Chapter 1. See You Later, Alligator
Gainesville musician named Tommy Durden … Thomas Russell Durden (1919–1999) was born in Georgia and lived in Jacksonville before moving to Gainesville in the early fifties, where he was a member of Smilin’ Jack Herring and His Swingbillies, a country music band that performed regularly throughout north-central Florida.
Elvis was even … www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/glenn_reeves.htm.
In the northwest part of the city … Polk’s Gainesville City Directory, 1955 (Richmond, VA: R. L. Polk, 1955).
“My father was basically” … Bill DeYoung, “The Boy Who Would Be Stills,” Gainesville Sun, August 5, 2001.
Four blocks to the south … Ibid.
In 1867, Civil War Veteran … Benmont Tench Jr., oral history, Samuel Proctor Oral History, Florida State Museum, University of Florida, August 8, 1986, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00024774/00001/1j.
Three miles northeast … Polk’s Gainesville City Directory, 1955.
The Petty patriarch … www.flndagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=30493277.
Three blocks west of the Petty house … Polk’s Gainesville City Directory, 1955.
with their two sons … Don Felder interview, October 30, 2013.
annual Homecoming Parade … www.gatorgrowl.org.
My Cross to Bear … Gregg Allman, My Cross to Bear (New York: William Morrow, 2012), 143.
Chapter 2. From Hootenanny to A Hard Day’s Night
The first place I did anything … Jimmy Tutten interview, April 2012.
The buzzword for … David Hajdu, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña (New York: Picador, 2001).
a place called the Blue Eagle … A club that stayed in business through the early seventies. From a 1964 ad in the Gainesville Daily Sun: “Alachua County’s Newest Lounge BLUE EAGLE. Dance to the music of THE CASANOVAS Friday nights 9 ’til. Featuring Ray Parrish, Pat Kee, Aubray Deen and Dean Bass. From G’ville drive to Grove Park, turn right on Magnesia Springs Rd. and go ¼ Mile. Fully Air Conditioned With Comfortable Seating.”
They wouldn’t issue … Don Felder interview, October 30, 2013.
Don formed his band … Don Felder, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974–2001) (Hoboken: John Wiley, 2008), 25.
one of the most distinctive … Ibid.
After his initial few … Dave Zimmer, Crosby, Stills, and Nash: The Authorized Biography (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2008).
I was the drummer … Bill DeYoung, “The Boy Who Would Be Stills,” Gainesville Sun, August 5, 2001.
John Scarritt … E-mail to author.
“There were four” … E-mail to author.
It was weird how … http://www.ourmusicalstory.com/bios/FrankBirdsong.html.
The Beatles had taken … Billboard magazine singles charts for these weeks.
Chapter 3. London Calling
One spring afternoon … Personal recollection of author.
The music just hypnotized … Runnin’ Down a Dream, directed by Peter Bogdanovich (Warner Brothers, 2007), DVD.
The minute I saw the Beatles … Paul Zollo, Conversations with Tom Petty (New York: Omnibus Press, 2005), 15.
We were working guys … Ibid., 23.
obsessed with it … Bernie Leadon oral interview, Matheson Historical Society, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/MH00001785/00001.
Bernie and I had … Don Felder interview, October 30, 2013.
Crider recalls Leadon … Dale Crider e-mail to author, February 7, 2015.
My mom made us … Tom Laughon interview, April 27, 2011.
When the group added … Ibid.
That was the craziest … Boomer Hough interview, February 19, 2013.
I met him in high school … Zollo, Conversations with Tom Petty, 29.
Petty and I went … Jim Lenahan interview, May 20, 2011. The performance he mentions was either October 22 or December 10, 1965, based on the datebook of Ron Whitney, http://dizzyrambler.com/features/GarageBands/Ron_Starfires/63_datebook.htm.
Buster Lipham was born … Buster Lipham interview, February 27, 2012.
Chapter 4. People Got to Be Free
A Human Be-In … Neville Powis, The Human Be-In and the Hippy Revolution (Radio Netherlands, 2001), documentary, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAt26TawHCw.
I walked in with two guys … Melanie Barr Facebook posting.
I think everyone back then … James Hellegaard, “Remember 1968?” Gainesville Sun, September 5, 1993, 6a.
They moved the station … Boomer Hough interview, February 19, 2013.
The harmony singing … Tom Laughon interview, April 27, 2011.
There was a guy … Don Felder interview, October 30, 2013.
