The Roots of the Tri-State Music Scene, Part 1
by Mike Ironside
The imminent return of the Silver Dollar Cantina is generating a great deal of excitement among local live music fans and 365 staff alike. While anticipation for what the Dollar 2.0 will be like has been the predominant topic of discussion, those of us who were around for the earlier version have done a fair bit of reminiscing about the place the German Bank bar once held in the live music scene and the bands that played there. Although some of us might feel like old-timers after shoveling out from yet another snow storm, the truth is that in many ways, we are just kids compared to some of the musicians and live music fans who have come before us.
The more we thought about it, the more we realized that while in many ways the Silver Dollar could be seen as the inspiration for some of the local live music scene of today, there must have been other venues before, not to mention local musicians and bands that played those places and live music fans that went to see them. “There has got to be a story there,” we thought. The only trouble was, we weren’t even sure who we should ask.
So in typical 365 fashion, we called a few people we know who could put us on the right track – George Rondinelli of Rondinelli Music/Audio, traveling troubadour and Midwest Music Makers host Denny Garcia, Bill “Cricket” Davis, who’s been playing bass for the Mississippi band for over 30 years, and of course, 365’s own Ralph Kluseman.
From these initial calls, we generated a long list of local musicians we could interview and every subsequent call we made added two or three more to the list. I guess we had some idea that there was an iceberg of information just under the surface, but we had no idea how big it was. As it turns out, though we have lost a few of the Tri-State area’s live music scene founders along the way (Dick “The Duke” Spautz, Ron Miller, Del Schmitt, Jim Nakashima, Gene Grant), not only are there many musicians from the early days still around but quite a few are still out there playing! We talked to a few on the phone or scheduled individual interviews, but with a limited timeline we thought a group interview might be a fun way to cover some ground and share some stories from “back in the day.” It would also provide us an opportunity to shoot a photo for our cover.
From our long list of musicians, we invited a few to sit down for lunch with us at Denny’s Lux Club, a friendly neighborhood bar on Asbury Road and longtime fixture in the local live music scene. We tried to assemble a group that represented a range of styles and covered local live music history from the 1950s through the ‘80s (and today – they’re still all playing). We were thrilled to hear stories from Artie Mentz, Rick Tittle, Mark Oberfoell, Mike Mason, Ralph Kluseman, Johnny Walker, and Laura McDonald. As it turns out, not only did they all know one another, most of them have played together at some point over the years.
We also realize that there are many more musicians we could have called. Some of the same names came up again and again – Chuck Crimmins, Ronnie McDonald, Bobby Greenwood, Johnny Piper, Dick McGrane, Fred Scharpf, Andy Krayer, Mike Lieb, Paul Hemmer, Dick Sturman, Dave Richter, Mike Reiss, Andy Wilberding – and there were many, many more. There were some we did call who either were not available or declined to participate, and some we just ran out of time to include, but our decisions were in no way intended to exclude anyone.
After all, our intention was to shine a light – a small narrow beam, perhaps – on the history of the area live music scene. The limitations of time and space (curse you laws of physics!) simply would not allow us to fully illuminate the depth and range of a music history that is bigger, broader, and way more interesting than we ever imagined. And while we heard some good stories, I’ll bet there are a lot more out there – maybe even a few that we couldn’t print if we did hear them! (Got a story to share? Drop us a line at ink@Dubuque365.com.)
In addition to the range of musicians mentioned above, some of the same band names came up again and again – The Shades, The Clichés, The Natives, The Bands of Gold, Saddletramp,– and others that came up in the course of interviews and stories – The Hitchhikers, Denny and the Dukes, the Quarrymen, The Nocturnes, Butterscotch Grove, the Apple Corps, Johnny & the Moondogs, Wildwood, Tussle, Grand Slam, Goldie Rocks, and Flashback, among others.
Over the years live music fans went to see bands at clubs like the Hi-Hat, Club 26, Schnees, The Circle, The Chateau, The Townhouse, Apartment 5A, Hullabaloo, The Canteen, A&A Tap, The Nightlife, Bob’s Rec, Junnie’s, Jim’s Corral, the Lucky Lady, Mr. Hyde’s, and the Wagon Wheel.
But we wanted to hear a few of the stories about how it all got started. One of the first questions we asked in all our interviews was, “Who inspired you to start playing music?” The answers vary accordingly, but illuminate a thread of continuity through the years.
“When I was 12 years old I started going to the Melody Mill,” explained Artie Mentz, “and I saw all the big names there – Johnny Cash, Ricky Nelson, The Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee – I mean the old-timers. And that’s when I realized I wanted to perform. And then when I was about 15, I started playing in nightclubs, I was working in East Dubuque six nights a week when I was 15 years old. Still going to school and I was late for school quite a bit.”
Melody Mill was a big dance hall north of Dubuque along Highway 52 on the way to Sageville, where a lumberyard now sits. The dance hall itself represents an important part of Dubuque history. It was rebuilt from the dance hall at Union Park in the 1920s after attempts to revive the park after the destructive flashflood of 1919 failed. Melody Mill saw it’s heyday through the 1920s and ‘30s with jazz and swing big bands and country dances that continued through the ‘40s into the ‘50s, when many of the biggest names in rock-n-roll played there.
