ANC/VISTONE 654  DANNY MICHAELS & THE REBEL PLAYBOYS:

ON THE BANDSTAND 

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Danny Michaels  and the Rebel Playboys were a Southern California country music fixture appearing regularly at George's Roundup in Long Beach throughout much of the 1960's and early 1970's.  Danny Michaels, the leader, was an accomplished singer and lead guitarist who liked to play the double neck guitar.  Danny Michaels was capable of playing a wide range of styles from polyrhythmic garage style solo breaks to legato pedal steel type runs.  He was a very highly regarded player and made numerous appearances on Cal Worthington's Cal's Corral, a weekly three hour television show on KTLA that ran from 1959 to 1972. 

"On the Bandstand", undoubtedly referring to the bandstand at "George's Roundup" in Long Beach, was the group's first album.  It was originally released on Chambers Records in late 1964 or early 1965, and  was updated and re-released on Vistone a few years later.  George's Roundup was one of the premier venues for country music in Southern California for many years.  Located at 2310 West Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, it catered to country music fans and sailors stationed nearby.  The club featured name acts,  great bands and a live feed to KFOX two nights a week.  During the 1950's, the house band had been Wynn Stewart's Western Playboys.  The 1960's saw Danny Michaels and the Rebel Playboys take over that spot. The club's connection to Danny Michaels is clear from the props that appear on the record cover.  The Lincoln Continental and Harley Davidson 1962 Duo-Glide belonged to club owner George Underwood and were advertised as being solid gold.  While that would not have been possible, they were gold plated.  The car was claimed to be worth as much as one million dollars!  The bike, not so much, a mere $25,000.00 in 1964.

On this album, the Rebel Playboys consist of  Jerry Stevens on pedal steel guitar, Bobby Boydd on bass, Billy Jay Nixon on drums,  and Jimmy Pruett on piano.  The vocals are performed by Danny Michaels, Bobby Boydd and Billy Jay Nixon.  Jerry Stevens, a regular member of the Rebel Playboys was an active steel guitarist in the Los Angeles area. He and Bobby Boydd shared those duties with the Rebel Playboys and both played a very similar style of pedal steel guitar. Jerry Stevens did a fair amount of studio work, and a lot of publishing demos.  Bobby Boydd is a bit better known than Jerry Stevens as he toured with Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys (during the 1970's) and backed big names like Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Jr,, Mel Tillis, Little Jimmy Dickens and others.  Jimmy Pruett, today, is probably the best known musician on the album.  He played with Stuart Hamblen,  and Jimmy Wakely,  and recorded with T. Texas Tyler, Spade Cooley, Merle Travis, Hank Thompson, Joe Maphis and many others.  He was blind and is known both as a guitarist and a pianist.  He often appeared on Town Hall Party and on Leo Carrillo's Dude Ranch TV show in 1950.  He also was credited as "Jimmy Pruett" and under that spelling recorded an album entitled "Good Time Piano" for Capitol.  Billy Jay Nixon was probably best known for working with Danny Michaels.  He appears on two of the three albums released during the 1960's under Danny Michaels name, and is probably a member of the large clan of Nixons affiliated with country music in Southern California.

Danny Michaels, originally from Kansas City was a fixture at George's Roundup.  Self-taught, he played a signature Gibson twin neck guitar. The lower neck was a regular six string standard guitar. The upper neck was a twelve string standard guitar on which he would tune each two string combinations with different notes in harmony with each other. He performed widely in Southern California, appearing on Cal's Corner, The Lawrence Welk Show, George's Roundup,  Nashville Beach, and numerous other venues.

Danny Michaels was often nominated (and was a finalist each time) by the Academy of Country Music for it's Country Music Award for Best Lead Guitar (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1984, 1985, at least), and won this honor in 1976.  Over the years he recorded several albums, "On The Bandstand" being the first, followed by "Big Time Operator" for Redwood Records in Burbank in 1966.  He recorded another album for Vistone  in 1969, entitled "Goes Middle Country".  He also recorded several singles for Vistone that were released and some unreleased sides, as well, several of which are included in this program.  Danny Michaels also appears on numerous singles produced and released by Lee Hazelwood Industries.

This program includes all of the selections that were on the Chambers Records release, those that were on the Vistone LP release, and several overdubs that Danny Michaels recorded for Vistone, including two intended for the LP but not included. 

The program begins with Floyd Tillman's "This Cold War With You", a lesser known release originally recorded in 1949.  This is followed by Dottie West's "Here Comes My Baby", which had just been released in June of 1964.  Danny Michaels' own "Waiting for the Best Girl" is followed by Ray Charles' "What'd I Say".  On all of these, Danny Michaels provides the vocals.   This is followed by Danny Michaels' "Super Pain" and "Bourbon Street", first recorded for Vistone and featured on the  Vistone LP release.  On the Chambers LP release Bobby Boydd sings Webb Pierce's "It's My Way" (made popular by Don Gibson) and  Tommy Tucker/Stevie Wonder's "High Heel Sneakers".  (We have included these  two tracks as they were redone for Vistone after the rest of the basic album tracks.)  To add confusion, the Vistone release reversed the album sides on the jacket cover, but did not do so on the actual record.  The rest of the program consists primarily of instrumental tracks, although some vocals are included.  "Blue Ivy", a feature for the group, is an original which borrows quite a bit from the theme to the film, "Lawrence of Arabia", which coincidentally is performed after the next selection, "Spooky Monday".  A version of the traditional Scottish folk song, "Highland Green" is performed, followed by Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk".  The program closes with the group's signature theme, "Give the Ball to Calhoun".

As mentioned, we have included the two vocals by Bobby Boydd, "It's My Way" and "High Heel Sneakers",  as they were overdubbed by Danny Michaels for Vistone.  For some reason, Pete Korelich and Jaime de Aguinaga, who produced the reworked Vistone release did not include these in the program.  We have also included as the last two tracks of this release the overdubbed versions of "Super Pain" and "Bourbon Street" which differ a bit from the released versions .  We have left "Super Pain" unmixed,  just like the two Bobby Boydd vocals, but have mixed "Bourbon Street"  All of these were overdubbed on the same day, during a session that also included sides released under Jorge Diaz Ortega's name for both Vistone and Anahuac, it's sister label.  Danny performed several overdubs of string arrangement instrumental tracks that were scrapped.  We have included two of them,  "En Mazatlan" and "Cuando Te Sueno".  The released versions of these two selections produced for the Regional Mexican market bear no meaningful resemblance to these instrumental tracks other than that both feature some of the string arrangements that were being overdubbed.   Needless to say, Danny Michaels did not fit what the producers had in mind for Jorge Diaz Ortega.  They were probably so enthused with having Danny Michaels in the studio that they tried whatever idea came to them on the spur of the moment.  

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