DAVIS, RODNEY REEVES, age 54, died February 28, 2007. He was born in Opp, AL to Willard and Josephine Davis who preceded him in death. He lived in Birmingham for the last 32 years. Rodney loved music and was a great guitar player who played at Carnegie Hall and American Bandstand with Sailcat, a local band. He will be missed by his wife, Kate Pope Davis and their three Scotties: Fergus, Buster and Maggie; his sisters, Vivian (Syd) Parrot of Chattanooga, TN and Teresa (Paul) Hartsfield of Childersburg, AL; and his brother, Ken (Linda) Davis of Pelham, AL and his many nieces and nephews. A Memorial Service will be held Saturday, March 3rd at 1 p.m. at Johns Ridout's Southside Chapel. The family will be receiving friends from 12 until 1p.m. In lieu of flowers, please donate to Dougal's Fund, Inc. for medical care for Scotties with serious illness. Send c/o Kathleen McGuigan (Andes), PO Box 1085, Fairhope AL 36533 or online contact http://www.welcome.to/dougalsfund


Left to Right are Bill Connell, Court Pickett, Rodney Davis (seated in the middle), Wyker and Ronnie Brown.




Left to Right are Otis Hale, Jerry Rightmer, Johnny Townsend , Jimmy Varley, Roger Johnson and Ed Sanford.

Robert,
The last few years have been a very sad time for some of us old geezers. With the news about Rodney, I've lost nine old musical comrades in that time. Some you know about like Art Schilling, Joe Rudd and Rodney. This morning I got the call that my old friend and bass player for The Sanford/Townsend Band, Jerry Rightmer passed away in a convalescent hospital in Ventura, California. Jerry, like Rodney was one damn sweet guy and they will be missed most assuredly.
I'm enclosing a few photos.

So long old friends. We will meet in that sweet by and by...............
Johnny Townsend





Dear Robert !
THANKS for mentioning these two great Cats...and also my best friend Art Shilling....seems like everybody is buyin' The Farm larely...too many good Cats are leaving us.....

May God bless and keep them all !
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwyker aka SAILCAT
http://www.mfvr.com/


an old post by Wyker on Mighty Field of Vision yahoogroups that's icing on the cake[even though there may be a little bit of confusion 'bout the Candymen]....
About the same time that the Rubber Band was on it's last leg the same thang was happening to The James Gang...the Southern James Gang...which featured Wilbur Walton as their singer...the other members also doubled as The Candymen when they backed up Roy Orbison....most of those cats later formed The Atlanta Rhythm Section...Buddy Buie from Dothan produced both The James Gang and ARS...I used to go to Hotlanta back in the 60's and stay with Buddy and Robert Nix...Nix was the drummer for these groups in those days...and now all of a sudden I just remembered where I lost my first wedding ring...and that was at Nix's apartment..damn I'm firing some old memory cells tonight...amazing how the old human mind can be inspired to recall events in the long lost past .....

Anyway...when the Rubber Band finally snapped and broke up I still had a bunch of gigs lined up to play and no band to do it....the Christmas party session was about to happen and Wilbur Walton was also left with all of the gigs that James Gang had contacted to play....I had known Wilbur for years...when I was in high school I used to go down to Tuscaloosa and attend all of the fraternity rush parties and Wilbur was in college then and he was a member of The Sex Above Everythang Frat...in laymen's' terms that would be The SAE's......anyway Wilbur called me one day and said that he was holding a bunch of James Gang gigs and that he would pay me to put a band together...I think he offered me some pretty good money too...so I told him that I had the same problem...gigs and no band...so the best way to solve the problem was to put one band together to cover ALL the gigs......

One night we were The Rubber Band and maybe the next night we were The James Gang......I played bass and I hired Court Pickett to sing....and Lou Mullenix on drums...and I think Jim Coleman was on keyboards...and Tippy Armstrong played guitar on some of the gigs and Ronnie Brown played guitar...and on some gigs Frank Freidman played a second guitar....Frank was a founding member of THIS SIDE UP....

Court sang lead when we were The Rubber Band...and Wilbur sang lead when we were The James Gang.......this worked out pretty well at first when the gigs were far a apart....and in different towns.....we were all making great money and having a ball doin' it.....except when Wilbur had to do the singin'.....by this time he was a real big drunk...and would not sing until he was totally juiced up...it took us a while to get his M. O. down...he would say the PA was broken and tell us to stall with more instrumentals....we finally figured out what he was up to...and we just played a bunch of freeform jams...remind me to tell the cat tale of how we brain washed a crowd in Auburn with a one chord groove that put the whole place in a trance dance.....

Anyhow......thangs were going fine until about the middle of the Christmas session and we played a gig in Mobile as The Rubber Band....then the next night in the very same building we came in as The James Gang...we got away with it until the third night when we played the same place for a different girls club as The Rubber Band again.......it was really scary to be on the bandstand and to watch people in the crowd whispering to each other...you could read their lips..."Was'nt that the same guy that played with..so and so band.the other night......well.... I don't know how we ever got out of there alive that last night...but we did......I'm sure their was some fast talkin' involved and some fast cars too.....!"