Since I got my copy of THE HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC in 2006,  I've had over 60 of my musician friends from the Sixties sign my book. Almost all of them are mentioned in the book which is about white Southern garage bands from the Sixties who mainly played Black rhythm and blues. Bill Connell is the 20th one who signed my book before they died. We're at that stage in life so love every day you have. Don't waste time.

 Circa 2005 email from Dr. Jim Turner (1950-2008)

"Before Tippy went into the Army he was the most beautiful person you ever met. But, his experience in the Army changed him forever.  I think if he had been able to get out of the draft he would still  be alive today.  After Eddie Hinton quit his job at Muscle Shoals Sound studio to work on my record, he picked Tippy as his replacement and everything was going fine until Tippy was drafted. Eddie and I had moved to Atlanta and were working on getting a record deal for our album.  Then, some strange things happened.  Tippy got drafted and Eddie got strung out on speed and weed. Eddie blew our deal with Atlantic Records and also with Island and Warner Brothers.  So, after 2 years of waiting for him to  get a deal I gave it up and went back to college and then onto medical school.  The last time I saw Tippy was in June of 1979 when I left Alabama to move to San Diego and begin my internship.  He and I and Joe Rudd all played together at a VFW club.  I believe it was only about a month later that I got a call telling me Tippy had shot himself. Tippy's mother was a patient of mine when I moved back to Tuscaloosa in 1986."

 

 

 

Left to Right: Wilbur Walton and Jimmy Dean of "The James Gang".

GEORGIA PINES by Wilbur Walton, Jr. & the James Gang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91w8n6hoWUA

Rest in peace, Wilbur. The great WILBUR WALTON, JR. has died. According to this link, Wilbur passed away on January 11. I plan to post a tribute to Wilbur on my ROCK PILGRIMAGE blog. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/wilbur-walton-obituary?id=38652319

Wilbur's Playground Studios recording of ARE YOU HIDING? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeTLAzKFrFU 

YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF WILBUR WALTON, JR.  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wILBUR+wALTON

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KRRIoNh4ww&list=OLAK5uy_k4QpV5lohbPYNytjrMBxEK_RvUF1f7BJY

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIq6Bt2YucU

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rVZgTssw0A&list=OLAK5uy_k4QpV5lohbPYNytjrMBxEK_RvUF1f7BJY&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmBj5icXS7s&list=OLAK5uy_k4QpV5lohbPYNytjrMBxEK_RvUF1f7BJY&index=2

  Wilbur Walton, Jr. on the subject of Panama City Beach's OLD DUTCH TAVERN, "It was a Mecca for dancing, fighting and music; like the Wild West but without the guns.”

Wilbur's Playground Studios recording of ETERNITY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W5ZjwcPTQs 

Wilbur Walton, Jr., Buddy Buie and Tuscaloosa's WTBC's Tiger Jack Garrett:

 
Wilbur: Buddy had it together way before I did. Buddy was managing and writing and there was a group called The Webs & Buddy was managing them. There was Bobby Goldsboro & John Rainey Adkins & Amos Tindall, Dave Robinson...
Was there a piano player, Buddy?

Buddy Buie: No, uh, I don't remember.

Wilbur: Anyway, they were over there rehearsing and they let me set in and sing. I didn't know nothing about it but Buddy...

Buie: But you had already been singing at the fraternity parties, hadn't you?

Wilbur: No! I was already out of high school. I hadn't sung anywhere. I didn't know a key from a...
You don't remember this but I remember a little bit about music.
I don't remember much about other things and I'm happy about that!

LAUGHTER

What were we talking about just then?

Buie: We were talking about...

MORE LAUGHTER

Tiger: Talking bands.

Wilbur: Oh, the band.

Tiger: Yeah.

Buie: Yeah, how you first got together and I said...
I was telling you that I thought that you had sung at the fraternity parties.

Wilbur: Oh yeah! I wanna tell you the first place I think of I ever sang.
You and Goldsboro were going to Birmingham to do some kind of...
I think y'all were going to make some demos and I took the car & y'all let me sang a song I wrote called EMPTINESS.

Buie: Do you know what...

Wilbur: Do you remember that?

Buie: I do remember it now, I believe.

Wilbur: I remember it because I took the car. I'd never sung.

LAUGHTER

That was great that y'all let me do it. I wish I had turned out better.

MORE LAUGHTER

Buie: At every Sigma Nu party at the University of Alabama though later on,
you were part of the entertainment and after you got a band, we put everything together.
You were probably one of the most sought after fraternity bands in town.

Wilbur: Well, I like that kind of music.

