Randy Meisner: Soul Survivor

Sixty years ago, members of the Denver group, The Soul Survivors, discovered Randy Meisner while scouting for new bass players at a Battle Of The Bands competition. Below, we take a closer look at the band battle and Randy’s first days as a member of the Soul Survivors, including their subsequent move to Los Angeles, where they became The Poor.

The Soul Survivors

Originally called The Esquires, the Soul Survivors were formed in Denver, Colorado in 1963. The group signed with Dot Records in Los Angeles in 1965 and recorded two singles. One of these tracks, “Can’t Stand To Be In Love With You,” written by Patrick Shanahan and sung by Allen Kemp, became a #1 hit in Denver in November 1965. “We were top dog in Denver,” recalled Shanahan, “because a guy named Hal Moore at KIMN radio played the hell out of our record. You couldn’t get it off the air for about six or eight weeks.”¹

_{The Soul Survivors}

So where does Randy come in? It all started with the Back Porch Majority.

The Back Porch Majority was a folk group formed by Randy Sparks of the New Christy Minstrels. He created the group as sort of a farm team for the Minstrels. But they ended up being very successful on their own.

The Soul Survivors were regular performers at the Galaxy Club in Denver. One evening, the Back Porch Majority attended their performance and spoke to them afterwards.

Patrick Shanahan:

“One night at the Galaxy, coming off stage a couple of guys (and maybe one of the girls) came up and introduced themselves as being with the Back Porch Majority…They were playing Taylor’s Supper Club in Denver, had the night off, had heard about us, and came over. We all hit it off right away. We went to see their show and they blew us away. Anyhow…Mike Crowley, Mike Clough, Linda Carey, and Karen Brian convinced us that we belonged in Hollywood. Bob Raymond didn’t want to go. We needed a bass player.” ²

In 1961, at the age of 15, Randy co-founded The Dynamics (aka The Drivin’ Dynamics) in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

The Dynamics

The Battle Of The Bands

In the 1960s, band battles were a way for garage bands to show their stuff. They were often sponsored by local Jaycees, schools, or teen-oriented radio stations.

Since I started researching Randy’s life and career, this band battle has been a source of frustration because I could find no documentation of it. Most online chronologies and biographies stated that the band battle took place at Denver Coliseum in February 1966. I am here to declare that this is false. As far as I can tell, the event didn’t take place in 1966 at all, nor was it held at the Denver Coliseum.³

This band battle was a pivotal moment in Randy’s career. Had he not been discovered, would he have moved to California when he did? Would his career have followed the same trajectory? It’s unlikely. But Randy’s career was always about being in the right place at the right time. He also had big dreams. “I knew I was going to be in music,” he said. “I always had dreams of coming to Hollywood and being a star.”⁴

The KBTR Dance & Music Festival was held at the National Western Exhibition Center on November 19th-21st, 1965. More than 50 bands participated in the festival’s battle of the bands contest, including The Dynamics.

If the Soul Survivors were looking for a bass player, the KBTR festival would have been the perfect event. Some accounts claim that the Soul Survivors performed at the band battle, some even say that they won, but they did not perform. According to Patrick Shanahan, they were only there to look at bass players.

Patrick:

“Gene (Chalk) and I went specifically to find a bass player because all the bass players in the region would be there.”⁵

The Dynamics performance at the KBTR festival was documented in an article about the event published in the KBTR newsletter, The All-American. The article mentions that due to a gig in Sidney, NE on Friday, the Dynamics could only attend one day of the three-day festival (Saturday). After their 30-minute set, they immediately left to drive four hours to their next gig in North Platte, NE. ⁶

“While the rock bands in Denver turned on the steam, a group called The Driving Dynamics were entertaining in Sidney, Nebraska. They headed for Denver Saturday and led off the afternoon show at noon, then turned around and took off for North Platte, Nebr., to play for a dance. They, like several other groups, have taken to using a hearse for transportation. The Dynamics narrowly missed the finals, or they would have been back Sunday. This sort of determination was typical of all of the bands that took part in the festival.”

The Dynamics’ hearse mentioned in the article.

Dynamics guitarist Larry Soto described the event in 1996. Unfortunately, he gets a few of the details wrong.

“In February of ’66 we decided to enter a battle of the bands in Denver. It was sponsored by KIMN radio in Denver which was the top radio station at the time. We played at the Denver Coliseum on Saturday about 12:00 and all the bands set up their own equipment and played for about 30 minutes…We couldn’t stay for the awards because we had to play a dance in Sterling, CO. that night.”

Patrick Shanahan recalls seeing Randy at the band battle and the song he was performing.

