Don and Dewey: Pioneers Who Fell Short of Paradise

A brief rock trivia quiz:

Which act penned the garage rock classic “Farmer John” covered by Neil Young on his current “Ragged Glory” album, one of the few non-original songs Young has done in his career?

Who introduced the electric violin to rock?

Which duo has worked with Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Vegas dinner theater bands and even the punk-jazz outfit Tupelo Chain Sex?

Who wrote the immortal ‘50s ballad “I’m Leaving It All Up to You,” recorded by Dale and Grace, Freddy Fender, Ben E. King, Donny and Marie Osmond and others, leading to its being named by BMI as the most performed song throughout the world in 1974?

And who can be found tucked away playing Orange County bars and bistros?

The answer to all of the above is Don and Dewey, who probably could answer to a book full of such questions. In the late ‘50s, Dewey Terry and Don (Sugarcane) Harris pioneered a rough-edged vocal sound that led the way for the Righteous Brothers, Sam and Dave and others. Musicians’ musicians (certainly more so than household names), they displayed instrumental prowess and adventurousness that influenced a number of players through the ‘60s and ‘70s.

And like far too many other acts from rock’s golden era, a question considerably less than trivial to them is: “Where’s our money, and where’s our recognition?”

It has been a hard road from their initial success to the present, with one tragic casualty being the passionately gifted Harris, currently recovering from drug abuse problems while under state supervision.

Meanwhile, the 50-ish Terry carries on with the Don and Dewey act (with vocalist/keyboardist/saxman Ron Ellington Shy and drummer Don Hendricks), performing still with a disarming verve and originality. Caught on March 15 in the not-entirely-inspiring surroundings of Jasper’s Restaurant in Santa Ana, Terry and Shy more than did credit to the original duo’s vocals. And anyone who thinks Neil Young holds the patent on the squawking guitar assault used on “Farmer John” needs to hear Terry’s aggressively unfettered electric cries.

Terry anticipates turning the volume down just a bit when the group performs a brunch show at the upscale Gustaf Anders restaurant in Santa Ana on Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Brunch is $20, though customers are welcome merely to drink instead. “I just bought a tux for the show,” Terry says. “That nearly killed me!”

Don and Dewey seemed an unlikely pair to originate one of the rawer sounds in R&B;: Terry learned to play piano from nuns at the Catholic school he attended through the eighth grade, while Harris was a child prodigy on the violin, with 10 years of classical training when the two met in their early teens.

Both grew up in Pasadena. Terry was drawn to a house in the neighborhood one day by the sounds of violin playing coming from inside. “I looked in, and lo and behold, there was buddy-boy,” he recalled on the phone from his home in Altadena this week.

Terry had developed an interest in the secular styles of Charles Brown, Erroll Garner, Nat Cole and an infant boogie-woogie sensation named Sugar Child Robinson. Though he may have been more familiar with the style, Terry said he didn’t need to provide Harris with an introduction to the blues: “Let me tell you something, man, Don is the blues, yes Lord. You see Don Harris and you see the blues.” They began making music together first in a high school doo-wop group called the Squires, which released several singles including “Sindy,” which reached No. 2 on the R&B; charts in 1955.

The following year they took off as Don and Dewey, emphasizing their instrumental skills along with their vocals, and soon were signed to the L.A.-based rock and R&B; label Specialty.

“Most of the artists around at that time were to us very old-sounding,” Terry recalls. “The only one on Specialty who was doing stuff like we were was Little Richard. That style comes from the old gospel minister. We took that and brought our rock ‘n’ roll up into more of the mainstream of America. We didn’t even know to call it rock; we just knew that with our flamboyant show the girls would be out there shaking it and having a good time.”

They didn’t arrive at their sound entirely on their own. Another Specialty act was Louisiana bluesman Eddie Jones, the original Guitar Slim, whose “Things That I Used to Do” (revived in recent years by Stevie Ray Vaughan) introduced a gritty, distorted, nearly psychotic guitar sound to the blues.

“We went to see him at the Five-Four Ballroom in Los Angeles, and it was the first time we’d ever heard an electric guitar played like that. We were just youngsters when we met him, so he made quite an impression. Backstage, he had a couple of drinks of wine and showed me what he did.

“And he was a master showman.” Slim was legendary for such antics as playing with a long guitar cord that enabled him to leave a club, board a bus and still be playing as he rode down the street. “Guitar Slim was my main man,” Terry continued, “so when you see me out there, I’m only emulating that man, with a little touch of me.”

Looking to match Terry’s newly amped-up guitar sound, they arrived at the electric violin.

“We couldn’t hear Don’s violin over my electric guitar. We were looking around for what to do about it and saw this Victrola and said, ‘Goddamn, let’s take the needle out, put it in the bridge and wire it to the machine,’ and there it is. The record of us doing ‘Pink Champagne’ on Specialty is one of the original records with that.

“If you notice, the violin sounds like (bluesman) Little Junior Parker. Don played the licks like that because at the time we were performing with Bobby Bland and Junior Parker.”

Both Terry and Harris were proficient on guitar, piano and bass and played the bulk of the instrumental parts on their records, presaging the ‘60s trend toward self-contained artists. With the exception of “Koko Joe,” penned by a young Sonny Bono, Don and Dewey also wrote and produced all their own singles.