I had a six-month draft … Bernie Leadon interview, Matheson Historical Society, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/MH00001785/00001?search=bernie+=leadon.
bands that had record deals … Ibid.
In the fall of 1967 … Bill Killeen interview, March 27, 2011.
Rodney came by … Tom Leadon interview, February 10, 2014.
That’s where I kind of … Paul Zollo, Conversations with Tom Petty, 25.
I was partying with Tom … Jim Lenahan interview, May 20, 2011.
For those of us … Jerry Silberberg, “Light Show Freaks Out,” Florida Alligator, January 27, 1968.
I wore a green Pierre Cardin … Bill DeYoung, “The Boy Who Would Be Stills,” Gainesville Sun, August 5, 2001.
Bernie Leadon, who was raised … www.floridamemory.com/fpc/memory/collections/folklife/festival_programs/1968/1968-04.jpg.
Less than a month … John Einarson and Richie Furay, For What It’s Worth (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2004), 255.
About ten blocks above the northern … Charles Steadham interview, June 8, 2015, and www.gainesville.com/article/20030514/DAYBREAK/205140309.
It was a predominantly … Harold Fethe e-mail to author.
Linda did a television show … Charles Steadham interview, January 19, 2012.
Of the nine musicians … Muscle Shoals (New York: Magnolia Pictures, 2013), DVD.
Chapter 5. I Can Hear Music
I go to Buster Lipham … Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, Analog Day: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 244.
The instrumental track includes … http://www2.gibson.com/News-Lifestyle/Features/en-us/10-Great-Songs-That-Make-Use-of-Tremolo.aspx.
We’d been having bands … Buster Lipham interview, February 27, 2012.
One day the Allman Brothers … Michael Hitchcock interview, March 22, 2012.
Another band we liked … Aerosmith and Stephen Davis, Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith (New York: Harper Entertainment, 1997).
If you were there on … Florida Alligator, January 28, 1970.
Most of the members of Celebration … Deborah Shane interview, December 5, 2013.
I moved up to Gainesville … Randall Marsh interview, March 12, 2013.
And I heard him yell … Runnin’ Down a Dream.
The Epics and all the bands … Tom Leadon interview, February 10, 2014.
Away from the hubbub … Gainesville Sun, October 30, 1964, 3.
Nine years ago … Jim McGee, “Dub’s: Signet of Success,” Florida Alligator, May 28, 1974.
Dub’s was still considered … E-mail to author.
Tom and I got a job … Tom Leadon interview, February 10, 2014.
Grand Funk Railroad, a rock trio … Billy James, An American Band: The Story of Grand Funk Railroad (London: SAF Publishing, 1999).
Dan Ryals of Ryals Plumbing … Jeffrey Meldon interview, August 26, 2011.
We did the second one … Tom Leadon interview, February 10, 2014.
Chapter 6. Getting Better
He was renowned … Cathy DeWitt, e-mail to author.
It was when I was fourteen … Nancy Luca interview, December 13, 2013.
[Felder] would sit down with me … Paul Zollo, Conversations with Tom Petty, 26.
In less than six months … Don Felder, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974–2001), 53.
Robert was kind of esteemed … Jeff Jourard interview, April 2, 2014.
I started him with my … Oral interview with Judge Benmont Tench Jr., by Nancy Steigner, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00024774/00001.
Before his family’s move … Stan Lynch interview, January 20, 2013.
The Tropics played all over … Charlie Souza interview, November 7, 2011.
The approach was my insistence … Trantham Whitley interview, December 12, 2013.
I personally witnessed Herbie … William Crawford e-mail to author, June 4, 2014.
I remember that they sang … Stan Lynch interview, January 20, 2013.
Styrophoam Soule was a busy … Lonnie Morris interview, April 23, 2012.
The kit that was so great … Stan Lynch interview, January 20, 2013.
in playing drums and being right behind … Bill Dean, “Stills Gives Back to Musical Roots,” Gainesville Sun, November 22, 2008.
I played rhythm guitar for a band … “Sounding Out: Stephen Stills” (BBC, 1972), documentary.
The collective discographies … www.discogs.com.
I would ride my bike past … Trantham Whitley interview, December 12, 2013.
Playing cover songs in a club … Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), and the work of Dr. K. Anders Ericcson.
I think there was a lot … Don Felder interview, October 30, 2013.
On our way back my buddy said … Bruce Nearon interview, January 14, 2014.
I meet Father Gannon … Ibid.
There used to be a bicycle store … Ibid.