Patrick:

“I remember when I first saw Randy he was singing a song called ‘What’s Your Name’ and I knew right there that he would be perfect.”

Patrick does not recall approaching Randy at the band battle. Sometime in early 1966, Soul Survivors guitarist Gene Chalk borrowed his parents’ car and drove to Scottsbluff to ask Randy about joining their band & moving to California.⁷ It’s unlikely that Randy would have needed much convincing since he’d long fantasized about seeing the Sunset Strip. Randy quit the Dynamics in June 1966. ⁸

Randy Meisner: Soul Survivor

After Randy joined the Soul Survivors, there was a period of going back and forth to Denver, which was three hours from Scottsbluff. Due to to the distance, Randy would stay for several days at a time. Occasionally, his wife Jennifer would accompany him on these trips. She remembered that they drove their black Barracuda with red interior. “He later took it to L.A.” As for accommodations. Sometimes they stayed in a bedroom in Allen Kemp’s parents’ basement. But there was one place Jennifer called their “home away from home”: The Niagara House Motel on Colfax Ave, which was owned by the parents of a grade school friend of Jennifer’s (the blonde in the postcard below):

To make money for their move to California, the Soul Survivors played gigs in and around Denver.

Randy:

“We more or less cleaned up in Denver because they were real hot when I joined them. So we hit all the stops and pretty much managed ourselves.” ⁹

A number of these dates most likely took took place at the Galaxy, a popular “3.2 club” in Denver, where the Soul Survivors performed regularly. 3.2 clubs sold 3.2 ABV beer, which could be consumed by 18-year-olds.

Galaxy ad mentioning the Soul Survivors, 1966

Per a 1968 interview with Patrick Shanahan in the Rocky Mountain Collegian, The Soul Survivors left for Los Angeles the last week of July 1966. ^{10 See Note}

_{Note: The article also mentions two songs co-written by Randy and Allen Kemp: “Always On My Mind” and “We Need A Change.”¹¹}

From the Soul Survivors to The Poor

Sometime after the Soul Survivors moved to Los Angeles, they found managers in Charlie Greene and Brian Stone (and occasionally Chesley Millikin), who were managing Buffalo Springfield and Sonny & Cher. According to Gene Chalk, Greene and Stone suggested that the group change their name because there was another Los Angeles-area band called the Soul Survivors.¹² The name they settled on was The Poor, which Randy felt “sounded cooler and more psychedelic than Soul Survivors.” ¹³ It also accurately described their financial status. “We all nearly starved to death,” Randy recalled.¹⁴

L-R: John Day, Gene Chalk, and Randy, 1966.

Making a name for themselves in Los Angeles proved to be much tougher than any of them anticipated. “We couldn’t find any work because there were a million bands out here,” Randy said.¹⁵ For a while, Randy sold copies of the Los Angeles Free Press on Sunset Boulevard. He also had to give up his Barracuda, which he sent back to Scottsbluff so his Dad could sell it. According to Patrick Shanahan, the band members had one broken down car between them, which they christened, “The Sleazemobile.” It was a “rattling early ’50s Chevy that got us around when we had gas money.”¹⁶

One of the first houses Randy rented in L.A. was on Stanley Hills Drive in Laurel Canyon. Randy, Patrick, Allen Kemp, and occasionally Jennifer, lived in the house. “It was a brown-shingled house with a blue door…It was a little hippie house,” remembered Jennifer. The house and all of its furnishings were owned by Nancy Able, who worked at the Troubadour.

Below: Randy and son Dana at the Stanley Hills house, c.1966.

L.A. Adventures

Randy, Patrick and Allen liked to smoke weed, but pot possession was a felony in California in the 1960s. So Randy and his housemates had to be one step ahead of the law.

Patrick:

“It was prison if you got caught with weed. So we had microphones placed outside in strategic locations, so we could hear everything going on around the house at night, giving us that extra bit of time to flush the weed before the door came down.”¹⁷

Tom Shipley, later of Brewer & Shipley, hung around with the Poor in those days (Shipley wrote the Poor’s single, “She’s Got The Time, She’s Got The Changes” sung by Randy.) “We were always in search of weed or something to smoke,” including “smoking banana peels after hearing Donovan’s recording of ‘Mellow Yellow.’”¹⁸

Randy at the Stanley Hills House.
The topless “Bat Girl” poster on the wall behind him was a centerfold in a July 1966 issue of Playboy magazine.

