The Midwestern Musical Adventures of Missouri’s Own Ozark Mountain Daredevils

Originally published Goldmine magazine, November, 24, 2006

In the beginning, it was just about free beer and pizza. A loose affiliation of pickers and friends would gather to share songs at the pizza joint where one of them worked. Eighteen months later, they were all on a jet flying to London to record their first album, with producer Glyn Johns, who’d already worked with The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.

“That kind of stuff doesn’t happen anymore,” says Larry Lee of the improbable launch of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, the groovy country, rural folk, rock and roll band from the mountainous Midwest. Lee would write and sing the group’s biggest hit, the spooky rocker called “Jackie Blue,” but he was no front man. The Daredevils (they didn’t even have a name until that record deal came up) was a democratic unit of six guys (five of whom wrote and sang lead) that magically came together quite by accident, with much more humble motivating forces than gold records.

“John [Dillon] was playing in a pizza house and I was living in the attic of a friend’s house,” remembers Lee. “I had no money, and when John said, ‘Look, I’m playing in a pizza parlor, they’re not paying me anything but I get to eat and drink all I want.’ I’d go, ‘Well, I’ll play with you!’ It was food, you know? That was the reality of it.”

In the communal spirit of the time (1971), the grizzled Springfield, Missouri hippies were actually interested in something that did go beyond beer and pizza: the development of each others’ songs. The six players noticed that their combination of instrumental skills accidentally formed a band, and they all had an uncanny knack for getting the feel of each song that was shared. As Lee recalls it, they were playing in the round before the phrase existed. “After a few weeks of playing together, I would sing a song and all of a sudden I’d realize that John had learned my chords and he was playing and singing, too. We just sort of learned each other’s songs, not really thinking about being a band.”

What they were thinking about was remaining true to the songs that each brought to the proverbial pizza table. There was no thought of a lead singer, a style, or a certain type of presentation. Springfield may have been the unlikeliest of places for the creation of a cool rock and roll band, but Route 66 cut straight through it, making it a cultural crossroads of sorts, an oasis in the middle of America. All of the kindred musical spirits shared a common feel, but they had a diverse array of influences.

Guitarist Dillon brought a country blues feel from the Arkansas Delta, Drummer Lee brought a passion for jazz, bassist Supe Granda loved the roots of rock and roll, especially Chuck Berry, his fellow native of St. Louis. Guitarist Randle Chowning and harmonica man Steve Cash had already grown up right there in Springfield, both attuned to the indigenous Ozark mountain sound. Buddy Brayfield was the only one who didn’t write songs, but his contribution on the keyboard provided a warm support to the natural sound that each song required.

The guys didn’t much think of themselves as players, they were a collection of songwriters that came together as a unit out of necessity. They were there to showcase the songs. “Glyn Johns said early on, ‘You guys aren’t a band!’ He just said that like it was a revelation,” remembers Cash with a laugh. “He said, ‘You haven’t even learned to play together yet!’ Really, it’s true. We were just raw players.”

The raw playing was actually part of their charm, and it fit well with their sometimes raw vocals. But they were also capable of much more sophisticated vocals and heartfelt harmonies. A live tape found its way to John Hammond (he who had literally launched the career of Bob Dylan, and would soon do the same for Bruce Springsteen). The tape got around, and it is what sent Glyn Johns in to the mountainous Midwest to check out this band of bearded hippies.

Johns had already been working with The Eagles, but they represented a specific California sound. He was looking for a project with another American band that sounded, well, American. “He wanted a group that came out of the wilds of the country somewhere,” says John Dillon. “He came here, produced us on an old farm. We brought in Record Plant’s mobile truck. He lived in a trailer, wore overalls, and just loved it.”

Johns told A&M Records of his find, and the label basically took him at his word and signed the band with no history, no flashy outfits, no pretense, and no name. “We had called ourselves Family Tree at one time, Burlap Socks, just stupid names,” remembers Lee. “A&M said, ‘You gotta come up with a name.’ So we sent them a list of ten or fifteen, and one of them was Cosmic Corncob and his Amazing Ozark Mountain Daredevils. They liked the Ozark Mountain Daredevil part, because it was real regional and pointed to an area of the country. We just said, ‘Fine, whatever.’”

That’s when things started to happen fast. For Dillon, the culture shock was extreme. “I was living in a cabin with a canoe, on the river. I thought, ‘It doesn’t get any better than this!’ Before we knew it, we were on a plane to London, we had cut our first album, we had a hit single. The album was almost gold out of the chute, and it just blew our minds. And we had yet to meet a record executive! Now those were the good old days.”