Terry said their most famous song, “I’m Leaving It All Up to You,” came to him in about five minutes. “I wrote that for my ex-wife. I married one time and we just couldn’t make it. We stayed together 30 days to the day, I left her at 12 midnight and I wrote that song.”

Don and Dewey toured extensively and soon learned it was far from a glamorous life. “We’d call it ‘catching the dog’ because we’d often tour by Greyhound bus.” They shared the stage with such acts as Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Gene Vincent and Ritchie Valens.

Like Little Richard, Joe Liggins and other acts on Specialty--and indeed a sorry majority of black American R&B; artists in the ‘50s--Don and Dewey wound up with little to show for their efforts.

“Art Rupe (the label’s owner) came from the old school,” Terry said. “He’d come and tell you, ‘Oh, man, you boys are just doing fine. Oh, ha ha ha, you doing fine.’ And his record company was supposed to be looking after our behalf, right, because we were signed to them? We were young and we didn’t know the law. They told us they were going out of business and needed us to sign a release. They said nothing about signing away my publishing rights, nothing whatsoever.

“To make a long story short, when we looked around, where was all our money? We’d been with Specialty for seven years before that and had never gotten any money from the original recordings, and then they put that on us.”

Terry says he does still receive songwriting royalties, though, most of which he’s spent recording new material. East Coast attorney Chuck Rubin, who helped rectify some of the inequities in Ronnie Spector’s career, is seeking to recover Terry’s copyrights.

In the years that followed their recording heyday, Don and Dewey did everything from work in a Vegas band to tour and record with their friend Little Richard. Those sessions included some of Jimi Hendrix’s earliest recordings, back when he wasn’t quite regarded as the genius he later was.

“Jimi Hendrix’s guitar fed back loud , ‘who-eeeeee, who-eeeee, who-eeee!’ ” Terry remembers. “We’d be looking back and wondering what’s this . . . playing? This is new! Everybody was kind of checking him out. At first we were thinking, ‘Hey man, turn your amp down!’ But when we got a groove, man, we rocked the joint.”

In 1969, Don and Dewey fan Frank Zappa enlisted Harris to play violin on three albums, “Hot Rats,” “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” and “Burnt Weenie Sandwich.” The latter contained the 22-minute “Little House I Used to Live In”; Harris’ keening, driven violin work makes it perhaps the most emotional thing to be found in Zappa’s catalog.

That exposure led to Harris’ working with John Mayall (on the “Back to the Roots” album, he trades solos with Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor) and to a solo career that mostly took off in Europe.

Terry produced and played with Harris on several European albums, worked with Los Angeles R&B; legend Johnny Otis and pursued his own brief solo career with an album on the short-lived, Gulf & Western-owned Tumbleweed label. In the past decade, Terry chiefly did studio work, though he and Harris continued to perform together, sometimes with the late ‘80s punk/jazz amalgamation Tupelo Chain Sex.

Through the years, Terry remained upbeat about his life in music, despite the rip-offs and the dry years, when he’s had to augment his playing with a tiny trucking business (His motto: “You call and we haul . . . all your troubles away.”)

Bob Dylan once wrote: “You would not know to look at him, but he was famous long ago/For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row.” It might as well have been written with Harris in mind, for the blues not only permeated his music but evidently his life as well.

Like many musicians, he started using drugs to smooth the ups and downs of the business. “Drugs got him really bad,” Terry lamented. “I’m so sorry over that. He’s such a great talent, but he hurts himself so.”

Some friends of the addicted come to feel a sense of betrayal--as Graham Nash used to express regarding David Crosby--feeling that they had chosen drugs over their friendship. “I can understand why people feel that way,” Terry said, “but Don has it so bad I can’t look at it as anything but a sickness. He lost so much through it. He’d become a homeless person; he was what they call ‘to the curb.’ It’s been such a shame.

“For years people would say ‘Stop trying to help him,’ you know? And it did finally get to where I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Working with a performer who often couldn’t be found when it was time for a gig had begun to damage Terry’s reputation in the business, and it’s been an effort for him to establish that he wasn’t the problem.

“He’s kept me from working, because people don’t want to hear about that drug thing. Now we’re just hoping the best for Don. And when he gets out, more than likely if he’s clean and free I’ll put him onstage again. I’ve got his violin and everything of his stored here, and I’m looking for that day.”

Terry has been fortunate in hooking up with Ron Shy, a performer Don and Dewey had worked with since the early ‘60s and who has a fine feel for their music. They and drummer Hendricks will travel to England in May to play a rock oldies festival.

Meanwhile, Terry estimates, he has $60,000 invested in an unreleased Don and Dewey album recorded over the last eight years. This new project had a production assist from the late, legendary R&B; producer Bumps Blackwell and includes such high-caliber musicians as jazz trumpeter Blue Mitchell.

Country star Emmylou Harris donated the use of her portable studio to the project, while Barcus-Berry of Huntington Beach provided a new electric violin for Harris. “I’ve got blues with Don on that violin that would knock your socks off,” Terry said.

As has been the case with many black American performers, Don and Dewey’s music finds more honor in Europe than it does at home, and it is there that Terry hopes to find receptive ears for the new album. “I’m taking the tape to England,” he said, “and even if I have to walk to these different places, I’ll get these record companies to hear it.”

Dewey Terry, Don Hendricks and Ron Ellington Shy play Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Gustaf Anders restaurant, 3810 S. Plaza Drive, Santa Ana. Information: (714) 668-1737.