Sand Trippers In 1965, surf fans The Sand Trippers—from Ft. Pierce, Florida—turned their appreciation for The Beach Boys into a career by forming a rock group. After winning a battle of the bands, the band recorded the highly collectable 45, ‘Say You Love Me’ b/w ‘Give A Little’ on the Paris Tower label. Guitarist Bob Melton was a founding member, but it was an injury he suffered that led to the eventual splinting of the group. Melton explains all that and more in this exclusive 60sgaragebands interview… The Sand Trippers: Jon Kral (with Poo dog) then L-R: Jimmy Strange, Jeff Wright, Steve Chandler, and Bob Melton An Interview With Bob Melton 60sgaragebands (60s): How did you first get interested in music? Bob Melton (BM): I first became interested in music at a very early age listening to the Grand Olde Opry on WSM Radio at our home in the hills of Tennessee when I was three or four. I used to imitate Hank Williams. He was my first musical inspiration. Then when Elvis came around in the early fifties, I was fascinated by his rockabilly style, and when I heard Dont Be Cruel for the first time, I was hooked. 60s: Was The Sand Trippers your first band? BM: The Sand Trippers was the first rock and roll band I ever played in, but not the first band. The very first band I played in was a folk group. That was before rock bands really emerged. I played in a three-piece group call Steve, Jeff, and Bob…very creative name, but typical. We played by the pool at the new Port Saint Lucie Country Club. It was two acoustic guitars and a banjo. We mostly played Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dylan, Pete Seeger, and various folky tunes. We were not together very long prior to The Sand Trippers. Jeff was the eventual long standing bass player for The Sand Trippers. 60s: Where and when was The Sand Trippers formed? BM: The early beginnings of The Sand Trippers was the summer of 1965. Jimmy Strange, Jon Kral and I were surfing buddies in Ft. Pierce, Florida. While waiting for waves we would harmonize on Beach Boys songs and entertain the handful of surfers on hand. We got pretty good and started drawing a bigger crowd on our boards out in the water when the surf was down. Everyone out there kept saying we should start a band, so we did. The original name of the band when we first started was The Leedsmen. I don’t remember where that came from, but after we had already played a gig or two we changed it to The Sand Trippers. The original members were: Jimmy Strange, four string tenor electric lead and rhythm guitar, lead backup vocals, and song and vocal arranger; Bob Melton, six string electric lead and rhythm guitar, lead and backup vocals; Jon Kral, lead and backup vocals, harmonica and rare saxaphone. The first additions to the band were Steve Chandler, drums and lead and backup vocals; Brian Mac McCarty, bass guitar and lead and backup vocals. The first lineup change was Jeff Wright, bass guitar and lead and backup vocals. The only other lineup change after the Paris Tower record, and after a paralyzing injury to Bob Melton: Dave Bidwell, keyboards and backup vocals. Even though we were influenced very much by The Beatles, like everyone else at the time, and we always did a lot of their songs, our most fun and popular appeal was our Beach Boys music, especially in the early days of the band. We had an instrumental sound very much like theirs in the beginning to--straight ahead beat with not a lot of frills. Just good solid guitar sound with outstanding vocals on most things. We had very well-arranged four- and sometimes five-part harmony on most songs. We always did a lot of Beatles and Beach boys but also things like Paul Revere and The Raiders, The Grass Roots, The Coasters, The Outsiders, The Gentrys, and lots more of the same. 60s: Did The Sand Trippers have a manager? BM: We never had a manager. That was probably one reason we didn’t get any farther than we did. The guy who worked for the radio station that put on the local Armory dances always wanted to manage us, but none of us like him or trusted him enough to ever give him a chance. 60s: What was the local rock and roll scene like in the 60s? BM: It did not emerge until around the time we did. There were no places to play other than the National Guard armory dances put on by local radio station WARN until the very late sixties other than school dances and parties. Those teen dances were every Saturday night and featured a lot of one hit wonder bands of the day. We were the opening band for some of those shows, and were sometimes the featured act. Those dances didnt get going good until after we were the most popular band in the area playing mostly at parties, and lots of school dances for sock hops, proms and sweetheart dances and such. We also played at the nearby college dances, mainly Indian River Junior College. In the last couple of years we were together, many teen clubs emerged all up and down the East Coast of Florida. We played them all from Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, Vero Beach, Ft. Pierce, Palm Beach mostly. We also played at The Red Velvet Saloon in North Palm Beach for a while in early 1967. It is hard to remember the names, but we played them all including all of the big teen dances in all of those towns. We played with and opened for more groups than I can remember. 