do?" That's when I remembered that regardless of how many brains some folks credit bull riders with having or where they come from, most real cowboys have had mothers who taught them proper manners and no BS about it!

Roger Rettig · From: Naples, FL

Ray wrote:

"Oh, and the local girls really tho't you were somebody 'impotent'. Those were the days!"

That's an unfortunate sentence in which to drop an 'r'!
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Billy Tonnesen · From: R.I.P., Buena Park, California

Ray:
I can relate to about everything that you said about the good old days and then some. Speaking of local Radio Shows. After getting out of the army in 1954 I went over to Yuba City, Ca. to help run the MOONlight Ballroom with Ole Rasmussen.
There was a 500 Watt Radio Station in the back of the local Feed Store. Ole knew how to run the Station and they let him go ahead and put on an early morning record show advertizing the week end Dance. Ole would crank up the Watts to 5000 and was over riding every small station on that frequency from the Oregon border down to Fresno. Never did get caught. Also when we played the Farm Country, every Farm Family would compdete to have the Band come by and have Chicken Dinner before the Dance started. At this time Phil Baugh was on Lead Guitar and Jesse Ashlock was playing fiddle. Jesse was fighting his Demons but was a very talented guy.

I left and came back to So.Calif. before the big flood of 1955, which wiped out the Ballroom. I went back to College on the G.I. Bill and let Music help put me through school, playing just on week-Ends.

Dave Ziebarth · From: Rockville, MD

I've done a couple of shows on the back of flatbed trucks (on regular guitar, though - not steel). Both a lot of fun. One was a rodeo in Frederick, MD backing up singer Jaime Fox where they drove us onto the muddy field with the band all set-up on the truck! One of the charts went flying in to the bulls*** never to be seen again.

Ken Pippus · From: Langford, BC, Canada

Played a bunch of rodeo parades with an electrical generator on the flatbed and the microphone stands nailed to the bed. Usually playing bass and singing. At least playing steel, sitting down would be better. Flatbed trailers are a much safer stage when they're not busy being a trailer. And yes, a moving microphone can chip your teeth.

KP

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Having small ensembles live on the radio used to be really big. I used to play on a weekly radio show Saturday mornings with a group called the "Harmonairs" over station KDUZ in Hutchinson, MN.
When this group broke up I started a group called the "Country Cousins" and we played a weekly radio show in the evening over KWLM in Willmar, MN.
There was an announcer over KDUZ and my cousin and I would accompany him on his weekly program also.
The only time I got on television was once when my cousin and I stopped in and visited Dick Bills and his Sandia Mountain Boys on his TV broadcast in Albuquerque, NM.

Rick Schacter · From: Portland, Or.

My first gig was at a roller skating rink in Eugene, Or. which was quickly followed by a gig at the Coburg Golden Years in Coburg, Or.

The stage was made up from some hay bails with plywood on top. I was 14.

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

When I was about 13-14 years old, a Hawaiian seagoing tug named "ONO" arrived in our friendly river waters. They invited me out to the boat and insisted I bring along my Gibson lap steel and amp.

I was wearing my leather shoes with steel cleets on the toe, both sides af the ball of the foot, and on the heel. As sat down on the steel picnic table in the galley area one of the Hawaiians energized my little Gibson amp.

It was then, I discovered I couldn't move my hands at which time one of the guys jumped up and turned my amp 'off'. They then realized I needed AC current and they had generator supplied DC. WOW!

They ultimately fixed the electrical conflict and we played music for several hours. That was truly and electrifying experience for this young lad.

Have any of you had a shocking experience while playing steel guitar?

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Ray,
It sounds like you were a little tap dancing guy.

Steve Kirtley · From: Tennessee, USA

Back in the day, I had a Gospel Bluegrass band. We traveled full time and we did it all. We performed in a few parades on a trailer behind a tractor or pickup, in supermarket parking lots, roller rinks, barns, at big Bluegrass festivals, tiny Bluegrass festivals (where the stage might indeed a flat-bed trailer), big churches, tiny churches way back in the woods, audiences of 10 to 10,000.

We were often scheduled at local radio stations as we traveled around, where we did interviews and played live on air. Occasionally we'd play live on our home church's Sunday morning radio program. It was a remote broadcast from the church over a phone line to the radio station. There was only one big Shure mike for the broadcast. Someone would listen to the radio station with an earphone and when they heard the announcement they'd give us the "high sign" and we'd start playing. We did some TV shows as well.

We were lucky to break even financially at the end of every month, but I wouldn't take anything for the experience.

Robert Thomas · From: Mehama, Oregon, USA

Hi Ray, thanks for the memories.
You will remember all of these. Playing on the radio station in Sweethome, Oregon. Playing at the cottonwoods with "Joe Massey and the Frontiersmen", nice band with twin fiddles. Backed Rex Allen at the Fair in Eugene, Oregon, had to run out onto the middle of the field in front of the stands and setup very quickly on a sheet of plywood to back him while he sang. The Old dance hall at the Aumsville Pavilion with Larry and Rose Hendricks. These were all a lot of years ago. There are many more memories and thanks for posting thjis topic and for sharing yours.

Ransom Beers · Posted 3 Dec 2011 4:29 am

I remember one time the band I was with at the time were playing on a trailer for the Fireman's picnic in our local town ,we were really getting into a song when all of a sudden we lost our drummer.Seems his drum throne got a bit close to the edge & bloop,down he went.I know that had to hurt too.We finished the night but with a few aches & pains from the drummer.

Nic du Toit · From: Milnerton, Cape, South Africa

Roger.....you beat me to it!!..... I was lucky....Some girls didn't think so! Laughing

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Ransom Beers · Posted 3 Dec 2011 5:13 am

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