Tiger: Well, Wilbur's a lot like me. He doesn't remember everything- just the high points.
I guarantee you they played a lot around here at the University.
I guarantee you I remember that much.
We were fortunate enough to have 'em once or twice maybe at the Ft. Brandon Armory when we were doing our little sock hops at the armory back in those days. You know it's too bad you can't do things like that now days.

Wilbur: I was wondering about that.

Tiger: They just don't work.

Wilbur: Where do people play?

Tiger: I don't know. They don't. They don't play any venues like that. Mostly around here they play at bars, night spots.

Wilbur: There used to be, like you say, sock hops, like at armories.
They'd have 'em at different places and people would come.
It didn't cost an arm and a leg to get in either.

Tiger: I think we charged like two bucks a head and three for a couple, something like that.
'Course I guess that was pretty good money in 1965. It's pretty cheap now.

Buie: And best I remember we paid something like...
When I rented the Dothan Recreation Center where I did my first promoting, if I remember correctly, I paid $75 to rent the building and the chairs.
They had all the chairs I wanted. I just had to put 'em out and put 'em up.

Tiger: And put 'em down...
I think we paid about a hundred bucks for this one here when we first started but, you know, everything changes and that's one of 'em.
That kind of entertainment for kids just doesn't happen anymore.

Wilbur: No.

Tiger: I don't know where it went or why it went.

Wilbur: Well there are more places- more things for 'em to do.

Tiger: Most of 'em stay home and play computer games, I guess.

Wilbur: That seems to be the way of it now.

Tiger: Yeah, but I don't know. Like you say everything changes.

This link contains the entire 2008 WTBC interview with Wilbur (includes some great comments by Johnny Wyker) along with Ben Windham's review of Wilbur's last album, MR. REDBUD. http://robertoreg.blogspot.com/2015_08_09_archive.html

 

 

Hey Roberto, been out of town so it took awhile to get to this. When I left the music business I just assumed that

we duked it out with the Medallions and they may have pulled some strings and won the battle it was approximately

17 years latter that I found out not only did our record get played all over the country but it sounds like it played more

than the Medallions.

 

From: tommy mann

Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2015 10:11 PM

To: Louis Davis

Subject: book

 

Hey Louis, hope things are going well for you. Several years ago through email I told Marvin about

a situation that happened in Nashville and Marvin said I should tell you about it because you had

been thinking about writing a book and you might find the information interesting. I said that I was

leery about bringing it up and didn`t want to end up being a casualty. Now that more time has gone

by and with diffusion about who the actual individuals are; I feel more at ease about telling you this.

If you would like to pursue writing a book about it, you have my permission. This is what happened.

 

Pat and I moved to Nashville in October 1979 and a few years later I`m reading the paper and there

was a very sad article about a 22 year old kid that came out of one of the studios on music row where

he worked, he had finished the work day, and a person wearing a mask of some kind came up to him

and shot him. The kid was wounded but managed to run down the street to get away but the shooter

followed him and stood over him and shot him dead. Several people saw this happen but with the mask

on nobody could identify him. The next day one of my friends said that the killing was strange and didn`t

make any sense. I said it makes perfectly good sense and that I new what happened, He said, what

happened? I said, “ Some person in the record business had spent a lot of money on a record and told

the kid; whose job it was to report on record sales and air play time on songs being released to the public,

to falsify the facts and report his record was doing great when it actually was not doing well”. My friend said;

you are full of it Tommy, nobody would do that. About 5 years ago etc. I was in Nashville and saw an article

about a murder case from long ago being solved. I saw a mention of the music business so I read it. It said:

A man came into the police station a few days ago and said he had information about an unsolved murder

that happened years ago. He told the police the man`s name and that he worked with him or for him, I don`t

remember which , but said the man had spent a lot of money on a record and wanted it to be a big hit but it

wasn`t. He talked to the kid and told him to report to Billboard, etc. that his song was a hit. The kid refused

to do that even after threats. So the man went to the studio and when the kid came out he murdered him.

The police said why din`t you tell us back then? He said; He would have killed me too. The police said; Why

are you telling us now? He said; He died last week. The case was closed. I called my friend and said; Do you

remember the murder a long time ago and he said yes. I said; did you see the article in paper and he said yes.

He said, How did you know what had happened? I said let me tell you.