In addition to those mentioned above, Mentz recalled the Fireballs and the Ventures played Melody Mill as well. “Cricket” Davis noted that Gene Vincent also played there and passed along a story that Mississippi band founder Dwayne Fudge saw the Beach Boys play the dance hall, the first to have a “big electric sound that just blew everybody away.” Davis, along with others we interviewed related the story that Bill Haley was stopped for drunk driving while he
was in Dubuque to play Melody Mill. Despite the popularity of the dance hall through most of the mid-20th century, Melody Mill closed in 1964, but the famous dance floor still serves swing dancers and wedding guests at the Dubuque County Fairgrounds.
The Fairgrounds was the location of an inspirational moment for Ralph Kluseman when he saw an often-mentioned influential band, The Natives, also an early favorite of Mike Mason’s, play there in 1969. Anyone who knows Ralph knows he’s a huge Beatles fan, so when The Natives played the Fab Fours’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band, he was convinced. “I remember going into the teen tent,” recalls Kluseman, “and (The Natives) played Sergeant Pepper and I thought ‘oh my goodness, that sounds so fabulous’ and they were having such a great time and the crowd was going nuts and everything… I’ve gotta do that. Of course I already knew from watching Ed Sullivan on February 9, 1964, that I was going to be a guitar player.” You can probably guess what group was on the Sullivan show on that date.
Rick Tittle remembers seeing live music at the Point Roller Rink – local bands like The Nocturnes and bigger acts like Bobby Goldsborough and the Taylor Twins – but it was jamming with other bands in East Dubuque at clubs like the Hi-Hat and Club 26 where he really got his start. Back in the 1950s and ‘60s, East Dubuque, Illinois, was a hotbed of Tri-State entertainment. Nightclubs lined the strip with many of them offering live music. Mentz remembers other clubs and the scene at the time – “Schnees, The Townhouse … you know every other bar over there had a live band at one time, and it was great ‘cause if you didn’t like one you could just go down the street one or two doors and find another band there.”
Tittle recalls the particular attention to timing that worked for fans and musicians alike, asking, “Didn’t everybody in East Dubuque used to time their breaks so that one would be going on break on the hour and one would be going on break on the quarter-hour so that everybody could go around and see each other?”
Mentz agrees and relates a bit more about his experience in the club scene. “I started going over to East Dubuque when I was about 14 years old,” he explains. “I saw Chuck Crimmins and all the old-timers and I used to ask them, ‘can I get up and sing a song,’ and they always let me get up and that’s kinda how I got started. … and then singing at school dances with Ronnie (McDonald) and the guys. We all grew up together and we just had a good time. It was fun and it still is.”
A hugely influential musician in the early Tri-State rock-n-roll music scene, Ronnie McDonald inspired a generation of younger players in bands like The Shades. Mentz played with McDonald regularly at the East Dubuque clubs. “You know in the ‘60s, I worked in East Dubuque six nights a week for 110 dollars,” he explains. “That’s what Ronnie and I made in the ‘60s. That’s for the whole week.”
Mentz has played with a wide variety of musicians over the years, including pianist Chuck Bregman. With classical training and repertoire of over 3000 songs from jazz and big band to contemporary, Bregman can play just about anything. “That guy, he can sit in with anybody,” said Mentz. “He is so talented. He came right in with me and did my shows. Just tell him the key that it’s in and he just goes…“
Bregman recollects his own formative experience across the river. “My dad used to take me to East Dubuque back in the very early ‘60s,” he says, “I was about six, seven years old and I used to hear Kenny Wolfe and Denny Tillman at the organ over at Timmerman’s. I heard the Busch Brothers a couple of times way back and I didn’t know who they were until later, but I recognized them about 15 years later!”
He also recalls one of the strip’s primary nightclubs. “The Circle used to be a real fine dining place,” he relates. “They had floor shows and they had a bigger house band which they would switch off every six to eight months. I heard a lot of people that I met later and became colleagues with as professionals who would play over there.”
Many of the East Dubuque clubs changed over the years. Clubs that hosted live music in the ‘50s introduced go-go girls in the ‘60s, sometimes dancing onstage next the bands. The style of music changed over time as well. “Back in the early days, just about every club had a duo or trio or four-piece group,” explains Bregman. “Back in the ‘50s, it was all music of the ‘30s, ‘40s over there, a lot of horn players and piano players … and then guitar players and ‘50s rock groups started to come in. Over time, eventually that stuff slowly was replaced by rock bands and through the ‘60s and ‘70s it was entirely replaced by rock-n-roll.”
The clubs themselves changed names over the years as well. Many musicians playing today remember Mr. Hyde’s as one of the prominent rock clubs on the strip, though in previous incarnations it was the Nightlife and the Cabaret, probably among other names. Mike Mason has a particular memory of playing the East Dubuque club in 1969 after his band, the Apple Corps won a battle of the bands. “I remember I played there the night they landed on the moon,” Mason recalls, “I remember during a break going out back and looking up and going, ‘Wow!’”
Wow, indeed. We’ve come to the end of part 1 of our look back at the roots of Tri-State music (really, we couldn’t fit any more in this issue!) and we have only scratched the surface of the vibrant entertainment scene up through the end of the ‘60s. We have yet to cover some of Dubuque’s clubs in the late 20th century, how Mark Oberfoell, Mike Mason, Laura McDonald and Johnny Walker got started and much more. Look for a second installment in our March 20 issue of 365ink.
Coming up in part 2: George Rondinelli joins a band with Ralph, Artie Mentz goes on tour, Mark Oberfoell plays everything with everybody, Laura McDonald finds her inspiration, Mike Mason tries to remember how many bands he’s been in, Rick Tittle falls off stage, Johnny Walker never turns down a drink, and everybody hates karaoke!