Early in the morning … Charlie Ramirez e-mail, February 27, 2014.
Three local music promoters … Mel Libby, director of the Rathskeller; Tom Ted-row, chairman of SGP; and Bill Cate. Florida Alligator, March 24, 1971, 7.
Some of the police were … Florida Alligator, May 31, 1971, 1.
if anybody provoked … Florida Alligator, June 1, 1971, 1.
no redeeming value in sending … Florida Alligator, June 1, 1971, 3.
Far from being a sleepy … http://www.afn.org/∼iguana/archives/2002_05/20020509.html.
Chapter 7. Stoned Soul Picnic
In surrounding rural areas … Brandon Mattey, Gainesville Green,” Orange and Blue Magazine, Fall 2003, http://www.jou.ufl.edu/pubs/onb/f03/gainesvillegreen.htm.
Some topless places … Carl Hiaasen, “The Only Game in Town,” Florida Alligator, January 29, 1974, 4.
We’d book six weeks at a time … Randall Marsh interview, March 12, 2013.
We were at Dub’s … Tom Leadon interview, February 10, 2014.
We were playing one night … Randall Marsh interview, March 12, 2013.
about this Halloween Ball … Bruce Nearon interview, January 14, 2014.
As we drove around looking … Jon and Sue Jacobs, “Happy Hippy Halloween,” Great Speckled Bird 4, no. 46, 12.
A few days before we planned … Jeff Goldstein e-mail, January 30, 2014.
I played a set … Danny Roberts interview, January 14, 2014.
We did one out at Santa Fe … Charlie Ramirez interview, January 24, 2014.
driving all the way from … Jeff Goldstein interview, January 28, 2014.
Gainesville was so different … Randall Marsh interview, March 12, 2013.
You would take 200–300 … Jeff Goldstein interview, January 28, 2014.
Despite this abundance … Janice Pritchard, “Entertainment, Where Have You Gone?” Florida Independent Alligator, February 21, 1973. Miles Wilkin is now CEO of Broadway across America.
It was very tight … Joe Folsom interview, April 12, 2013.
It was a long drive … Randall Marsh interview, March 12, 2013.
The Mudcrutch session … Rick Reed interview, November 7, 2011.
Chapter 8. Something in the Air
Ray Stevens’s latest novelty … http://www.raystevens.com/about.
Todd Rundgren’s band Utopia … March 4, 1974.
Freddie King … January 24–26, 1974.
Dion … May 7–8, 1971.
Steve Martin … February 11–15, 1975.
The whole point of the band … Runnin’ Down a Dream.
The label representative listened … Ibid.
I do remember having to talk … Ibid.
Denny Cordell took us … Danny Roberts interview, January 14, 2014.
On the other side of Lincoln … All Meldon quotes are from Jeffrey Meldon interview, August 26, 2011.
“Lovin’ You” was written … Four years later Minnie Riperton (1947–1979) succumbed to cancer. Her Gainesville-born daughter, Maya Rudolph, played and sang in the Rentals, a nineties rock band, was a member of the Saturday Night Live cast for seven years, and is now a comedienne and actress.
I met Frank Zappa … Roger Schliefstein e-mail to author.
When you’re young … Dave Grohl, Sound City (Variance Films, 2013), DVD.
Gregg Allman also recalls … Gregg Allman, My Cross to Bear, 143.
Glenn wanted to speed things up … Don Felder, Heaven and Hell: My Life with the Eagles, 115.
Chapter 9. Disco Inferno
One likely candidate is … Peter Shapiro, Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco (London: Faber and Faber, 2005), 35.
“Will It Go Round in Circles” … Billy Preston was a childhood musical prodigy who had met the Beatles in 1962 in Hamburg as an organist in Little Richard’s band, performed with Ray Charles as a band member, and played keyboards on two sides of a Beatles hit record: “Get Back” and the flip side, “Don’t Let Me Down.” Preston performed with the Beatles in their famous rooftop concert, as seen in the movie Let It Be, followed by a solo career that included five songs that hit the Top Five, including two number ones: “Will It Go Round in Circles” and “Nothing from Nothing” the following year. Preston is one of only two musicians ever credited as playing on a Beatles track (the other is Tony Sheridan).
For one week in July 1979 … From the Billboard singles chart of that week: “Bad Girls” (Donna Summer), “Ring My Bell” (Anita Ward), “Hot Stuff” (Donna Summer), “Good Times” (Chic), “Makin’ It” (David Naughton), “Boogie Wonderland” (Earth, Wind, and Fire).