Randy and his bandmates eventually moved to N. Serrano Blvd off Hollywood Blvd. Randy and Jennifer shared a bungalow apartment, while the others shared a unit across the sidewalk. Jennifer has many fond memories of living here. “The best of times,” she said. It was here that Randy told her about Bobby Darin asking him to be in a movie. “We were back by the garage and he told told me he was nervous and didn’t want to do it.” Jennifer couldn’t recall the name of the movie. ¹⁹

One of the first major gigs The Poor had was opening for Sparrow (later Steppenwolf) at the Whisky A Go-Go in November 1966. It was on the heels of the famous L.A. Riots. “Sunset was crazy then,” remembered Jennifer. During the engagement, the Poor stayed at the Tropicana Hotel, “where all the bands stayed.” ²⁰

Jennifer, still a naive girl from Nebraska, thought the guys in Sparrow were a bit intimidating, especially Goldy McJohn. “He scared me.” Patrick remembered that the Poor kept their distance, for the most part. He also thought the Tropicana was “a rathole.”²¹

Randy remembered the Trop’s “crazy” parties:

” Oh, man, you talk about parties! It was crazy, all right. A lot of acid was ingested, and weed; it was unbelievable. Everyone was stoned out of their minds. I can remember John Kay (of Sparrow/Steppenwolf) sitting still as a statue all day at the pool, wearing his sunglasses, saying and doing nothing for hours.” ²²

Kay remembered Randy also: “We met an assortment of interesting people while at the Tropicana, including Randy Meisner, staying there with his band The Poor, who had just moved down from Colorado to try their luck in LA. He later turned up in the Eagles.” ²³

Sparrow: L-R: John Kay, Nick St. Nicholas, Goldy McJohn, Jerry Edmonton, and Dennis Edmonton (aka Mars Bonfire). Randy would later perform with Nick St. Nicholas in the World Classic Rockers (1997-2008).

One day, the Poor’s manager, Chesley Millikin, decided they needed a break.

Patrick:

“He suggested we get out of the city for a few days, so we went to the Spahn Movie Ranch where we ran into a bunch who later turned out to be the Manson clan.”

Spahn Ranch

So, Randy, Patrick and the rest of the Poor piled into the “sleazemobile” and headed out to the ranch near Thousand Oaks, “which seemed as far away as Mars,” Patrick said. At Spahn, the group encountered ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea, who was also a stunt man and bit actor.

Patrick:

 “There wasn’t much out there but a ranch house and 3 or 4 weathered old shacks. We picked one and threw down our gear. There was only one guy around the place. He was an old fashioned, rough, gruff old horse wrangler named Shorty Shea…

“A couple of days later a brushfire broke out in the area and the flames were getting up to a road that was on the ranch border. We pitched in with shovels up on the fire line to contain the fire, which we did. Shorty liked us after that but when we woke up the next day a couple of the other shacks were occupied. There were a couple of girls laying naked on the grass and a couple of guys walking around. The girls didn’t seem to care about our presence. I recall having a feeling like I didn’t want to get involved with them. There was a group of people that night at the ranch house having a party. We were invited but I stayed away. We went back to Hollywood the next day. During the trial, we found out that the ‘family’ had cut Shorty’s head off.

“Can’t say who it was at the ranch but if I had to bet I’d say it was (the Manson family), even though I don’t recall seeing a guy that looked like Manson.”

The connection between Chesley Millikan and the group at Spahn Ranch is unknown, but the experience was a memorable one for a bunch of naive twenty-year-olds.

Patrick:

“I don’t think Chesley knew anything about those people. He probably heard about the ranch through someone else. I don’t think any of us talked to any of them (at least I didn’t). We were just country boys with their jaws dropped open. But the vibes were weird.”

Randy in Hollywood, circa mid-1960s.
_{Photo ©Estate of Randy Meisner. Used with permission.}

Randy felt their managers were sick of them and looked for ways to get them out of town for a while. Next, they were sent to New York City to open a new nightclub called The Salvation.

Patrick left for New York earlier than the rest so he could go to Chicago to visit his old girlfriend from Denver, who had become a flight attendant. It was here that he met Joey Stec, later of The Millennium, who would become a lifelong friend to both Patrick and Randy.

Joey Stec recalls meeting Patrick:

“It was the summer of 67 and I was in Chicago at my girlfriends house, who was a flight attendant for United Air. Her roommate had a boyfriend musician who was on his way to NYC to perform at some club where Jimi Hendrix was playing….

“This guy Patrick Shanahan was the drummer for a group out of Denver and we sat and strummed and talk. He was a cool guy and started to play me several songs that wowed me… Patrick then invited me to come visit them in LA. I packed up and within a few weeks I was in Hollywood more or less living with The Poor and meeting people that would soon be The Millennium.”²⁴

While in Chicago, Patrick came down with a terrible case of poison oak.