I told him: Back in the sixties I had a band that had record that had been recorded by another group and we

were told in several places we played across the Southeast that kids called in said they liked our version of

the song 97% over the other version. I said great. One man in particular said; he had been told to report just the

opposite. When he said he would not do that ,the  man from the record company said “You can`t run your radio

station without  -------- records, if you don`t do as I say your station will  have a lot of problems, we are one of the top

record companies in the world. Maybe we can close your business. I said what can I do; he said your record company

has to put more money in it ( pay offs ). Their record went into the top twenty and ours didn`t. I went on about my

life and forgot about it. We moved to Nashville and I was working with a big company with a lot of contacts in

town and being in Human Resources was at a meeting with some music company executives. One of them became

really excited when he heard that I had been a member of a band in the sixties called the K-OTICS. He was hugging

me and asking all kind of questions about us, where we were from, size of band , etc. I said, While I appreciate

the interest, why is this so important to you? He ; “ YA`LL ARE THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE SIXTIES TO NEVER MAKE

IT TO THE PARTY”. I said I know there were some areas where we got a raw deal but I`ve moved on and never looked

back. He said; “No, you don`t understand; I finished college in 1965-66  and went to work with a company in the music

industry on the west coast. I remember the song, DOUBLE SHOT OF MY BABY`S LOVE coming out and both records

were played. My territory was from San Diego to Seattle. Your band, K-otics, version played twice as much as the

other version. Their version kept moving up the charts and I expected the K-otics version to over take them in the

charts. I was working in the area of the company that handled the charts and I would ask why the K-otics version

of DOUBLE SHOT wasn`t showing up? My bosses would just grin or shrug their shoulders and walk away. I was

just out of college and new to the company and naïve. It was only later that I understood what had happened to

the reporting of number of plays of songs, etc. we were turning in. It was  actually very simple : When reports come

in and two songs are listed, just put all plays under one song. All plays had to be reported once turned in so you

have to report something to have the correct air play time to BMI. If two groups have a combined plays of two

million and only one of the them gets credit that song will go twice as high as it should, while the song that gets

no credit goes nowhere.” He said; “I`m sorry you never got credit for millions of plays on the west coast, which

would have and should have pushed your record to the top of the charts.” Even though I knew we had been

treated that way in Atlanta, Ga. at the wholesale distribution of our record; sending the other version out

and not ours, even when ours was requested. I was startled that a high level corporation would internally

do that. My opinion was why not have both versions be a double hit! Get it, a double shot? In closing , when

people say about the hit record Double Shot, but the history books say; The Swinging Medallions. I say

“I don`t give a damn what the history books say”.

 

from Tommy Mann of the K-Otics:
We (K-OTICS) were playing at the Old Dutch in Panama City, This was the last week of May or the first week of June 1965. I finished college and left for PC that day, as I said in my interview with Garage Bands of the Sixties, my father was about to skin me alive because I was not going to work in one of the many College Grads training programs, Sears, John Deere, etc. He was at my graduation at Troy and I said bye and we were performing that night! After we had played a couple of nights we heard there was a band playing at the Old Hickory just down the road. We went to hear them and the place was a restaurant. There were only three guys there; John McElrath, Joe Morris and the lead guitar player. So you had Keyboards, Drums and guitar. They sounded really good and John was playing the Organ and an electric piano. I had not heard one before so I said then, that I had to have one in our band. John said they were waiting on the rest of the band to show up. There were only six people in the place other than us. He told us they were called the Medallions. The rest of the band showed up over the next couple of days and I wasn`t sure when they were going to stop! They ended up with eight members. The more players they added, the better they got and the bigger the crowds became. I told John that I thought they had a potential gold mine , he said why and I said I`m from the central part of Alabama and every summer there are thousands of kids from Al. etc. that come to the beach and have nowhere to go because they aren`t 21 and can`t get the clubs, like the Old Dutch, so they will love the Old Hickory Restaurant. They didn`t serve alcohol and there was no age limit. I believe it may have been the first Teen Club anywhere. During the week they played a song that they introduced as Double Shot and said they were in the process of putting it out on a record.

 John told me that it was supposed to be on DOT RECORDS within six months. We finished up at the Old Dutch and wished them luck and went on our way. About four months later we saw them again somewhere in south Georgia. I asked about their record release and John said DOT RECORDS wasn`t working out and he was looking elsewhere. I said:" good luck, I think the song is a hit". We saw them again a month or so later and they had not been able to find a way to get the record out. At that time I believe Kim and I said we were looking at recording it and I believe they may have been frustrated and said something like; go ahead somebody needs to. I still didn`t feel comfortable about it so I asked a lawyer friend to check the legality of it and he let me know about the Dick Hollerday version and said that any song that has been played on the airways was available for anybody to record and release as long as the writers were paid. Only then did I agree to proceed with Sam Phillips in Memphis. There, you have it Roberto!!

