skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I’m Bill Pruitt – former drummer for Steamboat and currently living close to Mobile, AL. These days I am teaching on faculty in the department of Cardiorespiratory Sciences, College of Allied Health Sciences, University of South Alabama. I am a registered respiratory therapist and certified asthma educator; carrying the responsibilities of teaching, writing, and lecturing about respiratory care.
I stumbled onto the Steamboat Springs Band as they were forming in Athens, GA sometime around the spring or summer of 1973. We were what I call a “living room band” as we played for several months in various living rooms in Athens….working through our early original songs and covers of well-known country rock and bluegrass numbers. We were “discovered” at the Union Grove Fiddler’s convention in the spring of 1974 where we were offered a job as the house band at a nightclub that was yet to be opened in Myrtle Beach, SC. At the time, we didn’t believe it was a genuine offer for a genuine job. What we did that afternoon in the big tent at the Union Grove convention was just a small taste of what the band was really doing when we were picking in the living room. The reality of a job in Myrtle Beach landed in the spring of 1974 when the band drove over to the SC coast from Athens one weekend and we had our first look at the newly-constructed Pickin’ Parlor nightclub. The agreement was sealed when we saw the beach house where we would eventually live as we entertained the vacationing crowds coming to the Parlor on Friday and Saturday nights and the faithful regulars who stayed and closed the bar on weeknights. The summer of 1974 – a magical time. We played 6 nights a week at the beach to many thousands of people over the summer and we got so tight as a band we could tell when Gary’s guitar lead or Joel’s peddle steal riff or Willy’s wild leap and frantic fiddle lick would take us down through a six minute jam …. or bring us to end the song in a quick thirty seconds. Sometimes it only took a certain look from one musician to the other and off we went into musical hyperdrive. From that first walk across the new concrete floors and pine-bark split boards that decorated the Pickin’ Parlor - through the many miles, concerts, hotels rooms, fast-food dinners, and barrooms - we entertained thousands with a distinct sound and distinct attitude about life and music.
I played drums and sang back-up vocals with the band for the next 3 years after the summer at the beach (it is hard to nail down the exact dates as you look back through 30 plus years). I reluctantly left the band while we were living in Macon, GA. for three reasons: I was tired of being broke and wanted to make more money, I was tired of being on the road and wanted to pursue a girlfriend (which turned out to be a short-lived relationship) and I figured it was time to return to college. I don’t remember the last performance that I played with the band, but I do remember the special times we had on stage as well as the challenges of being at the beck-and-call of our booking agency. Once we left home in Macon thinking we had a week-long gig to play out of town and didn’t get back home for about 3 weeks as the booking agency kept adding dates to our calendar! I was shocked and surprised when I had an email pop-up a few months ago asking if I was the same guy who played for SSB. The last time I had contact with the other band members was over 32 years ago … it turns out I was a hard person to find.
As this tribute and reunion has taken shape, I have been surprised and a little nervous. Listening to the songs we recorded so many years ago has sparked memories and emotions that were not anticipated. Giant Jeff and memories of those special years has pulled us together again! Since SSB I have continued my love for music playing contemporary Christian music in church. In a quick look over my years since Steamboat – I moved from Macon to Milledgeville GA to finish college (I received a BA degree in English literature from Georgia College in 1978) then moved to Augusta, GA where I received my initial training in respiratory care. Later I received subsequent training through the Advanced Respiratory Therapy Program at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics in Chicago, IL in 1982. Janet and I married in 1987 and had our first child in 1988 (Jessica). My formal education concluded as I received my MBA from Brenau University in Gainesville, GA in 1990… in fact my graduation from graduate school occurred on the same day as the birth of our second child – Jonathan (needless to say, I missed the graduation ceremony). We now live just outside Mobile, AL on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.
Hey! Since you all were so awesome to send me your reminiscences and photos, I'll put them up on the blog. Very good writers, you all!
I'll start with my fabulous uncle Bucky.
My name is Bucky Ferguson, former sound engineer for Steamboat Springs and yes, I am Joel’s brother. I have been in the agricultural equipment business since 1977, first with my dad as a manufacturer of specialty spray equipment and for the past 22 years as an agricultural tractor dealer. I am still very much involved in music. I play bass in a party/dance band called “Doctor, Doctor!” and played dobro for a local bluegrass band in the eighties. I live with my wife Terri and our 19 year old son Jimbo in Tifton, Georgia.