That hit single was an infectious harp driven rocker called “If You Wanna Get to Heaven” (the solution in the Dillon/Cash song: “You got to raise a little hell”). The song had a country feel with Cash’s harmonica and Dillon’s vocal, but it was truly a rock and roll rhythm. That first album had no picture of the band members on the cover. Again, there was no front man, and they looked like pretty regular guys, hardly the rock stars they were quickly becoming.

But as Dillon points out, it was okay for rock stars to look and act like the unpolished regular guys they truly were. There was an honesty in the music and an honesty in the men behind it. “Back in those days, it wasn’t necessarily about the money and about the career. It was about the music and what the music had to say and what it meant. It was almost like a cultural phenomenon. It had so much to do with the politics of the day and the spiritual quests of the day. That time in history was so special, and music was such a big part of that. It was almost like a vehicle that drove everything forward. Luckily for us, record companies were hip enough to allow acts at the time that came on board with a message.”

Just a year later in 1974, they released their second album, It’ll Shine When It Shines. This one had a person on the cover, but it wasn’t one of the guys. It was the image of an elderly woman in the center of a china plate, an unusual cover for an album with one of the biggest hits of the year. The song sailed quickly into the Top Ten, a swampy falsetto track with an eerie lead guitar and a murky bass rhythm underneath.

The mysterious story of “Jackie Blue,” who lives her life from inside of her room and hides a smile when she’s wearing a frown, was written by Lee and Cash, sung by Lee, and it would prove to be one of the most recognizable, memorable, and durable songs of its decade. “Jackie Blue” didn’t sound like anything else on the radio. It still doesn’t, though it does enjoy a life of its own on oldies radio. If it were to be released today, it would likely be played on Americana stations, a format that didn’t exist in the freewheeling seventies.

Americana is a good word for the sound that the group generated, just as Ozark Mountain Daredevils was an appropriate name. It truly was American music, with just enough mountain charm and hillbilly harmonica to reflect the beautiful, unpopulated territory from which they had sprung.

“It’s pop but it has a regional twist to it that’s undeniable,” says Randle Chowning of the band’s trademark sound. “With Nirvana, they always talked about grunge and Seattle, but you wouldn’t know that unless somebody told you. It was punk rock kinda slowed down; why would you think Seattle? The music doesn’t sound like you would relate to the region. I think that we were one of the last groups that had a definite identity to a region and a time period. You can say it about the Tex-Mex thing, they’re regionalized, too. But to have a mass appeal like that, and sell in Europe, and to be regionalized like that at the same time, it’s pretty phenomenal.”

Chowning’s contribution to the group’s sound was that of a strong melodic sensibility, a commercial feel that didn’t sacrifice their mountain authenticity. Songs like “Country Girl” and the rolling rocker “Look Away” balanced the more country-influenced songs of Dillon (“Standing on the Rock”), the sweet pop of Lee (“Giving It All to the Wind”), the hillbilly blues of Cash (“Chicken Train”), and the folk rock of Granda (“It Probably Always Will”). Put together, the songs constituted a body of work with the same character and depth that more widely-known peers like The Band and the Eagles had created.

Chowning would leave the group after their third release (The Car Over the Lake Album) and Brayfield after their fourth (Men from Earth), but the Daredevils continued to record and tour for many years to come. There were other personnel changes over time, with Dillon, Cash, and Granda serving as the ongoing core members. In one particular latter-day Daredevil and longtime friend, the late Steve Canaday, they found yet another contributing songwriter and lead vocalist (Canaday had been the one responsible for getting that first tape to John Hammond).

Throughout the rest of the seventies and beyond, they grew creatively, but never strayed too far from the regional sound that they had created. Neither did they stray from the region itself: Dillon, Cash, and Granda still live in Missouri, and Lee has recently returned to the Ozarks after several decades in Nashville.

Daredevils past and present have continued in their creative lives, penning songs for contemporary country artists (Chowning for Billy Gilman, Granda for Chet Atkins, Lee for Alabama), and in Cash’s case, penning a series of successful science fiction novels.

The Daredevils have retained an underground cult status to this day, with a loyal fan base that heard a rock and roll spirit with warmth and raw energy. The loyalty to each other has remained equally strong, as their lives and careers continue to overlap. In November, the Dillon/Cash/Granda incarnation of the group will perform a three-night stand with old friends Lee and Chowning, who have released a duo album this year called Beyond Reach. Logically enough, the shows will take place at the historic Wildwood Springs Lodge, nestled among the mountains and rivers of Steelville, Missouri. For the Ozark Mountain Daredevils in 2006, it’s a time warp back to the mountains, that’s where they all came from.

Chowning has a pretty good idea what will happen when they share the stage again. “Individually, we’re us, but when we get together we become them. And it takes on kind of an energy thing of its own. And it is powerful.”