The Early Years of a Rock and Roll Dreamer

My name is Rollie Anderson. I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Oak Cliff, to be exact. For the first thirteen years of my life I was a typical youngster who occupied himself with riding his bike alongside his pseudo-hoodlum neighborhood pals, cursing the fact that he was woefully inept at playing baseball and contemplating the shrouded mystery of pretty girls. I was also wholly addicted to music. All kinds. I used to sneak into my older sister’s bedroom when she was away and listen to her 45s of Elvis, Fats Domino, Fabian, Chuck Berry, Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka; and I would listen religiously to Russ “The Weird Beard” Knight on KLIF on my cigarette pack-sized transistor radio way past my bedtime but that was the extent of my participation in music. I had no innate talent to play an instrument. I was not a gifted prodigy. I was an avid listener, nothing more.

However, once I witnessed the phenomenon that was The Beatles when they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964 I became an “altered” boy. Up till then I had harbored dreams of becoming popular and making a name for myself as a star athlete or at least as an admired member of the prestigious school cheerleading squad. In the case of the former I was too much of a runt and nowhere near being dedicated enough to bulk up by working out. As for the latter I was just not equipped with the necessary charisma or stunning good looks to qualify. Nonetheless, my inner desire to be envied or, at least, accepted continued on unabated.

As mentioned earlier, I’d always enjoyed playing records on the phonograph and would sometimes imitate guitar players by strapping on a tennis racket or acting as if I was conducting an orchestra by standing on a chair in the middle of the living room with Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” blaring through the family’s cheap stereo. My mother’s well-intentioned attempt to lure me into becoming a pianist at the young age of eight years old was a failure simply because my overwhelming preference at that stage of development was to be outside playing with my buddies, not practicing scales. However, she was persistent and the lessons she paid good money for lasted about a year before she finally realized that she might as well have flushed her cash down the toilet. In retrospect she did me a huge favor because it gave me a fundamental understanding of music that I would not have gotten otherwise. (Thanks, Mom)

But, like I said, everything changed after the Fab Four shook their mop-tops and sang “She Loves You” on television. Rock & Roll had me hooked like a marlin and wasn’t about to let go. There, in gorgeous black and white, was my salvation. The answer to my prayers. My ticket to fulfillment. The purpose for my being born. It became crystal clear to me that I was conceived in order to be a famous bass guitarist just like Paul McCartney.

What my parents’ immediate reaction to this epiphany was I can’t recall. If anything, I’m sure they thought it was nothing more than another fad that they would live through in much the same way they lived through my sister’s Elvis infatuation. I would most likely become enthralled and obsessed for a while, then return to the path they had carefully laid out for me that would lead to college and a career, most likely in some respected field like architecture or engineering.

They had no way of knowing that my next sixteen years would be spent in relentless pursuit of my dreams of musical fame and fortune not unlike what I observed happening to the four talented lads from Liverpool.

The fact that I couldn’t put together two notes of music on a guitar that made any sense didn’t present a problem in my mind. I was able to pick out a few chords on the upright piano thanks to the aforementioned lessons but nothing that actually sounded like a song. Nonetheless, I soon found out that other teenage boys like the friends I hung out with at Kiestwood Baptist Church had also been instantly afflicted with the same “Mersey Beat” fever that I had contracted. We realized that we had the necessary four members for a combo and, in quick order, assigned each other the various positions we were going to occupy.

This level of naiveté can only be likened to the time when, in the 5th grade, my school pal Ernie and I decided that we’d wow the crowd by building a weather balloon for a science fair project. Easy. I told him all we had to do was construct a sturdy box out of spare plywood, put a battery inside it, attach it to a balloon and let it fly. The same logic was being employed concerning the start-up of my rock and roll outfit.

Gene Fowler was going to be Ringo Starr. Randy Davis would be our George Harrison. Phil Webster would take the spot held by John Lennon and I was to portray Paul, of course. That being settled, we now had to get our hands on the necessary hardware to perform with. All of us agreed to pester our parents without mercy until we had acquired the musical instruments we needed to fulfill our individual obligations to the group.

I’m not sure what reaction the other three got from their respective parental units to their expensive requests but, in my case, I got a very frosty reception from my mother in particular. Perhaps that is stating it too mildly. Martha Anderson had no intention of supplying her only son with the demonic key that unlocked the gates to Hell. If I was going to procure a bass guitar any time in the current millennium it appeared that my own blood, sweat and tears would have to be put into use to raise the money. Having no income beyond a weekly pittance of an allowance presented a genuine problem, so I proposed a deal they couldn’t refuse. My parents reluctantly agreed to finance a bass and an amplifier if I could miraculously manage to stay on the B honor roll throughout my 9th grade school year. Not being the most astute or brilliant student in town, this was a huge undertaking on my part and my folks reasoned that the upside vastly outweighed the negative aspects of the bargain. Plus, they probably thought I had a better chance at discovering the whereabouts of the lost Ark of the Covenant than bringing home decent grades. But, for me, now there was at least a road, however rocky it may have been, to get to the promise land.

Up to that point in my short life I had never wanted anything as much as I yearned for that guitar. I was serious. I was focused. I figured that if the power of positive thinking could any have any effect on improving my odds then I was on board. I began utilizing that subliminal force by including the phrase “I want a bass” in the daily journal I started making notes in as of January 1965. It appeared in every entry. Every day. Without fail. (I have proof.)

