Carl's Scrapbook: The 70s: The Bellamy Brothers Band

 CHAPTER TWO

Gettin' The Show on the Road!

The first "away from home" job the Brothers played with their new band was a radio show (that's where a radio station would pick-up the travel and accomodation expenses for a live show to promote a new act, but didn't actually pay them anything) for a radio station in or around Phenix City, Alabama. I don't remember a lot about it except it was a really nice motel and we played in a football field. In any case we were officially on the road. We did quite a few radio shows in the beginning and that was good because we were treated really great. The radio stations would usually provide first class accomodations in top rated hotels and provide limousines to shuttle us to the venues. It was a good way for us to get our feet wet and the band always liked to see "radio show" on the itenerary.

"Bellamy Brothers Band Has Central Florida Roots"
The Ledger - December 22, 1978

For the first couple of months, we traveled in a black 1976 Ford Econo-Line van. It had only two seats, one for the driver and one for the passenger. The rest of us just piled in the back on the floor (usually a total of eight). We had some blankets and pillows to try to make it a little more tolerable, but at best it was uncomfortable. After a few weeks, Frances Bellamy (the Brothers' mother) met us in Dothan, Alabama and had the road crew go down and buy a couple of love seats (like for the living room) at a furniture store and put them in the back of the van. It was a bit dangerous (they weren't tied down)-- but a whole lot more comfortable. We had a near death experience on I-95 outside of Savannah, Georgia in that old van, but then, that's another story.

From the very beginning, the Bellamys owned an International Loadstar truck that carried all of the band's equipment and, in those days, we also carried a medium sized PA system. The  rear window in the cab was removed and a boot was fitted between the cab and the van where a sleeper was built. Quite often, the hardest logistical problem was making sure the band and the equipment ended up at the same place at the same time. The road crew was made up of John Derussy, the sound engineer and resident pharmacist, Mike Stemble, the guitar technician -- and from time to time, John Humrick, Danny Pines and a couple of other less memorable guys. They were not always classy in their approach but were always loyal. Often Stemble (as he was known to the band) would post (with rock & roll tape) a hand written note on a dressing room door that designated it as ours.

After we pretty much wore out that old van, we graduated to a rented box-back Ford Econoline camper. The thing was a piece of junk when we rented it and we ended up leaving it at a motel in Arkansas 'cause it just wouldn't go any further. Somewhere around the end of 1978 or the first of '79, the Brother's got a new camper and we traveled that way for several weeks. It was more comfortable than any of the previous vehicles but those campers were dangerously overloaded with eight passengers and we were all over each other, especially at sleep time. We were fortunate to never have had an accident in one of those cracker boxes.

We covered a lot of ground in that camper. At first, we had a horrible booking agency and were quite often booked into clubs that we shouldn't have even slowed down at, much less stopped and unloaded our equipment. Once at a little dive just over the Tennessee line from Muscle Shoals, Alabama we literally fled for our lives after the first night of a two night booking, watchin', in fear, the rear-view mirror the whole time. I believe we headed straight home to Florida and the brother's fired that agency. After some radio success the jobs started getting better and better, and often, especially when we were doing some of the radio shows, we'd even get to fly some of the longer treks.