However, through his friendship with Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery, the bandleader at the Big D Jamboree, Dawson was asked to play guitar with a late incarnation of the Light Crust Doughboys, Milton Brown’s pioneering western swing band that had featured Bob Wills in 1934 (Brown died in 1936). “They were mainly known as a country & western group even though they played polkas and stuff like that,” he remembers. “They had a fiddle and steel guitar, and in those days if you had a fiddle you were known as a fiddle band. You were hillbilly.
“They took me along because they did a lot of schools and grocery store parking lots. They’d play a lot of schools, so I was the young attraction and man, it was great. We traveled quite bit. I didn’t really appreciate getting to play with them because their history wasn’t as deep then as it is now. It wasn’t until later on that I really appreciated playing with those people.”
Around this time, Dawson also got some work as a studio musician — most notably, he played drums on Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby” and Paul & Paula’s “Hey Paula” — as well as releasing tracks for Columbia Records under the monikers of Snake Munroe (“It was a blues thing; my nickname was Snake because I weighed about 90 pounds, and my middle name is Munroe”) and Commonwealth Jones, some of which can be found on Dawson’s Rockin’ Bones double-CD collection of old material and rarities.
Throughout the 1960s, Dawson performed with the Levee Singers, a vocal group that toured nationally and made TV appearances on “The Jimmy Dean Show”, “Hootenany” and “The Hollywood Palace”. In the 1970s, he was involved with a group called Steelrail that was apparently ahead of its time. Dawson remembers it this way: “Steelrail’s idea was to put country and rock ‘n’ roll together. Because at that time it really hadn’t been done. They started to do it on the West Coast; Rick Nelson had a band, the Stone Canyon Band, and to us it sounded like a rock ‘n’ roll band with a country steel player sitting in, but we wanted to take it a step further.
“We found a steel player here in Dallas by the name of Larry White, and we just based the whole band around him. He could play any kind of music and he had great imagination. To me, it was some of the best music I’ve ever done in my life. But it didn’t come together for some reason. We never had a release.”
When prompted, Dawson reveals he’s working on finally getting some of Steelrail’s music out, but it’s been a long and tricky task. “We’ve been in the process, for the past couple of years, of trying to get some stuff together. I know we had quite a few things recorded. I’ve been able to come up with some of them. But there’s a fellow that we were associated with at the time that we didn’t have a very good parting with, if you know what I mean, and we were out of communication with him for a very long time. I’ve just relocated him in the last year.
“We’re thinking if we do it, it might be called Ronnie Dawson: The Steelrail Years or something like that. I’ve got a company here in Dallas that’s interested in releasing it, so we may have something out this year. I’m even thinking the band may get back together again to do a concert or two.”
In the 1980s, Dawson was making national commercials for the likes of CiCi’s Pizza, Jax Beer and Hungry Jack Pancakes, as he continues to do today. But around Christmas 1986, his career as a rockabilly artist had a surprising resurgence. British record collector Barney Koumis contacted Dawson to inform him that some of his old recordings had reached legendary status in England and had become highly sought collector’s items. Koumis also was interested in any unreleased material Dawson might want to issue on Koumis’ indie label, No Hit Records. Eventually Dawson traveled to England and caused a sensation, which led to No Hit releasing a series of albums: Rockin’ Bones (a collection of early hits), Monkey Beat, Rockinitis and Just Rockin’ And Rollin’. All were eventually made available in the U.S. on either Crystal Clear Sound or Upstart Records.
The renewed interest in his old music opened up many doors. “In 1994,” he says, “I had a chance to play a folk festival at Carnegie Hall called Deep In The Heart Of Texas, and from that one gig we got a great review in The New York Times with a picture and all, and that’s how we were able to start booking here [in the States].
“The next thing I knew, [Austin country singer] Ted Roddy called me and said, ‘Let’s do a gig.’ I came down to Austin and played at the Continental Club. I did that one down there with High Noon [an Austin rockabilly band], and that started my whole association with them, which was a wonderful one. The Austin connection has been good one, from the musicians I played with to the live album I recorded there last year.”
Dawson has been touring fairly extensively since 1994, establishing a bond with musicians and fans wherever he’s been. He developed a strong relationship with some folks in Portland, Maine, who had built a new recording studio; Dawson ended up recording More Bad Habits there.
“I think it’s good to spread this thing around and get young people involved in it too,” he says. “That’s part of the reason we’re doing this whole thing, my wife and I. The record is dedicated to my wife because without her, I probably couldn’t be doing this. She set up the business for me and takes care of it for me. She’s just been great.
“But we’re not doing it for the money. We’re doing it to work with younger people, maybe help them get a good step up. Nearly everyone we’ve worked with in the past couple years has left and formed their own band. We like that. Some things were handed to me, and I feel an obligation to pass it on to people who are younger than me. That’s kinda what I go by.”
Jim Caligiuri lives in Austin, Texas, and believes there’s no better place on earth.