Meanwhile, our imaginary combo had yet to come up with the most important ingredient for success. We had to have a cool name. Our moniker was probably more vital than having instruments or talent. “Rollie and the Roundmen,” “The Roundabouts,” “The Rondells,” “The Landells,” “The Shastas,” “The Shastells,” “The Shondells” and “The Hubbubs” were the impressive front-runners early on. So as not to further worry our deeply concerned parents, we even drew up an agreement between us wherein we solemnly swore on the holy word of God that there would be no profanity, no drinking, no smoking or getting into trouble with the law in our band. We promised zero tolerance for any kind of shenanigans. We wanted to assure our elders that the decent Christian upbringing they had been so diligent in providing for us was not going to be carelessly discarded when we became huge stars cruising around in limousines (a fate we had no doubt whatsoever was destined to happen).

Soon Randy and Phil had inexpensive but functional acoustic guitars, courtesy of their nicer and more accommodating parents. Gene and I were running into a lot more resistance on that front and our inner simmering resentment rose accordingly. I started trying to wear my hair combed down over my forehead but my Dad wouldn’t have anything to do with that radical style and made me comb it to the side like normal young men did. But it was like trying to dam up a river. I didn’t want to be clean-cut anymore. My course was charted to sail into rebellious and unconventional waters and nothing my parents said or did could change that fact. It was the beginning of a long and tenuous war of wills.

After almost giving myself an ulcer for nine drama-filled months I proudly presented my final report card to Ollie and Martha, the one confirming that I had fulfilled my end of the bargain by maintaining a B grade average for my entire high school freshman year. Their amazed silence was deafening. My folks were stunned in their shock because it was definitely a good news/bad news outcome and, considering my underachieving nature, one that they really didn’t think possible this side of heaven.

Following a hasty huddle held in private, they solemnly informed me that, due to unforeseen financial difficulties, they wouldn’t be immediately able to buy the bass guitar and amp as promised. However, they could scrape together enough loose change to afford a nice Silvertone electric guitar from Sears & Roebuck.

At first I was highly indignant and outraged. But once I calmed myself down I had to admit that a standard electric guitar and amplifier was better than nothing and I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Mom and Dad said that if I continued to be dissatisfied with the six-string perhaps they could swing a deal to get me a bass guitar come Christmas. I accepted their offer.

On June 21, 1965 I got my first electric guitar, a double pickup black and white Silvertone solid body model that cost $54.95 plus tax. A few days later my Dad took me downtown to The Melody Shop and bought me a low-powered Kent amplifier. Words cannot describe the feeling of accomplishment and excitement that washed over me. I was now equipped to take on the rock and roll universe. All I had to do was learn how to play the dern thing.

I had seen various bands at school dances and sock hops like Seab Meador’s The Gentlemen and Jimmie Vaughan’s The Pendulums, but in that Summer of ‘65 I finally saw my first professional group. The Night Caps of “Wine, Wine, Wine” fame played a concert inside the Lancaster-Kiest shopping center and all of my wide-eyed comrades and would-be band members took in the show. I knew from the first song that I wouldn’t be satisfied until it was me performing up there on the stage.

It soon became apparent that Phil and Randy weren’t nearly as anxious as Gene and I were to get the ball rolling on the combo-that-conquered-the-world thing. Gene’s cousin, Glenn Fowler, already owned an electric guitar and was eager to acquire a bass ASAP. But we weren’t ready to give up on the original foursome just yet. We were nothing if not loyal to the cause.

I had started hanging out a lot more with another school and church-mate, Gene Banks, who also had a guitar and amp. Not only was his equipment vastly superior to mine (a red Gibson guitar and a Fender amp), Banks could really play! He taught me more than any professional guitar teacher could have in half the time and for a price that couldn’t be beat. Free. (All the guys I knew who paid for formal lessons were being taught useless old folk songs and campfire sing-along ditties so I never had the desire to go that route. I was only interested in learning the rock and roll tunes I heard on the radio.) I picked up loads of clues and pointers by watching Gene play and by observing guitarists like Ray Davies and Keith Richards on TV shows like “Shindig” and “Hullabaloo.” The Mel Bay chord book I purchased at Watkins’ music store became my bible and I learned how to make bar chords by studying the picture of David Crosby on the back of the first Byrds album.

Before you could say Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tish, Gene Banks was a member of our fledgling band, replacing Randy Davis (who had incredibly managed to lose interest in being an adored rock star). Banks’ father had been crippled for some time and he invited his son’s new combo to perform for his Wheelchair Bowler’s Association Convention at the Bronco Bowl. Keep in mind, this was before Gene Fowler even had a set of drums to flail away on. Yet a job was a job and we weren’t about to let the opportunity pass us by just because we weren’t ready for it. I figured the Lord would provide.

When the day of the much-anticipated gig finally arrived on September 19th Fowler still didn’t have his drums yet (so much for a heavenly hand) so Gene Banks and I enlisted the untested services of our friend and classmate Mike Stephens to play his dinky snare and high-hat set behind us. We only performed three songs in the small meeting room but the young girls who crowded their way into the doors and made a noisy fuss over us gave us boatloads of confidence. (In my mind, the whole thing was working as advertised: Play music, meet girls.) We were so ecstatic with the response that we half expected a lucrative record deal to be coming our way any day. It also marked the only time in my life where I was the lead (and only) vocalist.