Here's a good 'un: 

Robert

There was good reason poor Glenn was a train wreck every Monday, if we had played a gig over the weekend. If there was a Friday gig, as well as a Saturday one, we skipped school altogether, and Kim Venable would drive down and collect us, and back to Tuskegee, before lunch. Kim was an only child, and his overindulgent father had built a small abode behind their main house for the sole purpose of letting Kim practice his drums in the privacy it provided. It also served as a place for the whole group to jam, and offered storage for instruments, and several beds, a shower, and a refrigerator for the beer that flowed nonstop.

His dad was into some sort of foundry/iron work there in Tuskegee, and had made the trailer we used custom, to fit exactly what was needed on the road, and Glenn and I were welcomed guests, either in the large home, or out back in that " Rumpus Room". His mother cooked exceptionally fine Southern meals, and we were expected at the dinner table with each of these. If the gig was close by, we came back to Kim's house; if not, it was the usual motels. By Sunday, everyone was blown out, so someone driving us back to Dothan was out of the question; off to the airport in Montgomery (30 miles away), and home on the most rustic, noisiest old airplane I've ever been on. It was some pre-WW2 thing, but a flight, for 11 bucks got us home around 10pm, with Glenn's mom collecting us in Dothan. Most of the time, I just spent the night there, and also arrived at school looking like an unmade bed, as well, if I went at all. Even teens have a breaking point, where sleep is involved.

Kim's parents treated us like their own, and were gracious, gentle folk, a kindness I'll never forget. Marvin and Tommy also lived in Tuskegee, with Ray Goss not far away in Tallassee, so we were off and running in no time flat. Most gigs during the school year were at Auburn, in one fraternity house or another, and an easy drive back to Tuskegee. How can I forget wading ankle-deep in spilt beer, loading the trailer, after one of those frat parties? The frat boys made sure we had a good time, too, but I was always saddled with the job of driving, so I had to remain somewhat sober. No one at any of the parties drank more than Tommy "Swampman" Mann, the singer, but we were used to that; he did it without fail, if alcohol was available. I recall gigs in dry counties where my first taste of "moonshine" happened, but a party was had, somehow, after each gig. The groupies and hangers-on always provided us with something, back in the motel of choice, and we never declined.

Now you know why Glenn Griffin slept during study hall, every Monday; he was part of the "Outer Mongolian Herd"

L. S. D.

California

9 April 2009

Mo' Tommy Mann @ this link  https://rockpilgrimage.blogspot.com/2019/02/from-april-25-1966-miami-news-from.html

My recollection of the 1972 Rolling Stones show in Tuscaloosa was recently published in a new book about Rolling Stones fans' memories of that tour from fifty years ago.

 

My recollection of the 1972 Rolling Stones show in Tuscaloosa was recently published in a new book about Rolling Stones fans' memories of that tour from fifty years ago.

In All Down The Line – A People’s History of the Rolling Stones 1972 North American Tour, over 300 fans look back 50 years at the most infamous tour in rock ‘n’ roll history.

1972 saw the Rolling Stones performing on American soil for the first time since the stabbing of a fan by Hell’s Angels at Altamont three years earlier. The Beatles having split up – and with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all dead – in 1972 the Stones embodied what was left of Sixties counter culture. The United States was coming to terms with 1970’s Kent State massacre and grappling with the Vietnam War, the draft and the civil rights movement. So it was that the Stones played 51 shows in 32 cities in 54 days to promote their new album, Exile on Main St.

With a groundbreaking new stage show and a hit-filled setlist, demand for tickets was high and the tour a sell-out. But the Stones and their fans found themselves going head-to-head with the authorities from the outset. Concerts were marked by crowd riots in the clamour for tickets and there were drug busts and tear gassings as a result of over-zealous cops. And in Rhode Island, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wound up in police custody after an altercation with a photographer while miles away in Boston a full house waited expectantly for them to appear on stage.

This is the story of the 1972 tour as it’s never been told before, with eyewitness accounts from opening night in Vancouver to tour finale (and Mick Jagger’s 29^th birthday) at Madison Square Garden.

