Photo: Wolf Creek Overlook, looking towards Pagosa Springs.
A lot of people don’t really move to Pagosa Springs; they flee from other places and just happen to end up here.
–– Anonymous
Pagosa Springs, Colorado: A Mountain Paradise
In July of 1991, Jayebird and I departed Santa Fe in search of a new home in Southwest Colorado. We had decided to take the long, scenic route entering Pagosa Country by way of Wolf Creek Pass – the only proper way.
Your first voyage over the pass and down the sharp serpentine curves can be a bit scary. It’s best to downshift to a lower gear, slow down and enjoy the awesome scenery… and to arrive at your destination in one piece.
“Hold My Hand” written by DC Duncan, sung by Jimmie Russell
We pulled over at the scenic overlook to admire the spectacular panorama. I stood there in silence, as if in a trance. At that moment, I decided that my wife had been right all along: this heavenly place was where we belonged.
By the time we made it into Pagosa Springs I was feeling alive for the first time since leaving Maui. We stopped at the one and only redlight in the county and smelled the sulphur saturated air from the springs. “Whew! Is that you, or the town?” Jayebird grinned.
We pulled into the Skyview Motel and met the owners, Ray and Shellie Tressler. We told them we were in Pagosa to search for a home outside of town. “If we move here,” I said, “would you be our friends?” They both smiled and answered in the affirmative.
The next morning, we set out to find our hideaway in the country. It was if a supernatural force was guiding us. We drove out Piedra Road where the view opened up, revealing majestic Pagosa Peak standing sentinel over God’s Country. I pulled into a roadway and stopped. There was a thick blanket of mist over the ground. And within a minute, a coyote appeared front and center and stood there staring at us, as we silently stared back. He then turned and disappeared into the mysterious haze.
We immediately drove back to town and stopped into a real estate office. To make a long story short, we bought eight acres – including a nice mobile home – only a short walk from where we saw the coyote. It had been the one and only place we had looked at!
I can only recall one other time that I experienced such serendipitous luck: the day I met Jayebird!
By mid-August we were in our new home getting adjusted to Pagosa time, that runs much slower than hyperactive Santa Fe. There was a lot to do around the property, plus I was making plans for an addition: I needed a well-equipped shop and more storage space.
DC Duncan as a commuter.
I was now commuting to Santa Fe to play music. (We only knew two people in Pagosa Country, and they were not musicians.) I began the 150-mile trip back and forth every week, all the while playing hide and seek with the elk and the deer. I was sleeping on couches and sometimes in the GMC. One thing for sure, it was a pure delight to make it back home to Bird and our new Golden Retriever, Dusty. (Gold Dust Mountain Girl.)
Finally, my old Ravin’ Brother, Mark, asked me to join his band, Desert Voodoo. He and my drinking buddy, Will Bell and a bass player named Ross had landed a gig at a club up Canyon Road. The place, near El Farol, was run by Chinese people who were good businessmen. I think we did three nights a week, but having to sleep on lumpy, foul-smelling couches made it seem like five nights.
At one point, the owner asked us if we’d like to play in Shanghai. We all liked the idea and the man started making arrangements to play the 43 story Hilton Shanghai. Somehow the State Department would be involved and we would be assigned “minders” to keep track of our whereabouts in China. We needed passports, shots, the whole nine yards. Everything was on the level. The gig was to be six weeks with an option to play six months.
Of course, Jayebird was apprehensive and didn’t want me to go for all the obvious reasons. Well, she didn’t have to worry too long. A week before we were to depart, our lead guitarist/singer, Will, fessed up that he hadn’t gotten a passport or his required shots. He was out. It seems he thought the whole trip was a farce from the beginning. If that was so, why hadn’t he told us how he felt weeks before? The trip was off, and the band was history. Seems as though my Evil Mistress was working overtime; but even some of the best love affairs crash and burn.
Sometimes people show their true colors – usually when it’s too late.
One afternoon at El Farol, I bumped into a singer I knew from Dallas. His name was Ed Beaver and he had recently moved to Santa Fe. Big Ed had quite the voice on him. We decided then and there to form a band: Big Daddy.
Big Daddy – Top: DC, Fred Spencer, Steve Lindsay. Front: Ed Beaver
The band included Fred Spencer, lead guitar and vocals, Steve Lindsay on bass, Ed on vocals and rhythm guitar, and myself. Freddy and Ed had extensive repertoires of R&B cover tunes, so it all fell in place quickly. It was a fun band and we laughed quite a lot (usually at each other). I don’t know how long we lasted, but not long enough.
You’re My Soul – Big Daddy
And then, the guitar slinger and vocalist, Gerry Groom – associated with the early Allman Brothers – slithered into town. He put a band together: Fred Spencer and Spin Dunbar volunteered for combat duty… I was drafted.