60s: How far was the bands touring territory? BM: We mostly stayed on the East Coast of Florida from Miami to Cocoa, and inland to Okechobee, over to Tampa and up to Orlando and lots of other places all between in Central Florida. We mostly played high school and college dances and teen dances, some clubs, and community functions. We played a lot of grand openings for libraries, shopping centers, and things like that too. 60s: Did The Sand Trippers participate in any battle of the bands? BM: We participated in the only two battle of the bands held in our area while we were a band. I remember Tradition’s Children competing in them, and I will have to ask some folks the names of the other bands. I remember the musicians we competed against more than I do the names of their bands. We won the only two we competed in. We were by far, not necessarily the best musicians, but we put on the best show, and had the charisma to pull it off. The second contest we won was the one with the first prize being making a record on Paris Tower. The first one turned out to be a scam and the promoters ran off with the money and we didn’t get anything even though the voting part was legit. Most of the same bands and all of the same musicians were in both contests with some differences. 60s: Where did The Sand Trippers record (Paris Tower 128, Say You Love Me / Give A Little)? BM: We recorded in Tampa, Florida at the Paris Tower studios. I don’t remember what local mid-town busy street it was located on, but it was an adequate studio with a capable and professional staff and engineer. The most memorable thing about our sessions there to me was that whenever a semi-truck pulled away from the red light outside, we had to stop where we were, and go back and start over because of the noise. 60s: Did The Sand Trippers write many original songs? Who was the bands primary songwriter? BM: We did not write many songs at that time. I later became a Nashville songwriter and wrote for several different publishing companies. Jimmy Strange wrote the music and arranged the songs we recorded, but even though I did not receive writers credit on the record, I wrote the lyrics to the verses for A-side song, which I also sang. 60s: Are there any other Sand Trippers recordings? Are there any vintage live recordings, or other unreleased tracks? BM: To my knowledge, the are no other recordings of The Sand Trippers. We did the A-side of our record on a teen dance TV show for a station in Tampa right after the record was released, but I have no idea if that still exists or not. I am sure some home videos or 8mm films must still exist of parties we played at, I have no idea where they could be. I remember several parties that we were filmed at, but no specific dates or places. 60s: What year and why did the band break up? BM: This could be a very involved answer, but for this interview, I must answer this way: Shortly after we made our record, I had a serious accident. My right arm was paralyzed. It was only a week or two before our TV show in Tampa. We did a lip sync for that, so it wasnt something we couldnt do. We hired Dave Bidwell to play keyboards in the band and cover my loss musically. When we did the TV show, I taped a tamborine to my right hand and just sang the song. As time passed under those circumstances, attitudes in the band changed and began to polarize in two different camps as to the direction of our music. When my arm recovered, the band split up and Bidwell, Steve Chandler and I formed another band, The Circus, with a very progressive bass player named Johnny Beamsderfer who had just moved to Ft. Pierce from Germany. Then after a few gigs we added a very talented guitar player named Craig Bowers and began doing heavy blues, Cream, Hendrix, Doors, and a different style of music than The Sand Trippers had done. In retrospect, it may not have been the best thing for any of us, but we were not totally in charge of our raging hormones at that age yet. They were both a couple of the best bands I ever played in, but the war in Vietnam broke The Circus up.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 15:49:57 +0000
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