Here we go again. Fort Worth.
I write about music all the time and I swear that a full one-quarter of what I write touches Fort Worth in one way or another. I wrote a piece about Space Opera, a band I thought was from Canada. Fort Worth. I spent years obsessing about Gypsy, a band from Minnesota but whose bass player grew up in and lives in Fort Worth. One of my all-time favorite session guitarists, Dean Parks, is from Fort Worth. Another, Stephen Bruton. Fort Worth. If I was going to write a list of my favorite musicians, many would be from Fort Worth. What is it about this town that spawned artists like Bill Ham and Scott Fraser and so many more? What is it that attracted so many others? I have no idea but I can say that Fort Worth is a lazy writer’s dream. I could have started writing about the music of that area years ago and wouldn’t be close to running out of material yet. Because music in Fort Worth, Texas never stops.
It hasn’t yet anyway. I know because I received another drop in the mail recently, this time from an old Ohio boy who now lives there (and has for some time). If you’re from, ahem, Fort Worth, you know him as the guy who flies the Ohio State colors during bowl season. His name is Jim Colegrove and when he moved there back in 1974, he planned on a short visit to play in a band with Stephen Bruton. He’s still there. I knew of him but didn’t start paying real attention until he formed The Juke Jumpers with Stephen’s brother Sumter, a band I revere to this day. They boogied and rocked and rolled with the best.
Ol’ Jim has been knocking around Fort Worth for some, what, thirty years? Playing the clubs. Recording himself and others. Working his guitar-picking ass off, basically, and loving every minute of it. He loves the blues and boogie and country and every other genre that town embraces and he plays it well, but like all musicians he yearns to play what he used to play— what he started out playing— rock ‘n’ roll. Instrumental rock ‘n’ roll.
So he started messing around in the studio a few years ago, laying down tracks here and there with a handful of musicians he enjoys working with (Linda Waring, David McMillan and Rob Caslin). When they finally put the two-year long sessions to rest, they came out with thirteen instrumentals to rival all of the hits from the late-fifties and early-sixties.
I could tell this was a winner from the start when “Chinese Launch” started with what is supposedly a Chinese countdown/chant of some kind before tearing into a manic semi-surf ripoff of The Surfaris (remember “Wipe Out”?) which gives way to a whole string of instrumentals which could easily have been hits around ’60 to ’65. You know. The days when instrumentals were king?
This will bring back memories of the good old days when you cruised the gut in your buddy’s ’55 Chevy or your cousin’s hot rod. Memories of the malt shop and the drive-ins, one serving food, the other fantasy. Crew-cuts with fenders, buzzcuts, Burch Wax, camel hair sweaters and pony tails.
3 Quarter Dime is a veritable destruction derby of an album, one song slamming into another and all fueled by riffs from the past. Think everything from Dick Dale to early Wailers (the band from Tacoma), Duane Eddy to The Astronauts, Santo & Johnny to The Ventures and you would be close. Colegrove and his band of musicians from the real era of Grease and not that fake Hollywood portrayal slam-bang their way from front to back, guitar immersed in deep reverb helped along by plenty and a half of tremolo. And dig those drum riffs and pounding bass lines. Sandy Nelson would be proud.
But pardon my manners. Colegrove, it seems, doesn’t just play the music on the album. He lives it. Or did live it. He was in a band back in Ohio called Teddy & The Rough Riders and had a hit with an instrumental track titled “Tomahawk” around 1960. Put out a few other singles too. From there, it was on to other bands as well as putting in time behind the boards in various studios. The guy knows his stuff.
His other successes? He has played and recorded with Bo Grumpus and Jolliver Arkansaw (so what if you’ve never heard of them— you haven’t heard of 90% of the bands from the old days) as well as Great Speckled Bird (if you haven’t heard of THEM, you are sadly unschooled). His greatest triumph, to my mind, has been the work he did with The Juke Jumpers, released on the band’s own label, Amazing Records (their motto, “If it’s a hit, it’s Amazing!,” cracks me up every time I hear or read it). They swing and boogie like few others. (If you want to pick any of them up, start with their 1980-1981 CD. It’s a killer!)
This album ranks right up there with the Juke Jumpers’ albums. Swear to God, if you’re not ready to don the old tight T-shirt, grease back that hair and roll that pack o’ smokes up in the shirt sleeve, you didn’t live those days. Like Mr. Gasser & The Weirdos, Jim Colegrove & the New Rough Riders of a Dirty Age are havin’ a blast. And no, I’m not kiddin’. That’s the band’s full name!
For more info on Jim Colegrove and the musical journey he has taken, click here.