But you can’t keep a good man down. Gene Banks was so talented on guitar that he was constantly being recruited by several other more promising Oak Cliff bands and couldn’t fully commit to just being in our little makeshift group. Out of sheer earnestness and compassion he continued to show up from time to time and practice with us but we knew he was too much in demand to wait for us to catch up to his level of proficiency. We were astute enough to realize that we shouldn’t count on him being around in the long run.

Our church buddy and fellow dreamer Phil Webster got wise and fell to the wayside, too, and by March of 1966 our struggling combo consisted of Gene and Glenn Fowler and myself. Gene had finally gotten his sparkling red trap set of drums and was taking lessons at McCord’s Music shop by then. He was a quick learner and it didn’t take long for us to see that he had a real flair for laying down a hard, steady beat without losing the tempo. In later years I would discover that many drummers were flashier than Gene but none were any better at keeping time and driving the band forward. And, in the final analysis, that’s more important than anything else. A band is only as good as its drummer.

We were still searching for a name, considering catchy jewels like “This Little Bunch,” “The Funatics” and “The V.I.P’s.” Each one would have its day in the sun until what we considered to be a better one popped into our heads. We entered and lost the talent show at Glenn’s high school in DeSoto but that setback just made us more determined to do better next time. (It wasn’t our fault that the stuck-up judges were tone deaf and unfairly-biased idiots!) It was at this juncture that we decided “The Third Generation” would be the set-firmly-in-stone name of our band. It didn’t mean anything, it just sounded good to us.

That Spring of ‘66 I got my first real job as a walking trash scooper at the amusement park Six Flags Over Texas, laboring for the steep wage of $1.15 per hour. It was humbling, tiring and hot work but the income allowed me to save up and purchase a Fender Deluxe amplifier, a definite improvement over the puny little Kent that couldn’t be heard in the next room of a cheap motel. At first it was exciting to be employed at an amusement park but the thrill was short-lived and eventually I got weary of dealing with management’s constant nit-picky criticisms and demands for me to work double shifts. I got fired late in July for goofing off on the job (my crime was sitting down for a brief rest on a 100-degree day) but I think my Mom and Dad were much more upset about it than I was. The whole experience left me convinced that working for someone else sucked raw eggs.

The band’s scarce bookings consisted mainly of playing for private living room and garage parties, Jaycee fairs and community-center dances. We were fortunate if we gigged twice a month and luckier still to make $5 per man when we did. We struggled along with me trading singing chores with Glenn until Gene met a guy named Jim Dawson (who said he could sing) and invited him to come to a practice. It was obvious from the first note that he could sing circles around Glenn and me so, on August 5th, Jim joined the group. We were back to a quartet.

Jim had a smooth but powerful voice that was versatile enough to effortlessly handle the three-chord blues and pop songs that we were able to play. He also possessed an adventurous spirit for discovering different kinds of music that fit right in with our somewhat eclectic tastes and preferences. Right off the bat he suggested we make a slight alteration and go under the name of “The Com’n Generation” and I think we flip-flopped on that issue a few times after that. Banks still sat in with the band from time to time but we couldn’t depend on him because he had commitments with another combo that wasn’t a non-profit organization. Yet he offered encouragement, was a fine mentor and we greatly appreciated his patience with us.

A real milestone was reached in October ‘66 when Glenn finally got his bass guitar. Up until then he had been using a standard electric guitar and just playing the “big strings.” Within weeks Glenn had mastered the bass and he soon became amazingly good on the instrument. He was a natural.

The whole confounded naming-the-band thing reared its ugly head once more as dissatisfaction set in and strange moniker suggestions started flying around like a swarm of flies on roadkill. “The Rare Breed,” “The East Side,” “The Assortment,” “The Living IN,” and the ever-controversial “EVOL” (Love spelled backwards) were just a few of the memorable gems considered. Finally one night Gene was perusing his family’s limited library of books while he and I were talking on the phone and he came across one tome entitled “Excuse my Dust.” “Hey, how about Dust?” he mumbled. It was pure genius. In that moment a garage band was finally named at long last. We were “Dust” and we were “everywhere.”

A permanent replacement for Banks arrived when Jim introduced the group to his friend, Rick Cramer. We had recently competed in an amateur Battle of the Bands contest on the back of a flat-bed truck trailer in the parking lot of Gipson’s department store on Ledbetter and got beaten badly by Kempy and the Guardians. We knew we needed to produce a bigger, better sound pronto if we wanted to compete with guys like that and that meant adding personnel. Rick began working with us as the second guitarist but he was trained on keyboards and planned to buy an electric organ in the very near future. Our first gig with Cramer was performed standing in the freezing cold out in front of the Wynnewood Theater on December 2nd, playing for the chilled customers as they hurriedly purchased their tickets and ran inside the movie house to view “Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.”

1967 started off promisingly enough on a personal finance level with my gaining employment at a One Hour Martinizing dry cleaners on Davis Street. My brief stint at Six Flags had taught me that working for a living was a terrible way to spend my time but, on the other hand, having a steady income was a source of power and freedom from having to grovel for favors from my stingy parents.Another grand event and a huge step forward for the group was the occurrence of Rick getting himself an electric organ. And if that wasn’t enough, the real surprise came when we heard Cramer play it. He was not an inexperienced keyboard man at all. He had a very fluid style much like that of his hero Ray Manzarek of The Doors in that he knew how to tastefully fill a lead break and when to lay down a full carpet of sound behind the guitars and drums. And he kept on getting better and better as the months rolled on.