Audio engineer Jim Nygaard … E-mail to author.
Stan Bush, a singer and guitarist … E-mail to author, May 31, 2014.
As the youngest player … Stan Lynch interview, January 20, 2013.
soon joined Slip of the Wrist … Myrick left the band to pursue a solo career as a songwriter and performer and had his initial success in 1980 with the song “She Talks in Stereo.”
I moved out to L.A. at the end of 1972 … Tom Leadon phone interview, May 18, 2014.
where I met Johnny Rivers … Johnny Rivers released nine songs that made the Top Ten between 1964 and 1977, charting at 2, 9, 7, 3, 1, 3, 10, 6, and 10.
The band’s fourth album … Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, cowrote “I Wish You Peace” with Bernie Leadon, her boyfriend at the time.
Petty’s “Louisiana Rain” … This version of the song was not released.
My first place in L.A…. Stan Lynch interview, January 20, 2013.
Ron’s sister Janice was married … Janice Blair was married to Gregg Allman from 1973 to 1975.
Drummer Michael Hitchcock explains the arrival … Michael Hitchcock interview, March 22, 2012.
In Petty’s own words … Paul Zollo, Conversations with Tom Petty, 46–47.
One afternoon while enjoying … Don Felder, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles, 169.
Chapter 10. Golden Years
recording engineer Bill Halverson … www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug10/articles/classic-tracks-0810.htm.
At Gibbs’s request Stills … http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/stephen-stills-interview-were-still-here-haha-haha-ha-8772387.html.
During dedication ceremonies in 2008 … Bill Dean, “Stills Gives Back to Musical Roots,” Gainesville Sun, November 22, 2008.
You eventually pick a place … Dave Schlenker, “Rock Star Stills Buys House in Area,” Gainesville Sun, March 12, 2004.
such an exhilarating thing … Runnin’ Down a Dream.
The place was absolutely packed … Ibid.
The group’s videos … Lenahan directed “Woman in Love,” “You Got Lucky,” “Letting You Go,” “The Waiting,” “Insider,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” and “Jammin’ Me.”
Chapter 11. Go Your Own Way
kind of a Top Forty band … Stan Bush interview, March 4, 2014.
Sister Hazel is a Gainesville rock band … “Sister Hazel’s Diner Always Serving,” Florida Alligator, October 3, 1974, 12.
Copeland recounts how Sister Hazel … Drew Copeland interview, April 17, 2014.
When I first went down to … Chuck Taylor, “Airwaves,” Billboard, September 20, 1997, 76.
Mark remembers the audition … Chris Michie, “The Complete Mark Pinske Interview,” Mix Magazine, January 1, 2003.
In addition to his solo performances … Soni Veliz, “Laundromat ‘refreshes sensibilities,’” Independent Florida Alligator, May 9, 1973.
I was in a band in Gainesville … Codi Lazar interview, January 30, 2015.
Lazar and Marshall then formed … A few years later the word alternative was dropped, and the organization was renamed Gainesville Music Alliance.
Geoffrey May recalls the process … Geoffrey May interview, April 18, 2014.
Micanopy is a small town … www.micanopytown.com.
I recorded River for … Mark Pinske e-mail, May 8, 2014.
If you’re living in Florida … Brian Raftery, “Sunshine State,” Spin, August 2007, www.spin.com.
I had come up to Gainesville in … Vinnie Fiorello interview, May 5, 2014.
Chapter 12. A Place in the Sun
in that void of pointless leisure … W. J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Vintage Books, 1941), 51.
known primarily as the largest … The cotton-ginning business established on South Main Street by H. F. Dutton and Company was for several years the largest dealer in Sea Island cotton in the South.
tung oil … In 1928, L. P. Moore, nephew of the Benjamin Moore Paints founder, built the first mechanized tung oil compressing mill in the world, located in Gainesville, Florida, http://www.se-eppc.org/wildlandweeds/pdf/Winter2005-Brown-pp4-6.pdf.
children of university faculty members … Bernie Leadon, Stan Lynch, Jeff and Marty Jourard, and Ken Block, respectively.
However, in the only music lecture … Maurice Ravel, “Contemporary Music,” Rice Institute Pamphlet 15, no. 2 (April 1928), 129–45.
An annual music festival … www.thefestfl.com, http://store.noidearecords.com.
Coastal Plains map … Charles B. Hunt, Physiography of the United States (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1967), 138.