I’m afraid Mr. Groom and I did NOT get along well. He was a humorless, malignant narcissist. (Being an awesome musician doesn’t necessarily make you an awesome human being.) I didn’t trust him. For one thing, Gerry Groom, who was known around the country, announced one evening at the gig that he was changing his name! Why on earth would a well-known musician suddenly change his name? It didn’t make sense. In the end, he kept his birth name. (Very strange. Was someone looking for him? Or what?)
We played a well-attended concert at the El Rey Theater in Albuquerque and played El Farol quite a lot. And then Gerry announced that his good buddy, Mick Taylor, was coming to town. If you recall, dear reader, I had seen Mick Taylor – who had played with the Stones – in Maui, and his treatment of his poor band members was utterly deplorable. And now we were going to play a concert at Santa Fe Downs with this guy?
I had introduced Gerry to a singer friend of mine, a lovely girl named Jo Jo. Unfortunately, the two of them became an item. I was planning on spending the night on their couch when Gerry and I got into a little spat. At one point I looked around for a weapon and grabbed a fresh lemon meringue pie and shoved it in his face! (I didn’t really do that, but I felt like it, dammit!)
Jo Jo took me back to my SUV on Canyon Road and I drove over to Fred’s place. The next week, I went in to set up and there was another drum set there. Fine with me.
Weeks after the Mick Taylor concert (minus me), Gerry absconded with the band’s pay, the piano man’s keyboard, and he and Jo Jo ended up on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. I had warned the guys that he was bad news, and now they believed me. I remarked that Jayebird and I had been to St. Croix and joked that I could have Mr. Groom “taken care of.”
Not long after I made that regrettable statement, Jerry Groom’s body washed ashore in St. Croix. And poor Jo Jo was stranded.
Karma is a bitch. I’m truly sorry about Gerry’s death, but at least I didn’t have the misfortune of playing with him and Mick Taylor, together, on the same stage. Yikes!
I was doing demo sessions of my own songs for publishing. Some of the singers I hired were Sara K, Jack Clift, Fred Spencer, and Rodney Brown who co-wrote “Tit-for-Tat.” Jimmie Russell “the Love Muscle” sang my song, “Hold My Hand” – written for my late cousin, violinist Wendell Heckathorne. All of these players were wonderful people and the sessions were a pleasure. (And I didn’t have to threaten anybody with a freshly baked pie!)
Singer/Songwriter Sara K.
Jack Clift asked me to play on his incredible album, On a Bright, Bright Morning (Effigy Records). Jack’s music is timeless. His lyrics are dreamy and compelling. The man is a major talent; and the album release party was amazing.
It was finally springtime,1992. I was called for a hard-rock recording session in Albuquerque. The bass player was a sweet guy named Bob Barron, who, incidentally, had a special-needs son. On breaks we got to know each other and as it turned out, Bob had lived in Durango, Colorado, only 60 miles west of Pagosa Springs.
I told him that I’d been commuting down to Santa Fe every week, and sometimes the snow had been so bad that I had to follow a snowplow down to the New Mexico border, and then wait for the New Mexican snowplow to show up. Then I’d follow him to Chama. I didn’t want to go through that again next winter.
I asked Bob if he knew some Durango musicians I could possibly play with. He gladly gave me three names: Tommy Beuton, a bad-ass Country picker; Jenny Wiengardner, a R&B singer; and Gary Watkins, a Rock ‘n Roll singer/guitar player.
When I returned home, I decided to call Gary Watkins. I introduced myself and told him that Bob Barron had given me his number. As it turned out, Gary had a trio, and had just lost their drummer. When I informed him that indeed I was a drummer looking for work he was ecstatic. He described what they played and where, and it sounded perfect. Gary said that he’d give Bob a call and get back with me.
A few days later Gary called back. “Well,” he said, “I checked with Bob and he said that I was crazy, but was a pretty good drummer. You’ve got the job if you want it.”
Gary sent me a work tape of their tunes and I studied them. No problem. The next Sunday I loaded up my drums and drove to Durango for a rehearsal – our first gig started Wednesday. The bass player’s family owned the KOA camp grounds on east 160 and they used the clubhouse as a practice hall. When I drove up, they were outside, waiting for me.
I slowly got out and faked a serious limp. I held my hip and struggled toward them, looking very much like a handicapped has-been.
Oh, you should have seen their faces!
We shook hands and then I told them: “I’m afraid I can’t carry any equipment. Would you guys mind hauling my stuff in? Watch out for that trap case. It’s VERY heavy. Don’t drop it!”
They looked at each other with raised eyebrows and then reluctantly brought in all my drums. Once inside I thanked them; and started tap dancing frantically, with an impish grin on my face. We all laughed hysterically! Oh, this was gonna be fun. Things were looking up.
The name of the band: Dog @ Large. “Music How Ya Like It . . . Doggie Style!”