The long practices in living rooms and garages were starting to pay off. We now had an ever-growing roster of songs we could perform with some degree of proficiency and our equipment quality had risen to semi-professional standards. Now it was a matter of finding higher quality gigs to play.

In February we played for the Valentine’s Dance at Browne Jr. High and for the ROTC Military Ball at South Oak Cliff. Both were great boosts to our confidence. The constant need (and insatiable desire) for more power and volume possessed all of us and, with the paychecks rolling in from putting in my hours at the dry cleaners, I traded up once again to get a Fender Bassman amplifier at Arnold & Morgan Music in far away Garland. In those days it wasn’t unusual for two or three of us to spend an entire day at that famous music store, looking at and sampling all the guitars and new gadgets and talking shop with the other musicians who were doing the very same thing.Our first experience in a professional recording studio took place on April 26, 1967 when we responded to a newspaper ad and traveled west to Ft. Worth to audition for Delta Studios. The deal was that the owners got to hear lots of bands, looking for that diamond in the rough that would make them rich, and the groups got a free demo tape of the two songs they recorded. We had no idea what we would record when we arrived but we came away with passable demos of “Signed D.C.” with Jim Dawson singing and “Doctor Robert”.

Dust – Signed D.C.

“Signed D.C.” was such a starkly honest song by Arthur Lee that I’m not sure we even performed it live. We just thought that first Love LP was amazing.

Needless to say, we failed to get an offer to cut an album from the fat cats at Delta but we had our tape, by golly. A week later we broke into our piggy banks and paid to have the songs pressed on a handful of 45 rpm records. Say what you will but we had ourselves a bonafide single that we could play on any phono and that was nothing to scoff at! Neither tune sounded very good but it was the beginning of a personal love affair with the studio that would stay with me for decades to come. The very idea of working on a song until it sounded right seemed like an excellent way to create unique art.

A Presbyterian Church located near South Oak Cliff would become a very important factor in the maturing process of Dust. It was one of many churches throughout the DFW Metroplex that started sponsoring weekend dances so underage kids in the area would have a safe place to hang out and socialize with their peers. For bands like ours it was literally a God-sent blessing. Theirs was called The Flare because on Friday and Saturday nights the church activity organizers would post a blazing red flare out by the street to mark the “happening.”

Every group that performed in that converted meeting hall tried to out-dazzle their competition and we were not immune to the lure of one-upsmanship. We would construct homemade strobe lights by cutting a circle in a round wheel that spun on a fan motor in front of a floodlight. We would mount black lights around the stage and draw designs on our army surplus jackets and pants with florescent paint so we would glow. We would harvest huge sunflowers that grew in the wild behind the church and place them strategically among the equipment and drums. It was truly a psychedelic experience to go hear Dust.

By the summer of ‘67 all our parents had grown quite weary of hosting boisterous band practices so we began to rehearse at Mr. Fowler’s warehouse on Industrial where he stored and showcased his commercial washers and dryers. It was great for us because we could now make as much racket as we wanted without inviting complaints.

About that time I upgraded my axe by financing a bright orange Gretsch Chet Atkins model (after securing a loan co-signed grudgingly by my still-reluctant folks) that I had been eyeing for weeks. The slick salesman at Arnold & Morgan, Dan Haubrick, told me that it used to belong to the singer for Kit and the Outlaws. That group had scored a regional hit with their cover of “In the Midnight Hour” so I hoped that it possessed some special mojo that might bring me some luck in the music business. That made my Silvertone guitar expendable and I followed in the footsteps of one of my idols, Pete Townsend of The Who, when I bashed it to pieces one night on stage at The Flare for the radical theatrical effect and overall shock value it would surely arouse in the audience. During the scripted-in-my-imagination process that led up to this wanton destructive act I unwisely placed my left ear directly against the speaker cloth of my amplifier during a feedback frenzy and caused ear damage that I live with to this day. My hearing on that side has never been the same. I also regret purposely tearing up that innocent musical instrument. I would love to have it back.

Speaking of The Who, I attended a concert that July that featured them and The Blues Magoos opening for Herman’s Hermits at Dallas Memorial Auditorium. The Blues Magoos were certainly cool enough with their psychedelic outfits that glowed in the dark and made them look like skeletons but life as I knew it changed forever when Pete, Roger, Keith and John took over the arena. I was familiar with their music to an extent but I had never experienced anything like the explosive set they performed that night before my bedazzled, awestruck eyes. They were so amazing, so relentless, so confident in themselves that many in the stunned audience left during Peter Noone & Company’s lightweight show that followed, including my date and myself. No act in the world could have followed The Who. Not on that evening, at least.

A problem with Glenn was that sometimes when he would meet someone who played guitar he would invite that person to join the band in order to impress them. Unfortunately, he would do this without consulting anyone in the group, especially me. Before Jim and Rick came along there was a guy named Chuck Pangburn that showed up for a while before drifting away. Then in August of ‘67 a lead guitarist named Mike Stroud appeared at our practices for a week. At some point we set Glenn straight by informing him that I was, indeed, the only lead guitarist that Dust needed and he curbed his habit of inducting new members on the spot immediately.