All Down The Line – A People’s History of the Rolling Stones 1972 North American Tour is published on 25 November 2022. Pre-publication orders will ship 21 November 2022.

 https://spenwoodbooks.com/product/all-down-the-line/

  Michael Maestro's blog post about the first Marshall amp to make it to America: http://www.michaelmastro.com/FirstMarshall.html?fbclid=IwAR1xx_WDthpHiE2E_5QrQf9EnzxfQHywB-2w3MLuAhU-6TN9h0rMTRkID7w

 December 4, 2004 

ROBERT, 

SPEAKING OF GUITAR DISTORTION, I KNOW A LITTLE.
JOHN RAINEY HAD THE FIRST DISTORTION PEDAL IN AMERICA AS FAR AS I KNOW. YOU CAN ASK THE MEMORY CELL(RODNEY) TO VERIFY. JIMMY PAGE GAVE IT TO JOHN RAINEY IN LONDON AFTER WE TOURED AUSTRALIA WITH THE WALKER BROTHERS AND
ROY ORBISON. THE YARDBIRDS OPENED THE SHOW AND WE BECAME VERY CLOSE WITH PAGE. HE LOVED THE CANDYMEN AND EVEN SAID HE WAS QUITING THE YARDBIRDS AND STARTING A NEW BAND. HE SAID HE MIGHT EVEN MOVE TO ATLANTA AND PLAY WITH US. LATER HE STARTED LED ZEPPELIN. THERE'S A WHOLE LOT MORE I CAN TELL ABOUT THIS STORY, BUT MAYBE IN A BOOK.
OH YEAH!
WE ALSO HAD THE FIRST MARSHALL AMPS EVER IN THE U.S.
ASK RODNEY THE ROCKER!!!
GOOD EVENING,
RENEGADE ROBERT NIX!!!

 

from Danny Miller: I first saw John Rainey Adkins during the summer of 1966 at Misty Waters. I was 18 and he was 24. He was playing a Fender Telecaster with a thumb pick through a Marshall amplifier.

His band~The Candymen are

still to this day~the finest band I ever saw. They achieved a level of musical ability under his leadership that remains unequaled. They were a musician's band. They played the

hardest songs perfectly. They were grown men who were all world class professional

musicians. They had traveled the world backing up Roy Orbison~ and they knew The

Beatles. They were the real deal. They were the first great band I had ever seen that did

not dress alike. John Rainey was the essence of 1960's cool. He wore blue jeans,

tennis shoes, his shirt tail out, and a scarf on stage, and he bounced up and down as he

played. He projected virtuosity, happiness~ wit~ and true cool. His playing was perfect

and effortless. He played the hardest licks correctly and with the correct sound and

attitude. I wanted to be just like him. We became friends years later and he told me

many fascinating stories. I went to see The Candymen play anytime I wasn't playing.

Watching them was like going to rock and roll school. I never failed to learn something

from them. John Rainey inspired me to work hard, learn things right, and to become

a professional guitar player. I last saw him in 1982. He died in 1989.

 

The Candymen started out as a backing band for Roy Orbison but eventually started their own act. This poster shows the band after their keyboard player, Little Bobby Peterson was drafted and Kinston, Alabama's Dean Daughtry took over. Lower photo: John Rainey Adkins(Dothan), Rodney Justo (Tampa), seated Bill Gilmore (Sarasota), standing Robert Nix (Jacksonville), Dean Daughtry(Kinston, Alabama)

 

 

 

 

ROADHOUSE BLUES AT THE OLD DUTCH:

Good Time Memories That Last A Lifetime

And just a few you might want to forget…

“Yeah, keep your eyes on the road,

Your hands upon the wheel.

Keep your eyes on the road,

Your hands upon the wheel.

Yeah, we’re going to the Roadhouse.

We’re gonna have a real

Good time.”

~ ROADHOUSE BLUES by The Doors

The Old Dutch was the first bar ever built on Panama City Beach and for thirty five years, from 1940 until 1975, billed itself as “The Oldest Recreation and Pleasure Center On The Beach” and was the first on “America’s Finest Beach” to advertise to the public to “Eat, Drink, Dance & Make Merry In The Cool Gulf Breezes.” By the 1960s, the kitchen had all but closed except for short orders and the old bar and dance hall had gained fame as a Spring Break and summer vacation destination for college students all over the Deep South. In the words of Wilbur Walton, Jr.,” It was a Mecca for dancing, fighting and music; like the Wild West but without the guns.” Simply mention the three words “The Old Dutch” to most any aging Baby Boomer who went to college in the Deep South during the Sixties and you’ll put a smile on their face. There are exceptions to that rule as well. Many a relationship met a premature end in the alcoholic excesses that characterized The Old Dutch.

When you walked into the barroom of The Old Dutch, you felt as if you’d just stepped into a rustic Florida roadhouse time capsule lifted out of some Forties film noir classic. The bare cypress log walls were covered with various clocks, curios and stuffed hunting and fishing trophies; all crowned with a high ceiling of exposed rough cypress beams. As you entered you faced a huge stone fireplace, constructed from 113 tons of rock that could burn logs five feet long. The anchor of the old 160 ft. coastal freighter, Tarpon, sunk off Phillips Inlet in 1937, stood mounted on the mantelpiece. To the left was the unpolished bar made of cypress lumber and blackened by the tobacco and whiskey it had dispensed since 1940. Not only did The Old Dutch offer its hospitality to the Sixties college student but it had done the same thing for their grandparents in the Forties and for their parents in the Fifties.

