I needed to do a lot of research to get the information I would need to become a successful entertainer, and one of the ways to do that was to spend time in bars watching the people who were working to see what they did. Sometimes Carol would go with me; sometimes I went out on my own. I would talk to the entertainers when they took a break, and, once in a while, they would insist that I get up on stage a play a couple of songs. That was always fun since all I had to do was play a couple of my best songs, take the applause, and turn the stage back over to the professionals. I also got to know the guy who owned the music store in town. He was a great resource for me, as he talked to most of the other musicians in town and so knew a bit about what was going on around town. He was also a guitar player, which would eventually become a member of my band.
While making the rounds of the various bar and lounges around town, I took in a show at one of the hotels east of town. The guy playing there had a unique set up which included a reel-to-reel tape deck and some very large speakers. He was a solo act, but using the tape deck he was able to sound like a whole country band. What he had done was record an album at some point. He then had the vocal and lead guitar track removed from the recording. During his performance, he would click on the tape and play and sing along with the recorded band. In addition he had an electronic drum machine with which he would accompany himself as he played and sang songs that were not on his album tape. This was very impressive to me. Here was a guy who had found a way to be a whole band all by himself. I was fascinated and spent several evenings listening to him play. During his breaks we would talk and I got to know him rather well. One of the things I found out about him was that he had rolled his vehicle on the way to Steamboat Springs and it was in the process of being repaired. Towards the end of his stay in Steamboat Springs, his vehicle repairs were completed and I gave him a ride over Rabbit Ears Pass so that he could retrieve it. I had told him that I was trying to break into the entertainment business. He gave me the number of his agent and said that he would recommend me to him.
If I was going to become a one-man band, I would need to get a drum machine. With the help of my friend at the local music store, I ordered a machine of the same make and model that my friend for the hotel had been using. When it arrived, I figured out how to get it to do what I needed it to do and practiced using it. I also needed to build my repertoire, so I bought, listen to and learned to play lots and lots of country songs, both old ones and new ones. Country music lends itself very well to solo entertainers, since it is relative simple and relies primarily on melody and lyrics communicate its message. I practiced and practiced until I had put together enough material to play a four-hour show. On the recommendation of my friend, I got myself booked into the same local hotel where he had played. I did well enough there that I felt confident that I could be successful in other places. The next thing I needed was a demo tape and some photographs of myself. I set up a tape recorder and taped one of my performances. One of my friends took a picture of me with my guitar and I had some copies made. Finally, I got in touch with the agent and sent him some tapes, pictures, a song list and some biographical information to use in getting me whatever bookings he could find. A few weeks later, he reported that he had me booked for six weeks into a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama.
Over that summer, I played in Birmingham, Alabama; Edinburg, Texas; and twice in Abilene, Texas. During that time, I blew up the engine in my old Volkswagen station wagon and replaced it myself in the parking lot of the hotel where I was performing in Edinburg. Both of my acoustic guitars where damaged from the heat inside of the car as I drove across Texas. By the time I had finished with my Big Southern Tour, I was ready to break into the entertainment scene in Steamboat Springs. Okay, well maybe “break into” isn’t quite the right choice of words, but I had a enough confidence from my tour that I started getting some work.
In the nine years that I lived in Steamboat Springs, I went from playing single-act gigs to starting my own band. I worked with an increasing number of different local musicians and performed under a variety of band names including Two for the Money, Three for the Money, The Country Flames, and The Slammers. Both Two for the Money and Three for the Money played in the bars in the ski area during the winter season. The Slammers was a brief digression into rock-and-roll and was a short-lived configuration. The Country Flames was the most successful of the bands and had a steady engagement at the new dance hall on the west end of town for nearly a year. I was also did my one-man band show on a regular schedule in Saratoga, Wyoming and Baggs, Wyoming, with casual appearances in Laramie, Wyoming; Centennial, Wyoming; and Elk Mountain, Wyoming.
During the day, I worked with Carol at the secretarial service she had purchased. She bought the business with the idea that she would be able to sit at the reception desk in the building, answer the phones when they rang and sit and read a book when the phones were quiet. It didn’t work out that way. She wound up taking care of somewhere around twenty-seven phone lines and performing a wide variety of secretarial services for the tenants of the building. It got so busy that I would pitch in and help. I worked as the Computer Department, creating resumes, proposals, term papers and doing the bookkeeping on an Apple //e computer. I thought the little Apple computer was great and I talked Carol into letting me buy one with the promise that I would make it pay for itself. It did, indeed, pay for itself and quickly, at that. I would come in a do computer projects for Carol during the day and then go out a play in the bars with the band at night. It was a great life and we were big fish in a little pond there in Steamboat Springs.
Of course, I still wasn’t hanging around with the “cool” people. The people I was hanging around with were local business owners with families. They were certainly not the “in” crowd. The “in” crowd seemed to do a lot of drinking and attended a lot of parties to which I was never invited. The people in my band and who I worked with were mostly hard-working, fun-loving, decent citizens of that little town; one owned the auto parts store west of town, another owned a restaurant, another owned the music store. Carol’s friends were attorneys and real estate brokers and their wives. In other words, we were staunchly and solidly living life in the middle lane where I always seem to find myself. As good as things were for us there in that lovely little mountain town, we felt the need to move west. Carol’s brother and sister where living in Los Angeles, California and they furnished us with a variety of compelling reasons to make a move to the big city. We were at the top of our game and we felt that in order to reach our goals we needed a bigger pond to swim in, so we started planning the move. We put our little trailer house on the market and we offered the business for sale.
Both the house and the business sold rather quickly and for more than we expected them to bring. We found homes for our cats and our dog, and we packed everything we owned into a twenty-two foot rented truck. Carol’s kids had elected to stay in Steamboat Springs with their father, which was difficult and is a very long story all of its own. (Perhaps, I’ll write that story, too, someday.) We hooked the VW station wagon to the back of our Jeep Wagoneer, and set off on our journey to California with Carol driving the Jeep and me behind the wheel of the truck. We had CB radios so we could keep in touch on the road. We had maps and some food for the trip. As we pulled out of the driveway, our life in Steamboat Springs dwindled in our rearview mirrors. Ahead of us was a new adventure. We had no real plan, not too much money and no concept of what life in Los Angeles was like. We were soon to find out.
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