Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: I ran across a quote by Hunter S. Thompson that made me think about some of the things that Doc, Marilyn, and their friends have said about the music business and how ruthless it can be. Here it is:

Tondeleo: One thing that Doc and Marilyn and the band are very strong about s getting along well with other musicians. Some musicians I have met have an "I don't care what they think; they're not coming to our shows or buying our merch" attitude. And while that may be true, and while musicians definitely can have attitudes towards other musicians and bands, I have found that Doc and Marilyn and their band aren't at all like that. They don't seem to comprehend the idea of competitiveness.I quizzed them about why they don't compete with other musicians and seem to like everybody...

Doc: Well, first of all, a man needs all the friends he can get...

Marilyn: So do girls, Tondy...

Doc: ...and we ain't competin' with nobody. Alot of bands and players are competin', an' that is where they can get an attitude toward other people.

Tondeleo: Competing for what, Doc?

Doc: Well, depends on what kind of music they're playin. Mostly, competin' for gigs, bookin's. Like, if you and five other bands are all tryin' to play at, say, the local bar or club, and you know only one's gonna get it, amd another band is undercuttin' you, you might get mad or ...

John Hungerford from Hometown Band inspects one of Doc's homemade guitars. Bill Hull from The Roadhouse Band looks on benevolently. In the background is Paco Blake from Hometown Band.

 Marilyn:  At least get your feelings hurt...

Doc: Yeah, or feelings hurt if someone else takes your gig away. Especially if they's not as good as you. Even more if they play the same kind of music you play. So, you got your set list and you're good at it, an' then the place stops callin' you so you go down there since NOW you got nothin' to do on Friday night, an' they're pretty much playin' your set list. And not as good as you. You might decide right then and there you don't like them.
You prob'ly need the money to keep the lights on or to pay some bills, and now these other people are playin' your show, and you feel like they're takin' food outta your mouth.

Marilyn: That hurts. Especially when you need some new shoes or jeans or something. Money's tight for everybody.


Doc: So that's one reason you might not like the other band. Another reason is just because they might have an attitude or something like that.

Marilyn: Like a pre-Madonna attitude. 

Doc: We're pretty lucky 'cause we aren't in that situation so none of it matters to us. We play what's in our hearts, and we play it how it sounds in our hearts, and we're already broke, so ain't nobody playin' what we play... and we don't have a set list.

Marilyn: Me and Rick have a list of a couple hundred songs we might pick from, but we never know what is coming next. Doc basically just sings what comes up in his spirit, and that might bring something to my mind, so I might sing that next...

Tondy: Marilyn, why is it that only you and Rick have song lists and nobody else in the band does?

Marilyn: Well, me and Rick need them 'cause we play harp and we need to know what key the different songs are in. Brian is the drummer, so he doesn't need to know any of that. Jerry on lead guitar doesn't know what key he is playing in and neither does Jay on the bass. They just play. But me and Rick need to know, because you have to have the right harp for the right key.

Doc: Yeah, we pretty much go by what the crowd is responding to, and then change it up as we find out what they really like. We might get booked as playin' blues, and then find out what they really like is old country music. Or rockabilly. Or even Gospel. Or rockabilly Gospel! You can't never tell up front. So how you gonna have a set list for that? I cain't read and play guitar at the same time anyway.

When it comes to other bands, once they look at us and hear us, they know we aint any kind of competition for them, and we could not steal their bookin's or their audience, so it's a lot easier to get along.

Some of the bands we are friends with heard us somewhere, or heard us busking or playin' out on the streets, and invited us inside to play with them. You're not gonna be a mic hog when people have been good to you.

A lot of these bands can sound just like the records. We can't do that. we have a hard enough time just sounding like us. So we think real high of a band that can sound like a whole lot of different groups and singers. People don't even realize how much work that is and how much talent it takes.

They can tell we look up to them, and that helps a lot. Most of them have good equipment, which we don't. Plus, we don't even play the places where most the bands play. We mostly do festivals, conferences and conventions... community events...

Marilyn: Civic events, church anniversaries, fish fries, barbecues...

Doc: and pig pickin's and family reunions. I like playin' wherever they feed us. So's the band.

And since we don't play what the other bands are playin', we don't sound like anyone, we don't look like anyone, it just makes it easier to get along, play a lot of music and be friends. And, we feel the songs we sing and we let it show. If we're feeling a song, you're gonna know it, and were not gonna hide it. I cry sometimes when singin' a sad song, 'cause I feel it in my heart. Marilyn does too. Sometimes if I'm singin' and cryin', she starts cryin' 'cause she feels sorry for me up there cryin'! She's a good girl, Tondy.