All of the members of the band were obsessed with two things in particular. Rock & Roll and girls. Every chance I got I’d escort a young lady to The Studio Club in Preston Center to dance to and hear the best of the local Dallas combo scene. I heard bands like Kenny and the Kasuals (a band I would later be a 12 year member of two decades down the road), The Novas, The Sensations, The Jackals, The Blues Bag and The Orphans just to name a few.

Speaking of the opposite sex, most of us were content to just have a steady girlfriend but Gene took it a big step further when he married a girl named Cindy in September and moved into an apartment of their own in North Oak Cliff. We were surprised and more than a little worried because of their young age but we adjusted to her constant presence after a while. She was no Yoko Ono.

An opportunity to gain wider exposure came along for the group in October when we got to perform twice at “The Action Spot” at the State Fair of Texas. We even got our name listed in the newspaper along with about 200 other combos but it still felt special to see our name in print.

By the end of 1967 Dust was finally starting to earn a reputation for being a dependable dance band that could competently play the hits of the day without causing embarrassing or offensive incidents. Rock music was exploding into totally new areas with songs from Sgt. Pepper, The Doors, Fresh Cream and Are You Experienced?reverberating all around us. It was all we could do to try to keep up with the changing social climates but we were having the time of our lives doing it.

With the new year came further upgrades in the band’s equipment. Glenn, Rick and I all bought big black Kustom rolled-and-pleated amplifiers in February, making us look better and a whole lot louder. Gigs were still hard to come by but at least we had a much more impressive stage presence when we did perform.

That same month I went to see Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine and Clouds perform in concert at the State Fair Music Hall and came away a very humbled guitarist. It was a show I’ll never forget. Local boys The Chessmen opened.

In March ‘68 we all realized why Gene and Cindy had gotten married in such a rush when Sarah Hope Fowler was born. It was hard to think of our drummer and running buddy as actually being a Daddy.

Meanwhile, Candy’s Flare had become so popular that it was forced to move into a cavernous National Guard Armory near Red Bird Airport to accommodate the large crowds of kids that had discovered it. They now had two bands booked each Friday and Saturday night to trade one-hour sets from opposite ends of the echo-prone building. Glen Oaks Presbyterian Church off of Polk Street also started holding teen dances and that provided yet another outlet for Dust to gig at.

At some point in that March some kind of problem arose between the band and Jim Dawson. Unfortunately, a lack of detailed notes and my declining memory have erased any recollections about what brought about Jim’s sudden departure from Dust. Obviously something was amiss and causing the majority of the group to doubt his commitment to the cause. I don’t recall any kind of blow up or confrontation. For whatever reason, the band jettisoned a very talented and charismatic singer/frontman and I lost touch with a good friend. (Decades later I would happily reconnect with Jim and he informed me that he found out about his dismissal when he called my house and my mother told him I was at practice, which was news to him. He drove to where we rehearsed and watched from his car as we auditioned a new singer. He said he just drove away in disgust and never looked back. That was a cowardly, callous way for us to treat Jim and for my part in that I’m forever sorry. He deserved better.)

Frank Lee, a classmate of mine at Kimball High and a vocalist/guitarist that had been performing with various Oak Cliff combos was brought into the band as a replacement on April 3rd. He was nothing like Jim. Frank had a growling, husky singing voice and a very energetic, sometimes frantic stage persona that took some getting used to. But his easy-going and friendly mannerisms made the transition a smooth one.

One of the first positive things that occurred after Frank joined the band was Dust landing a successful audition at the legendary and popular LouAnn’s nightclub located at Lover’s Lane and Greenville. In 1968 it was still the only building of note near that corner and was considered to be on the outskirts of town. It later went up in flames and had to be rebuilt on a much smaller scale. But at that time it was nothing less than holy Mecca for young rock bands trying to make a name for themselves in Dallas. Dust performed there on April 20th and the following Monday I was besieged by classmates that couldn’t believe they saw skinny little Rollie playing in the band at LouAnn’s last Saturday night. I had purposely maintained a very low profile in school in order to keep my hair as long as I could and very few of my classmates even knew I was a musician. They just thought I was a scrawny nerd. Needless to say, the cat was out of the bag after that weekend and suddenly I had rebel status at Kimball.

It was around this time that Rick discovered a stage image that he liked. He somehow acquired a WWI-era leather pilot’s helmet and a pair of large amber goggles that he wore at every gig thereafter. He also began to come out from behind the organ during our extended rendition of “Break on Through” by The Doors and deliver a long, abrasive soliloquy to the audience that no one could understand. We once played at a Catholic school dance and he did a stellar job of scaring the nuns with his maniacal shouting. To my knowledge not one of us ever questioned him about why he chose to do this and he never volunteered an explanation. We just let him do it.

A milkman who was an acquaintance of Frank’s named Terry Willis heard us, liked us and offered to be our manager/booking agent. His route took him to various schools in the area and he promised us work through his contacts. I think he envisioned himself as a young Brian Epstein but Dust had a few miles to go before we would even be good enough to shine John Lennon’s shoes. However, thanks to the gigs Terry procured for us I was able to quit my demeaning job at the dry cleaners before summer began.

Our first real road trip came in May when Terry booked us for a dance in Childress, Texas. An Explorer troop had offered to let us stay at their meeting house overnight but when we saw the less-than-hospitable condition it was in (it reminded us of the Our Gang clubhouse) we opted to make the long drive back to Dallas that night. My lasting impression of that trip is of us stopping at a diner on the outskirts of Wichita Falls around dawn. None of us had slept a wink and we were worn out. I had never liked coffee before but on that morning it tasted amazing to me. At that moment I finally understood why God had placed it on this earth for us humans to imbibe and I was a confirmed java drinker from that day on.

