Cool article I found this morming while digging around! Found it on the Syracuse web page: Mossback Mule found its niche with a mix of country and the blues. A batch of the musicians played the blues in garages around Camden. Soon, country fan Bob Fleming joined the jams. Bob introduced us to Willie Nelson, and we introduced him to James Cotton, Quenneville says. I was traditional country. I couldnt even play a (blues) ninth chord, Fleming says. They showed me how to do it. But they couldnt (or wouldnt) play a (country) seventh chord. I showed them. And they just happened to work together. Quenneville remembers Mossback Mule opening for Pure Prairie League at the Mulroy Civic Center in the mid-70s. Liddy recalls playing on bills with The Charlie Daniels Band and Orleans. The connections started when Southern rock guitar star Daniels was playing a show in Rome. Afterward, he wanted to see some live Southern rock, Central New York-style. Tom Starr, a disc jockey with Utica radio station WOUR, drove Daniels to Mossback Mules show at The Oasis in Westmoreland. He told Hal (Kent) to turn up the bass and came onstage with us, Liddy recalls. Together, they played country and Southern favorites, including Daniels The Souths Gonna Do It Again and Orange Blossom Special. People rocked the stage, Quenneville recalls. And when we left that night, we looked up in the sky, and the Northern Lights were screaming, Quenneville says, as if that moment some 30 years ago were just yesterday. The next important visitor to a Mossback Mule show in Rome was country stalwart Mickey Gilley, after his show at the state fair. He liked the band. He flew us to Houston, Liddy says. He had some ideas about us. Ideas about national record releases. But ... He had other things going, and we kind of lost his attention, Liddy says. The Gilley thing turned out kind of weird, but when youre that age, you live for the record deal, Baker says by phone from his Atlanta business, Acorn Furniture Restoration. The contract with Gilley never came through. Disco started to surface in the clubs. We shut the band down, Baker says. It was 1980. He moved to Atlanta, where he eventually got that record contract with country band Atlanta. The other Mossback Mule musicians took day jobs but continued to play music in various combinations at night. Members of Mossback Mule say theyre wiser and better musicians than in the old days. And far more appreciative. We were living the life back then, and we didnt really know it, Liddy says. When I look back, Im surprised at how far we made it. Then it seemed natural. Now, I think we were successful to have people like us like they did.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 12:53:52 +0000
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