But whatever we play and however we do it, it ain't never a threat to other bands and singers. so we all get along. We like everybody, Tondy. you know that.

Tondeleo: For serious musicians, everything else is just something they have to get out of the way, so they can play music. 

If they have jobs, the job is to pay the bills so they can play music. As soon as they have spare time, they're out playing music and trying to find people to play with. It doesn't matter if they are poor or are doing well financially, it seems that serious musicians all feel this way. At least the ones I have met through Doc and his friends. 

Doc: Yeah, that's pretty much right, Tondy. Hey, here's an old musician joke for you. What's the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?

Tondeleo: I don't know, what IS the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?

Doc: A pizza can feed a family of four... guitar player can't. Well, most of 'em can't. Not without a regular job.

But yeah, like you said, we want to play all the time. If we go out and are playin' a lot of times there's other players out there listenin' and they might ask if they can come up an' play with us.

Like me an' Rick was out playin' the other night. The rest of the Holy Ghost Band wasn't available, so just the two of us took the bookin'.  We knew that there'd be people there who would join in and make a band and we'd sound ok.

We got home made and cheap equipment. That means we've had to learn to work around that. The other guys have nice stuff. I have to make my guitars sound as good as theirs or it won't work. They do't care how my stuff looks, just how it sounds.


Tondeleo: And what happened... did it work out that way?

Doc: Yeah, as we  got set up, a drummer and bass player was listenin' to us tune up and hit a few notes. They joined us from the git-go. Then a lead player and a trumpet player of all things. That's the first time we had a blues trumpet player with us. He was good, and I didn't even get to meet him! He just come up and played real well, and then disappeared into the night after about an hour of playin.' Later Jim McWilliams said the guy on trumpet was Mike Robey. I never did get to meet him.

The drummer was Glen Strobel. He played a while and does a good job. Then Bobby Jones played drums lot of songs. He was the drummer for Roy Buchanan for like 30 years and was on a lot of albums with Roy and toured the world. He was there.

We had a couple lead players, too that night. Couple of bass players, too. A gal named JoAnn and a guy whose name I didn't get, and Troy Peterson swapped around from lead to bass. Bill Hull played lead for a while. People swapped in and out a lot.

One reason we get a lot of people and other bands what like us is we sound different than most. We ain't had no music lessons, so a lot of what we do is homebrew.

Tondeleo: Homebrew???

Doc: Yeah, homebrew. It means we just sit down by the radio   and try to figure out what they was playin'. We end up not playin' it exactly like the guy on the radio, but we discover a lot of other things while tryin' to play it.

You wouldn't get that if you took lessons. You'd just be taught how that guy played it and that would be all you learned. People ask me all the time how I learnt to play a song a certain way. It's not because I'm doin' it better, cause I'm not. It's because it's different, but still sounds pretty good.

Another part of it is because we don't play bar band music, and that is different.

Tondeleo: Can you explain what bar band music is?

Doc: Bar band music is what bands got to play in bars. Like Hits of the 70's, 80 's and 90's and 00's. They got to do that to get bookin's. Plus the people in the bars ain't really listenin', but they expect that band to sound JUST like the original recording. Look, the original band never played it like the original recording, if you heard them play it live, later. Why should I try to sound like someone else sounded ONE time in their life. But if you're a bar band, that's what the audience wants. They can all be drunk, but if you play a couple of notes different than the record, they notice it and don't like it. To them, you got it "wrong." You gotta play it like the jukebox.

We play songs that's in our hearts and play and sing it like it is in our hearts. If it ain't in my heart, I ain't playin' it or singin' it. Old country music, like our daddies listened to, Hank Williams, Sr, and Webb Pierce, Patsy Cline, and then we play some old school Gospel from Grandma's day, and we play old school blues, like Muddy, BB, Buddy Guy and all them, and we play some rockabilly. But we don't sound like the record on any of them. We just sound like us, which is hard enough.

Anyway, we let anybody who's good enough to be playin' somewhere play with us. If they sound real good, we step back and let them take front and center. You can't be a show off and hope to get along with other people. You can't be a mic hog or a spotlight hog and expect people to want to play with you again. Everybody got to be in the spotlight for a bit. Especially if they been helpin' you to sound good! You got to appreciate other peoples' talent and feelings.