On the scholastic front, after I maintained a B average in my freshman year and got my guitar as the reward, my grades dropped steadily into the C and sometimes D range for the rest of my high school years. With that in mind, when I was asked to stand at the Senior Luncheon held at Riverlake Country Club to be recognized for graduating with honors no one was as surprised as me. I wasn’t particularly proud of the distinction as I felt it diminished my image as the smug, egregious rock and roll musician that I fancied myself to be. I’m still not sure they crunched those numbers correctly but it made my Mom and Dad proud, at least.

Due to the fact that the selective service was drafting every able-bodied eighteen-year-old male who could count to five for duty in scenic Vietnam at the time, I started attending classes at nearby Dallas Baptist College less than a week after graduation. This allowed me to claim II-S status as being student-deferred and, therefore, ineligible for the terrifying draft. My career plans didn’t have the Armed Services in them at all. Guitars beat guns every time.

The summer of ‘68 was one of liberation for most of the band members. Now that we had escaped the drudgery of high school we thought of ourselves as adults, ready to explore and conquer the world. Concerts were still relatively cheap so I was able to see touring bands like Cream, The Doors, Vanilla Fudge and Canned Heat for about $6 a ticket. Our gigs were numerous now with repeated appearances at Candy’s Flare in Oak Cliff and the new one in Decatur, various private parties and several performances at the Shamrock Roller Rink in Lancaster.

Many groups like The Chessmen and Kempy and the Guardians had second-hand Cadillac hearses to transport their equipment around in. In late August Frank purchased a black ‘58 hearse so we could be as cool. In old English lettering we stenciled our “DUST… is everywhere” logo on the back door. Once we installed a four-track cassette player in it we were ready to join the parade every Sunday afternoon at Kiest Park with Cream’s Disraeli Gears and the Beatles’ White Album blaring for the duly impressed masses and would-be groupies.

By the fall Terry had us booked solid on most weekends and we were sailing right along. Rick had started taking classes at Baylor University in Waco so rehearsals were much more infrequent. But he would drive back home every weekend so it never interfered with our gig scheduling.

In November Dust successfully auditioned for a new talent agency called “Studio VII” that was located in a recording studio complex just west of downtown Dallas. Being pretty much full of ourselves at this juncture, we felt that Terry Willis had taken us about as far as he could and it was time to try and get better representation. It fell upon Frank and me to inform Terry that we no longer needed his services. Terry had done wonders for us and it was not an easy task to fire him.

One of the perks of being under the wing of Studio VII was the fact that they offered free studio time to their bands. To me, that was akin to getting a lifetime pass to Disneyland. It did involve signing a contract with the agency so in December we all had to get our fathers to meet at Frank’s house to sign on the dotted line for us since we were all under 21. It seemed like a really big deal. We felt we were now definitely on our way to riches and fame.

Recorded at Studio VII in late 1968 with Frank Lee on vocals, “Vicious Delusion” is a hybrid of two different tunes that I had written but the lyrics were penned by Ron, the staff engineer at Studio VII.

Dust – Vicious Delusion

Ron took a liking to me and would often invite me to come sit in the control room while he produced a demo session for one of the other groups. On one memorable occasion the band in the studio was Felicity, a fine combo from East Texas that featured a talented singing drummer named Don Henley. Don went on to be in a little group called the Eagles. I remember being very impressed by their professionalism and their workman-like approach to recording. They knew what they were doing. Dust didn’t.

We ended 1968 with a New Year’s Eve gig at the brand new “Candy’s Flare – Pleasant Grove” in the National Guard Armory located there. It had been an eventful year for all of us and we felt that we had taken enormous steps toward becoming the rock stars we had always envisioned ourselves as being destined to be.

1969 started right where the previous year had left off with Dust continuing to play gigs at the area roller rinks and Candy’s Flare. We had managed to add Club Menagerie in Commerce, the Broadway Skateland and the Twilight Skating Palace to our list of venues. I traded in my orange Gretsch for a used Fender Telecaster. I think the real reason was that it just looked better on stage and was easier to play. I was still a terrible lead guitarist that should have spent a lot more time practicing his instrument. The studio and live tapes that exist from those days prove it.

In February we started having all-night recording sessions with Ron (his last name escapes me) in an attempt to compose and cut that million-dollar hit single. I contributed several amateurish songs with titles like “Eating Petunias,” “Brown-haired Woman,” and “When you were down I loved you more.” We also bravely attempted a few of Ron’s songs like “All Strung Out” and “Vicious Delusion.” We never recorded anything resembling great rock and roll but the experience of being in a professional studio again was invaluable. I found that I absolutely loved the process of recording. For me there was no place I’d rather have been than inside a studio and I spent every spare hour I had there soaking up all the protocol I could.

