In the beginning...

In December of 1986, Cool Weasel had never played a gig and was having trouble finding time to even rehearse with each of the musicians taking gigs to stay alive. I hadn't been taking any, but I wasn't been offered any worth taking.
 
Then Phil Dalmolin (from Gone City and the Boyz) gave me a call to ask what I was doing. Before I knew it he was telling me about this girl from Austin who was from San Antonio that had been in the studio and cut a record and it was making all sorts of noise on the charts and she needed a good band to go on the road with her and he thought I would be a good keyboard player.
 
Phil was pretty excited about the prospects. Local producer Bill Green had been behind her album, First Class. They wanted to get her out with a good band to get nice and tight. We started rehearsals that week.
 
The musicians? Bobby Hargarther was in it with me from Cool Weasel. Phil was playing drums and Val Mora, from Heyoka fame, was on the bass. I had played some country music with other bands, but this was my first well-produced country band. We rehearsed in the old UAR studios. Beth was a lively girl with a good voice who knew how to pen good words. She seemed very pleased to get the caliber of musicians in the band (as was I) and within two weeks we were on the road.
 
With Frank Hipchen on sound, the six of us took off in Beth's van pulling a trailer with the equipment. I hadn't really been on the road in a while and we were headed, first, to Farmington, NM. We were ready musically, but we were just getting to know each other pretty well as friends.