The story of The Old Dutch began over 75 years ago when Sylvan Beach, New York’s Frank Burghduff pulled his “palatial” nineteen-and-a-half foot mahogany and steel travel trailer down Highway 98 for the first time and fell in love with Bay County’s beaches during the winter of 1936-’37. Burghduff and his wife, Etta, parked at the newly opened Sea Breeze Hotel near the Y. They made their headquarters in this first hotel on the beach to offer hot and cold running water and began meeting “the powers that be” in the St. Andrews Bay area.

Burghduff could not have chosen a more perfect time to arrive on the soon-to-be Miracle Strip than in the winter of 1936-’37. On the Panama City beaches time scale, this was equivalent with the “End of The Ice Age”. The Phillips Inlet Bridge had been recently completed in ’35, finally opening the Coastal Highway. J.B. Lahan had begun development of his Laguna Beach and Gid Thomas held his grand opening for his Panama City Beach on May 2, 1936. When the Coastal Highway Association was formed a few years later, Burghduff was recognized for his pioneering achievements to promote tourism and was elected secretary while only two other men were selected to represent the interest of the beaches: A.W. Pledger who was the son-in-law of deceased Panama City Beach founder Gid Thomas and J.E. Churchwell, the owner of Long Beach Resort.

Burghduff returned to the beaches in the winter of ’37-’38 and by 1939, after purchasing a piece of beachfront from Wells, Dunn, Hutchison, Bullock & Bennett, was ready to begin fulfilling his dream of building a one-of-a-kind beachside roadhouse. Unfortunately, while construction of The Old Dutch was underway, Burghduff’s wife, Etta, whose family was also from the Lake Oneida, N.Y. area, developed a partial paralysis and passed away in September after being transported to a hospital in Dothan. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery along with Frank where both of their grave markers bear similar inscriptions, “Etta Burghduff -Wife & Pal” and “Frank Burghduff-Husband & Pal”.

When the summer season of 1940 commenced, The Old Dutch opened its newly constructed doors for the first time but with little fanfare. The first advertisement we find in the News-Herald is printed on September 28, 1940, inviting “Panama City Folks” to come out to the beach for “low winter prices” and listing “Special Meals, Cocktail to Dessert 75 cents, Seafood Grille 45 cents, Real Italian Spaghetti 35 cents, Western Steaks $1, $1.25, $1.50” This ad is significant because it’s the first time a Bay County restaurant ever advertised “Western Steaks”. At this time, the Florida cattle industry was in its infancy and most Americans considered Florida beef inferior and only good for the Cuban market.

In November of 1940, Burghduff began to purchase small ads in the local papers promoting weekend floor shows but his publicity machine really cranked up in December when he began broadcasting a short Friday afternoon program on radio station WDLP which was still in its first year of existence. Among the first to appear on this radio show promoting The Old Dutch was Neal McCormick and his Hawaiian Troubadours. McCormick, a Northwest Florida Creek Indian who had never even visited Hawaii, felt that the Hawaiian label went along well with his band’s pioneering use of the electric and steel guitars plus discrimination against Hawaiians was far less in the Deep South than it was against Indians. McCormick was the first to hire Hank Williams as a musician and there’s a good chance that a seventeen-year-old Hank Williams played with the Hawaiian Troubadours during the first New Years Eve show ever put on at The Old Dutch in 1940.

The first hint that there was going to be trouble in paradise for Burghduff occurred when a short comment was printed in a gossip column that appeared on the editorial page of the Panama City Pilot on Friday, July 18, 1941.  In “Our Town: Off the Record Bits and Views”, we read, “Apparently the sheriff’s office is going quietly about investigating the $700 burglary of

The Old Dutch Tavern last weekend. That office has a habit of going quietly about a good many things.” Not only was Burghduff missing his proceeds from the July 4 holiday but before Christmas, he ran an ad announcing to the public that they needed to “make reservations now for your Christmas party and New Years party”. Also included was the first of many more to come announcements of a change in management. The Old Dutch was now being run by Maud B. Meyers of the “Exclusive Spinning Wheel of Virginia, Specializing in Southern Fried and Bar-b-cued Chicken and Seafood.” More importantly, 1941 ushered in something far greater than a change of management. It brought WWII to the beaches.

