Floyd Dakil Combo

Floyd Dakil formed his group in 1963 with fellow Highland Park High School friend Andy Michlin, and three sophomores of Thomas Jefferson High School: Ronny Randall on guitar, Terry Billings on bass, and Geoff West on drums. Within a year or so, Andy's brother Laurry Michlin took over on keyboards. In February 1964 they won a competition to become the house band at the Pit Club, a 2,500 person venue located at the Bronco Bowl in Oak Cliff. "Chuck Berry rock 'n roll pre-Beatles - that's how I would best describe the music we played at that time" said Floyd in a 2008 interview. They soon released their first 45, the classic "Dance, Franny, Dance" b/w "Look What You've Gone and Done" on Jetstar. The label says both sides were recorded live at the Pit. Originally I thought it was likely to be a studio recording with overdubbed handclaps and applause at the beginning, but Geoff West says in his comment below that it was recorded in front of a large crowd at the Pit in the Spring of 1964: "on 'Dance Franny Dance' it required at least five minutes to get several hundred teenagers to clap together!" In 2009 original member Ron Randall contacted me about the group: Geoff's recollections are correct. The recording of "Dance, Franny, Dance" was done live at the Pit Club. Larry Lavine was the engineer using a 4 track recorder set up in the women's dressing room backstage. It was just one of those nights when everything came together. A great recording. The recordings done live at the Pit survive on CDs that Geoff West made from an original, not released LP. There are eight songs, some are covers, some original. I have my copy. Maybe, to add to the confusion, or clear things, the songs "recorded live at the Pit", and then released on Jetstar have the name of the group as The Floyd Dakil Combo. This is correct for legal reasons. "The Pitmen" referred to the house band at the Pit Club. We were the first. The original Pitmen backed a long list of entertainers at the Pit Club, and went on to other successes around Texas. There were others, after we left the Pit Club, called the Pitmen. All I can say is that if the rest of the live set is anywhere close to the quality of two songs released on the single, then this must be one of the great live recordings of the mid-60s! Floyd recalled that he and the producers brought the live tape into a studio and "sweetened" the two songs for the single. "Dance, Franny, Dance" peaked as high as #4 on KLIF in May, 1964, which is not surprising given KLIF DJ Chuck Dunaway's involvement - he's listed as co-producer along with Bob Sanders, owner of the Knight and Spectra record labels. When the Phiadelphia-based Guyden label picked up the songs for national distribution, "Dance, Franny, Dance" hit local charts in Pennsylvania and California, leading to a brief tour of California state fairs and DJ hops that summer. Floyd noted that the Beach Boys came out with their hit "Dance, Dance, Dance" soon after (in November 1964) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.