Even though Coker knew he was playing his last few nights with us, he was a great sport and welcomed Boogie out to sit in with us. Jerry Coker played his last night with the Desperados on January 29, 1978. It was a low key event--the split was very amicable.  I can clearly remember Jerry coming back in after all the other equipment was dismantled and rolling out his beer stained, cigarette burned Fender Reverb amp for the last time. Jerry had been a terrific friend and great guitar player for the style of music we'd been playing up until that time, but styles were changing, baby! The Desperados were about to ROCK!  

On the night before Boogie started with us, he had a big party at the house he shared with three or four other guys. His roommates were from the ritzy Spencer's crowd; the girls were decked out in what looked like futuristic prom gowns. The guys all had on the right clothes and drove fancy cars. The people who knew about Boogie joining up with us treated me and RJ well. The others were like the stuffy, snobby crowd in the frat party scene from the movie "Pretty In Pink."  Boogie was feeling no pain. His buddy and business partner, Jimmy Bradley, was the life of the party. Jimmy could get Boogie laughing so hard that he couldn't stop. Boogie didn't usually say much, but when he did it was brutally honest, even to the girls at the party. One girl wore her hair stacked on top of her head at an angle. Boogie told her she looked like Gumby. That got a huge laugh from everyone except the girl.  Another girl was wearing a shiny, metallic looking dress. Boogie introduced her as Miss Alcoa.  Jimmy Bradley did a really great Elvis act, causing Boogie to laugh himself silly.  

Most of the people at that party probably resented RJ and me for taking Boogie away from the Spencer's scene and plucking him down in the middle of the East Side of town. But we had business to attend to. We needed Boogie to get us to the next level. Ironically, Spencer's Corner Club didn't survive Boogie's run with the Desperados, so it didn't matter if we impressed those frat rats at the party or not. It wouldn't be long before many  of those partygoers would be making the drive over to E. Lancaster to do their partying. We knew it was only a matter of time before their heckles and stares would fade into oblivion and become totally insignificant to us.

Three nights after Jerry Coker played his LAST night as a Desperado, Jerry "Boogie" Lamont played his first!  It was February 2, 1978, a night that would prove to be a major turning point for the whole band. Boogie was a new, younger breed of rock guitarist. He had the look, the drive, and the guitar licks to take us to the next level.

Boogie Lamont onstage at the Hungry I

Things were in such a frenzy at that time that I failed to document exactly how Boogie came to join our band.  After talking to him at length in early September of 2002, he filled in the blanks for me.  While we'd been doing the Desperado thing, Boogie had been playing with some really impressive musicians  in some really serious bands. RJ and I had been fans of his band "Future Shock" (featuring Boogie,  Rusty Boden, Danny Cochran, Rick Myrick, and Butch McReynolds) and had seen them play several times. Future Shock was a little different than most club bands of that era, in that they played almost exclusively exactly what they WANTED to play. There were a lot of "B" sides of hit records that not everyone was familiar with. They played songs like Little Feat's "Skin It Back" which was a great song, but not in the mainstream.  They did a version of the Allman Brother's "Whippin' Post" that gave me chill bumps!  But the club scene was leaving Boogie cold for reasons he couldn't really put his finger on. When that band fell apart, Boogie decided to take a break from the band business and got a job working the second shift at Armor's Meat Packing Plant.  (Get him to tell you what he did there...)  The shift ended just in time for him to hurry and catch the last set of a band now and then.  Over time, he began to miss playing and decided to give the music business another chance.  But first he would have to find a band to join. 

Boogie had been out to see us play a few times, and had even sat in with us on a number of occasions.  He was related to RJ by marriage, and since RJ and I are first cousins, Boogie was practically family to me too.  By Boogie's own admission, he began dropping hints to RJ about wanting to join up with our band.  That was basically all it took. From that moment on, RJ and I began to orchestrate Jerry Coker's departure, and plan Boogie's arrival.  

Regardless of  how Boogie ended up with us; we were extremely proud and excited to have him. We knew his no-nonsense work ethic and level of musicianship would no doubt have a positive influence on the rest of us. We just had one more bit of business to take care of before we would feel complete; we needed a new drummer. But that would have to wait a while. We didn't want to change so drastically all at once and risk losing our following.  Besides, we had Boogie now, and that was enough to focus on for the time being.

Girls who didn't know enough about music to appreciate Boogie's playing ability were just as excited about his handsome looks and muscle bound body. But Boogie never really responded to that part of the club scene. He had a steady girlfriend and didn't mind letting the aggressive type females know it. He was, for a large part, all about the music. 

Around this time, Sealy Aston was undergoing some personnel changes too. David Crockett was playing drums, and a rumor was floating around that Leon Childs might take over as bass player, replacing Roy Robbins. Leon Childs was a funky, showy black dude who could play the heck out of the bass guitar, but the thought of Leon as a replacement for the rock solid Robbins in Sealy Aston didn't make sense to me. Rather than a rumor, that seemed more like wishful thinking on Leon's part. This was the music business. The rumor mill was always running at full throttle. 

[I ran into Roy Robbins, Mark Ballew, and David Crockett  at the Jube in Ft. Worth on April 17th 2004. They had just put a new band together called DOM. That stands for Dirty Old Men! And of course it was unbelievable how great they sounded even after all these years! Roy said he'd seen this blurb on the web after doing a search to see if his name would come up. He was surprised to see the rumor about possibly being replaced in Sealy Aston. He'd never heard a word about it, proving that it must have been just that - a rumor.] 

We had a big jam at the club featuring Don Reeder, Danny Cochran, Danny Rowlette, and some of the guys from Yazoo.  One of the guys from Titus Oates was reportedly bad-mouthing us, but that was typical for all bands to do some of that now and then. I had a big birthday party on February 6 and turned 23.  After the gig on my birthday, Boogie and I went to Denny's for breakfast and to hang out with the late-night crowd.  We ran into Delbert McClinton, Randy Cobb, and Chris Clifton. Randy borrowed $300 from Delbert for something, and it was no biggie for Delbert to hand over the cash without blinking or asking questions.  Later we met up with RJ, Jim, and Danny Cochran to talk about the "Ralph" situation.  It was good to get Cochran's input, since he was, after all, our favorite drummer in town.

That week we had a big party at the Shady Rest. The guest list consisted of Chris Jones, Rita Jones, David and Glinda Bivens, Boogie, RJ, Janice, Jim Wise, Susan Hart, Marie, Jimmy Bradley, Ray Jones, Dave, Donny, Tim Lane, Judy Mosier, and more.  The next night a drunk mug busted out the glass in the front window of the sandwich shop next to the "I". The bartender, Ryan Brennan, chased the guy down and sat on him as we waited for the police to arrive. The guy faked a seizure and when Ryan stepped back, the guy got up and ran away. This wouldn't be the last time that big window would get broken out.

More band news from around town.  Full Force broke up. Danny Cochran joined Kaleidoscope.  The roads are still icy, keeping us from Denny's. I made a vow to start exercising (which I never stuck with), and I finally had a breakthrough conversation with Pam. I also discovered I can never date girls who have cats. We started asking drummers to set in so we could line up a prospect to replace Ralph, but I couldn't much get into the audition spirit because I had food poisoning from Sambo's.  Things were jumping and more big time local musicians were hanging out at the "I" than ever before. We were finally beginning to be taken seriously.  OK, perhaps that is a stretch.  I should say that we had definitely taken it up a few notches, and as soon as we could find a new drummer, we would get even better. We just knew it.

The Johnson Journals