A war with Germany put many Bay County tongues to wagging about the tavern keeper at the beach with the “German” name. In January, Burghduff had to take out a large ad in the News-Herald denying the “false and damnable rumors” about him being picked up by the FBI on several occasions because he was a Nazi spy with a short-wave radio.  He declared his pride in his “Dutch blood” and emphasized, “I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 100%”.

But big ads in the local paper could not reverse the changes Burghduff faced on the home front due to the war effort. The influx of workers at Wainwright Shipyard and GIs at Tyndall Field could not make up for the fact that pleasure driving had been made illegal and the Old Dutch being located by the Gulf meant that all its lights had to be extinguished from sunset to sunrise. Being located ten miles out of town did not help in a world where everyone had to beg, borrow, barter and save ration stamps just to get gas and tires so they could go to work. Even ten buses running up and down the beach from downtown to Sunnyside twenty hours each day was not enough to prevent Frank from having to repeatedly run ads throughout 1942 and 1943 declaring that The Old Dutch really was “Open For Business”. By 1944, the pressure was too much and Burghduff packed up and sold out to Cliff Stiles, the manager of downtown’s Dixie-Sherman Hotel.

Cliff Stiles had arrived in Panama City during the fall of 1938 to take over the Dixie-Sherman after his hotel chain had purchased it. Stiles owned hotels all over the Southeast and in 1946, he purchased one of the largest hotels in Birmingham, The Redmont. Much of the talent that later appeared on the stage of The Old Dutch would be recruited from the Redmont.

From 1944 until 1950, not much was heard from The Old Dutch. Stiles kept a low profile and there were no promotions and no efforts to attract tourists. Construction on the beach exploded in the late Forties so that brought in business from the workers and Stiles remodeled the cypress log cabin and began building a motel around it. During its first ten years, this roadhouse was generally known as “The Old Dutch Tavern” and, occasionally, “The Old Dutch Inn” but after 1950, it was known almost exclusively as “The Old Dutch Inn” and by the mid-Sixties, “The Old Dutch Motel and Nightclub” or, more popularly, as simply, “The Old Dutch”.

The “Gala Opening” of The Old Dutch “under new management” occurred on April 22, 1950. The Joseph brothers out of Birmingham were brought in by Stiles to run the show and a variety of talent was recruited from the stage of the Redmont as well as the Joseph brothers own Jack-O-Lantern Club in Birmingham. It is not within the scope of this article to examine the careers of all the entertainers who performed on the stage of The Old Dutch but an excellent insight into the status of show business on the Gulf Coast in the middle of the twentieth century could be gained from a study of this variety of musicians, dancers, acrobats and comedians.

The management of the Joseph brothers may not have contributed to the events of June 1952, but the arrest of The Old Dutch Hotel manager for embezzlement brought Auburn’s H.H. Lambert in as the new proprietor of the “air conditioned” Old Dutch Inn. Lambert lasted two years on the beach and when he turned in his keys in September of ’54, he returned to Auburn where he built the War Eagle Supper Club, an institution that continues to do business in the present day and which remains, in the words of singer Taylor Hicks, “a true southern roadhouse” that promotes itself with a slogan that could have been applied to the Old Dutch in its heyday: “Cold Beer. Hot Rock. Expect No Mercy.”

By 1957, Stiles had begun selling his old properties while acquiring Holiday Inn franchises. After building the first Gulfside Holiday Inn on property adjoining The Old Dutch on the west in ’63, he hired Betty Koehler to manage The Old Dutch Motel and Nightclub. As The Old Dutch acquired its reputation as the classic Panama City Beach bar during the Golden Age of Beach Music, Stiles began to sell his newly constructed Holiday Inns and he ceased to lease out the roadhouse’s premises to managers. Betty and Cliff worked together and formed a team that turned The Old Dutch into “a nickel silver plated money baling machine”.

Exotic dancers continued to perform during the Sixties but the “bread and butter” performers during the season were rock and roll bands composed of young guys in their late teens and early twenties. Any dreams they ever had of a summer filled with sun, surf, sand, beer and bikinis were crushed when they realized their schedule included at least eight sessions a week and as many as twelve a week during the week of July 4. Guitar players regularly changed out their strings every week from the wear that was enhanced by the salt air and sweat. These young musicians had to be dedicated and determined to show the world that they were special. During July 4th week, multiple bands were hired and after 1971, live entertainment began every day at noon and went on in continuous four hour shifts until 4 A.M. in the morning.