One of the drawbacks of having an old hearse for an equipment truck was the fact that it was constantly in need of repair. One incident could have ended my rock and roll future (and earthly existence in general) permanently. At some point the band started holding our practices at a warehouse in southeast Dallas that was owned by Gene’s father. One afternoon Frank and I were tooling along on our way to rehearsal, driving east on Ledbetter approaching the intersection with Lancaster Avenue. When Frank went to apply the brakes he realized that nothing was happening to slow the heavy hearse as we sped toward the red light. Fortunately there was an unoccupied lane ahead. Frank quickly changed lanes and we barreled right through the intersection at about fifty miles per hour, barely missing a Lincoln Continental that was coming north on Lancaster. When we rolled to a stop about a quarter of a mile later the irate driver of the car (that had to slam on his brakes to avoid a collision) pulled up behind, got out and yelled at us for several minutes. Both Frank and I stayed in the hearse as we both noticed that the furious and rather large African-American man had a pistol tucked into the waist of his pants. Evidently Frank’s explanation of brake failure satisfied the steaming mad driver and we managed to escape without being shot. Had we hit anything at all as we flew through the busy intersection we probably would have been killed on the spot or maimed for life. As I recall we still drove the hearse to practice. Slowly.

Early in March the band experienced our first drug bust. Well, sorta. We played a dance at the DeSoto Community Center and throughout the night we noticed that we were being closely watched by several uniformed police officers. After the gig Rick was changing clothes in the tiny restroom when detectives literally burst in the door and confiscated a bottle of what they were sure was some kind of illicit contraband that Rick had on him. They actually drove him over to the station and made him wait while they rousted the town pharmacist out of bed to come and identify the pills in question. They were sure that a musician wearing a leather skullcap and goggles had to be tripping on some kind of weird hallucinogenic substance and was, therefore, a menace to the citizenry. When the expert declared that the capsules held nothing more psychedelic than ordinary cold medicine Rick was released and told to never come back to the metropolis of DeSoto. No formal apology was forthcoming, either.

I met many musicians at Dallas Baptist College who were doing the same thing I was in that they were taking full advantage of the student deferment loophole to avoid military conscription. One of them was Alfred Brown from Plano. I would end up in two different bands with him in the 70s and he and I started a friendship that spring that would last for decades to come. By meeting him and others like Bob Lincoln of “The Poppy Box” I started to expand my circle of musician friends to include those from other parts of North Texas. Both Alfred and Bob graciously showed me new guitar techniques that made me a much better player. They most likely took pity on me due to my lack of talent on the instrument.

Frank and I saw Jimi Hendrix perform at Dallas Memorial Auditorium that April (with Chicago Transit Authority as the opening act) and he was fantastic once again. Little did we know that he would be dead about a year and a half later.

Late in May the hearse was broken into and most of the equipment inside it stolen. It had been parked in front of Frank’s apartment and the thieves took the P.A. system and the amplifier for my speakers. It was a devastating financial blow but I somehow scraped up enough to buy another Kustom amplifier and tall column from a friend. I now had a humongous setup of five 15” speakers and a brassy horn in two cabinets. I could barely stand to be in front of it at times because of the volume.

In June of ‘69 I found myself on a break from school for the first time in a long while. I took a job with the city park department as a playground activity leader and swim teacher at Pecan Grove near Kiest and Westmoreland. It was my first 8 to 5 Monday-Friday job and it left even less time for band practice and other activities. The group was still playing the same old gigs and the momentum we had carried into the new year with Studio VII had tapered off considerably when our recordings failed to impress anyone at the agency. They had moved on to other, more promising bands.

On June 29th Rick Cramer announced that he was quitting Dust and getting married in August. That pretty much brought the band to a screeching halt. There was no actual day to designate when it happened. Dust just ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

For the rest of the summer Glenn and I tried to find other musicians who wanted to start up a new combo with us but several noisy jam sessions produced nothing promising. Gene was trying to provide for his wife and young daughter and Frank had started working full time, as well. The loss of his P.A. system in May was something that he couldn’t replace easily and we couldn’t rely on him to be able to carry on.

On my 20th birthday in early September I got a call from Richard Theisen of the Pleasant Grove-based “Love Street Journal” band inviting me to audition for their group. I became their guitarist on September 14th and the next six years of my life were spent with various versions of the band that became “Daniel.”

Unfortunately I eventually fell out of contact with most of those musicians I spent my teen years with. I’d visit Gene and Cindy from time to time in the early 70s but before long I lost track of them, as well. When I met up with Gene again in the late 90s he sadly informed me that Glenn had passed away about a year earlier. It made me reminisce all the good times I spent with the Fowler cousins as we would fantasize about how famous and wealthy we were going to be as rock stars. Glenn especially was a true friend to me throughout those years and I regret that I never got to see him again after that summer of ‘69.

When I look back on those youthful, formative years I treasure the wonderful moments that will stay with me forever. As we made our way through our teenage years we doggedly pursued our rock & roll dreams while other boys who picked up instruments following the British Invasion of the mid 60s put them aside after a few months of lessons or finding out that steel guitar strings really hurt the fingertips. For us it was a way to release our energy and passion and to express ourselves in ways that others could relate to. We were all doing the best we could during the topsy-turvy events of that revolutionary decade, looking for our own individual path that would lead us into adulthood. Rock & Roll was our pressure valve and our muse. We constantly turned one another on to new music and different ways of thinking. We helped each other to expand our horizons of what was possible. And the fraternity that was the band became the glue that held us together. The band was what we could depend on to be there when the rest of the world let us down or presented us with problems that seemed insurmountable.

It was, indeed, a golden age and I’m so thankful that Gene, Glenn, Jim, Rick and Frank were there to go through it with me. We made some beautiful music and joyful noises together and they helped to make my teen years very special to me.