After the “Summer of 74” in Myrtle Beach, Steamboat travelled throughout the southeast opening for acts like Linda Ronstadt, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Wet Willie, Sea Level, Jimmy Buffet, Bob Seger and played most of the big clubs and many of the dives in the southeast. We were always one listener away from “hitting it big!” Playing rockin’ country and bluegrass music in the 70’s, before country music was popular, required we have a generous supply of one or more of the following types of people who were either: 1. Drunk, 2. Stoned, or 3. Persons of discriminating tastes but, willing to open the mind to anything that makes you feel that damn good! I remember a guy in Spartanburg, S.C. saying or rather slurring "I don’t even like country music, but you guys are f - - - - - - great!” I don’t remember any country bands other than Steamboat that could open for bands like Bob Seger or Leslie West at Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom in Atlanta but, I also remember playing a converted milking barn in North, South Carolina on Thanksgiving night. Yippee!
There are points at which even the most committed members of any band call it quits. I think most any of us would have stayed together if we could have made any sort of a living on the road, but $5.00 a day…while you were on the road, wears thin after 2 or 3 years. I always thought “$5 a Day, 8 to a Room” would be a great name for a country song.
The first break-up was in 1977. Ellis Schweid, the replacement for original fiddle player Willie Royal, coerced the band into giving him a salary because he had a wife. He had the personality of a pile of jagged rocks. Everyone was tired; tired of Ellis, tired of not making any money, and tired of the road tired of each other. The next time Steamboat Springs played together was the summer of 1978 for another run at the Pickin’ Parlor. This time original fiddler Willie Royal returned but, the magic of the “Summer of 74” did not. After the Myrtle Beach gig, Steamboat didn’t play again until the December 1980 Reunion at Cowboys in Myrtle Beach. This incarnation included Joel Ferguson on pedal steel/banjo, Mike “Tex” Wheeler on drums, Bob Wharton on piano, Les Burnett on bass, John Henry Gates on fiddle, Gary Davis on guitar and his wife Martha on vocals.
For the next 30 years I rarely listened to any Steamboat Springs tunes. I could barely remember the words to my favorite songs. The band was a fading memory. A previous part of my life that was hard to share. How easy is it to describe how much fun it was to play the Fox Theatre with Linda Ronstadt? You can’t, and no one wants to hear it more than once anyway. Life goes on…then my brother called and told me that “Giant Jeff” had passed away. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was stunned…. mad…..hurt. Jeff was always there, always Jeff. It didn’t matter how long it had been since you talked or saw him, he was always the same. It took a few days for us to round up all of the rest of the members of the band but, the internet makes things easier. We soon decided to try and put together a reunion at the beach to honor Jeff’s memory and as a fundraiser for SxSE. I volunteered to listen to all of the tapes, cassette and 8 track, to put together all of the songs the band might want to do.
For two solid weeks after work and the entire weekend I listened to Steamboat songs….very old acoustic stuff with the original lead singer Paul Seagraves to the 1980 Reunion. Listening to all the old music while converting it to digital format has helped me deal with Jeff’s passing. His hand is definitely in this 2010 reunion.
I remember the last time I saw Jeff; my family was at the beach for a vacation 4 or 5 years ago. I hadn’t spoken to him in too many years, so I decided to look him up. My son and I found him exactly as I had last seen him…hawking music! Man, some things never change. We spent the afternoon reminiscing, lamenting, what if’ing and BS’ing. We laughed about the band living in the “pink house”, the parties and how we got window old air conditioners, furniture and beds from a ramshackle beach house.
Supposedly, the house belonged to one of the owners of the Pickin’ Parlor. Above all, we talked music and what I was into and what my 14 year old son Jimbo was into. He knew it all! Jimbo was amazed at how one man could know so much about so many musicians and bands from so many different genres of music.
I left there with some cool Ray Brown tunes and a loaned copy of The Fantastic Shakers, “Shakin’ the Shack.” Sorry buddy, I can’t bring the cd back to you(or not just yet anyway), so “I GUESS I’LL JUST HAVE TO PLAY IT REAL LOUD!” Jeff, they do know how to shag in Heaven don’t they?
--Bucky Ferguson