There was no such thing as a fire code in The Old Dutch and the dance hall often looked like a smoke filled cavern; packed to the walls, shoulder to shoulder. More than one musician who played there has made this remark using the same words, ”I didn’t know you could get that many people in a room.”

You grew up fast when you played The Old Dutch. Many a teenage guitar player witnessed his first striptease act standing behind the stripper while providing her with the music to which she was dancing. Many of the cocktail waitresses and Go-Go girls didn’t appreciate male affection and many musicians first witnessed their first open “display of affection” between a same-sex couple when the waitress’ short-haired “boyfriend” came to pick her up dressed in madras shirt, pressed khakis and penny loafers. The first time many a Tri-State male saw a woman go out in public without wearing a bra was at The Old Dutch. To craft your first fake I.D. and use it to get into The Old Dutch was a Gulf Coast rite of passage.

During the summer of ’65, a beach music classic was born on the dance floor of The Old Dutch. A band from South Alabama called the K-Otics were playing one week and during their breaks they visited the nearby Old Hickory where the Swingin’ Medallions were performing. The K-Otics loved “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love” and asked the Medallions if they planned to record it. The Medallions said, ”No,” so the K-Otics laid plans to cut the record. Later in the fall, the Medallions had a change of heart and recorded “Double Shot”. Both the Swingin’ Medallions and the K-Otics released their versions in the spring of ’66. The K-Otics had a regional hit and the Medallions’ record went national and the rest is history. Bruce Springsteen called “Double Shot”, “the greatest fraternity rock song of all time.” Columnist Bob Greene called it “the ultimate get-drunk-and-throw-up song. You heard it in every juke box in every bar in the world.” In 1993, Louis Grizzard wrote, ”Even today, when I hear ‘Double Shot of My Baby’s Love’, it makes me want to stand outside in the hot sun with a milkshake cup full of beer in one hand and a slightly drenched coed in the other.”

This article only scratches the surface on the story of The Old Dutch. Somebody needs to write a book about this old roadhouse. This is a story that transcends generations. The events of the four decades when The Old Dutch stood on the beach would chronicle the emergence of live entertainment on Panama City Beach.

This writer will never forget going to see a 60-something guitar player as he lay on his deathbed in a V.A. hospice. It was 2006 and Greg Haynes had published his giant thirteen pound book, THE HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC, with its 552 pages and 800 images. My friend forced himself out of his drug-induced coma so he could see the newly published book. He silently gazed at the pictures as I turned the pages for him. He held himself up as long as he possibly could and as I turned the page that had the image of The Old Dutch, he said, “Oh, I remember that place.” Those were his only words and I soon left and a few days later my friend passed away.

The Old Dutch passed away in 1975 due to damage produced by Hurricane Eloise and by the summer of ’76, it was ready for demolition.

The Old Dutch was built on shifting sand, moving each day in countless ways, reforming thousands of times. The beach itself never stands still yet The Old Dutch stood for over 35 years serving the migratory hordes of vacationers each summer. The memories of those excesses of so long ago were made within alcoholic oblivion but those memories of The Old Dutch are not lost. To my dying day, I’ll say, ”Oh, I remember that place.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ROBERTO,
WE WERE PLAYING IN NEW YORK @ STEVE PAUL'S SCENE.
LINDA McCARTNEY (obviously before she married Paul) WAS INTRODUCING JOHN RAINEY TO LOTS OF N.Y. FOLKS. I BELIEVE THE CORAL ELECTRIC SITAR PEOPLE WERE IN FACT SOME OF THEM. ( ask Rodney to make sure of this, I'm sure he'll remember)
WE WERE BACK IN ATLANTA LATER ON MAKING A RECORD @ MASTER SOUND WHEN JOE SOUTH SAW THE SITAR AND ASKED JOHN RAINEY IF HE COULD BORROW IT.
HE KEPT IT A WHILE.
THEN LO AND BEHOLD THE WORLD GOT JOE SOUTH'S SIGNATURE SITAR SOUND ON 'THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY' WHICH WON THE GRAMMY.
KEEP THE BABY FAITH,
robert nix............................

 

Roy Orbison's CANDYMEN @ the northwest corner of West Troy and North Foster in Dothan's Peanut Festival Parade, circa: 1966. (front seat: John Rainey Adkins, Bill Gilmore ~ back seat: Rodney Justo, Little Bobby Peterson, Robert Nix) This link tells about the sad last days of Little Bobby Peterson  https://rockpilgrimage.blogspot.com/2012/07/gordon-jamming-with-renown-keyboardist.html?fbclid=IwAR3GBaDo8tX_XBKHqSuDFWfD_PgGszrZgUvFAqO-qOR9oDic4NGRjIesDgc