Rollie Anderson, May 2010

Performances

1965

September 19 – Wheelchair Bowler’s Association meeting, Bronco Bowl
October 17 – Wheelchair Bowler’s Association meeting, Bronco Bowl
October 24 – Church social, Gail Watkin’s house
December 31 – New Year’s Eve Party, Glen Fowler’s house

1966

March 1 – Audition for DeSoto High School talent show
March 4 – DeSoto talent show, DeSoto Elementary
April 9 – Hobby Shop, DeSoto
May 20 – Private Party, DeSoto
June 3 – Private Party, DeSoto
June 25 – Private Party, DeSoto
July 8 – JayCee dance, DeSoto
July 15 – Lion’s Club Carnival, DeSoto
August 13 – My sister Marlene’s Park Party, Anderson house
November 4 – South Oak Cliff High School Spanish Club, Cedar Canyon Club
November 5 – Battle of the Bands, Gipson’s Department Store, Oak Cliff
December 2 – Wynnewood Movie Theatre lobby

1967

January 14 – JayCee Dance, DeSoto
February 10 – T. W. Browne Jr. High School dance
February 18 – South Oak Cliff High School ROTC Military Ball
March 4 – Private Party, Kiest Park, Oak Cliff
March 25 – Audition, Presbyterian Church, Oak Cliff
April 14 – Private Party, Riverlake Country Club, Oak Cliff
April 26 – Audition and session at Delta Studios, Fort Worth
April 29 – Audition for “The Flare” club
May 13 – Junior High School party, Weiss Park gym, Oak Cliff
May 20 – The Flare
May 27 – South Oak Cliff High School Senior Pizza Party
June 1 – Audition for “LouAnn’s” club
June 24 – The Flare
July 2 – Audition for “The Pirate’s Nook” club
August 5 – The Flare
August 9 – Audition for booking agency
September 23 – The Flare
October 7 – “The Action Spot” at State Fair of Texas
October 8 – Audition for the “Club Texas”
October 15 – “The Action Spot” at State Fair of Texas
October 21 – The Flare
October 28 – The Flare
November 26 – Audition at the “Three Thieves” club
December 15 – Community Center Dance, DeSoto
December 29 – JayCee Dance, DeSoto

1968

January 12 & 26, February 9 – Glen Oaks Methodist Church, Oak Cliff
February 10 – Oak Cliff YMCA
February 17 – Candy’s Flare
March 15 – Glen Oaks Methodist Church
March 30 – Candy’s Flare (Last performance with Jim Dawson)
April 20 – LouAnn’s
April 27 – The Lyon’s Den
April 28 – Irving CYO Dance
May 4 – Decatur, Texas Roller Rink
May 11 – North Texas State University fraternity party, Lewisville
May 18 – Bonehead Explorer’s Post, Childress
May 24 – Atwell Junior High School dance
June 1 – Candy’s Flare
June 2 – Irving CYO Dance
June 14 & 15 – Shamrock Roller Rink, Lancaster
June 21 – Audition at “Phantasmagoria” Club
June 29 – Jolly Time Skating Rink, Fort Worth
July 27 – Candy’s Flare, Decatur
July 28 – Candy’s Flare
August 2 & 3 – Shamrock Roller Rink, Lancaster
August 16 – Candy’s Flare, Decatur
August 17 – Private Party, Fort Worth
August 18 – Irving CYO Party
September 7 – Candy’s Flare
September 14 – Candy’s Flare, Nacogdoches
September 20 & 21 – Shamrock Roller Rink
September 29 – Bishop Dunne High School dance
October 5 – Irving YMCA dance
October 11 & 12 – Shamrock Roller Rink
October 13 – St. Elizabeth CYO dance
October 26 – Private Party, Knights of Columbus, Grand Prairie
November 1, 2, 22, 23 – Shamrock Roller Rink
November 24 – Audition at Studio VII agency
December 7 – Candy’s Flare
December 14 – Broadway Roller Rink, Mesquite
December 27 – Texas A&M Hometown Club, Forest Hollow
December 31 – Candy’s Flare, Pleasant Grove

1969

January 4 – Broadway Roller Rink
January 11 & 12 – Club Menagerie, Commerce
January 17 – Twilight Roller Rink, Pleasant Grove
January 18 – Candy’s Flare
January 24 – Club Menagerie, Commerce
January 25 – Broadway Roller Rink
February 7 – American Legion “Teen-a-go-go” in Mesquite
February 8 – Club Menagerie
February 14 – Apartment Private Party
February 15 – NTSU fraternity party, Arlington
February 21 & 22 – Twilight Roller Rink
March 7 – Community Center dance, DeSoto
March 14 – Shamrock Roller Rink
March 15 – East Texas State University fraternity party, Honeygrove
March 22 – Broadway Roller Rink
March 30 – Club Menagerie
April 12 – Broadway Roller Rink
April 19 – Candy’s Flare
April 25 – Irving “Teen Scene” at armory
May 2 – Shamrock Roller Rink
May 3 – ETSU sorority party, Wylie’s Dude Ranch, Lewisville
May 9 – Commerce High School Dance
May 17 – Broadway Roller Rink
May 28 – Adamson High School senior pizza party
May 30 – Irving “Teen Scene”
May 31 – Rocket Roller Rink, Cockrell Hill
June 3 – ETSU summer school dance
June 14 – Broadway Roller Rink
June 28 – Candy’s Flare (final performance of DUST)