Patrick:

“That’s when I started to break out and by the time I got to Manhattan a couple days later it was out of control. I had to go to the hospital and at emergency I was taken into a room and four doctors came in to see me. They all agreed that it was the worst case of poison oak that they had ever seen, even in text books.” ²⁵

The New York story gets worse from there.

Randy:

“We stayed in one bedroom at The Albert Hotel in the middle of summer. It was like a hundred degrees. We all had cots and there were cockroaches all over and we couldn’t breathe. The drummer had poison ivy and had this calamine lotion all over him.” ²⁶

Patrick:

“The cockroaches were so big that you could hear their hard bodies clicking against the wood floors at night!”

Then they lost all of their money. “There was a guy that wanted to sell us some weed,” Randy said, “We had eighty dollars between us, all five of us. We gave him the money and never saw him again so now we had nothing.”²⁷

With no money for food, the guys would steal pastries from a grocery truck.

Patrick:

“We worked till 2 am and about 5 the Daitch grocery store truck would drop off the the morning order and put it behind the sliding gate, which we noticed was not locked, …..ever…..so after the truck drove away one of us would slip across the street and relieve them of inventory.” ²⁸

The Jimi Hendrix Experience was scheduled to play four nights at the Salvation, with the Poor opening for them. The first night, he destroyed the PA system & the Poor were told they wouldn’t have to perform. “We felt like shit,” Randy remembered. To make matters worse, they never got paid. “We found out where the manager of the club lived, went there, pounded on his door until he came out, and tried to scare him by telling him simply, ‘Either you pay us or we’re going to kill you.’ He quickly bought us one-way plane tickets back to L.A.”

Below: Randy photographed in a Hollywood photo booth. He had cut his hair short in fear of being drafted into the Vietnam War. “Back then it was the hippie thing,” recalled Jennifer. Men with long hair would cut it hoping it would keep them from being targeted for the draft. “He was preparing himself,” Jennifer said. “He panicked.”²⁹ Randy was exempt from the draft due to being married and having a child before 1965. But this rule changed as the war progressed.

The Poor performing at Universal Studios, August 1968.

Read More About Randy in The Poor:
“Time And Changes: Randy Meisner & The Poor,” also my interview with Patrick Shanahan.

Notes:

1. Desperadoes: The Roots Of Country Rock by John Einarson, 2000 ↩︎
2. Interview with Patrick Shanahan, June 2023. ↩︎
3. There were no band battles at Denver Coliseum in 1966 until the Teenage Fair in August, but Randy was already living in California by then. ↩︎
4. “High Flying Bird” by Annette Heussmann, Scottsbluff Star-Herald, Feb. 24, 1991 ↩︎
5. Desperadoes: The Roots Of Country Rock by John Einarson, 2000 ↩︎
6. The gig was at K.C. Hall in North Platte, NE. ↩︎
7. Interview with Gene Chalk by Michael Stelk. ↩︎
8. Larry Soto, The Drivin’ Dynamics: A Rock & Roll Retrospect Of The Early Years, 1996 ↩︎
9. The Music Gig, October 1976 ↩︎
10. Rocky Mountain Collegian, July 26, 1968. A postmarked letter from Jennifer to Randy also places the band in L.A. in August 1966. ↩︎
11. Per ASCAP Repertory database. Snippets of both songs can be heard in episodes of Ironside and The Name Of The Game. See Time And Changes: Randy Meisner & The Poor. ↩︎
12. Gene Chalk interview with Michael Stelk. ↩︎
13. The Poor (2003) liner notes ↩︎
14. To The Limit: The Untold Story Of The Eagles by Marc Eliot, 1998 ↩︎
15. Randy Meisner interview with Ken Sharp, 2006 ↩︎
16. Interview with Patrick Shanahan ↩︎
17. Personal correspondence with Patrick Shanahan ↩︎
18. Personal correspondence with Tom Shipley ↩︎
19. Personal correspondence with Jennifer Meisner. Jennifer had a short job as an extra in a Paul Newman film. “I had a three day job as an extra when they lived on Serrano along with Randy’s cousin, Bea and her friend Joyce. WUSA with Paul Newman.” ↩︎
20. Correspondence with Jennifer Meisner ↩︎
21. Interview with Patrick Shanahan, June 2023 ↩︎
22. To The Limit: The Untold Story Of The Eagles by Marc Eliot, 1998. ↩︎
23. John Kay, Magic Carpet Ride : The Autobiography Of John Kay and Steppenwolf, 1994. ↩︎
24. Joey Stec, 2006. ↩︎
25. Interview with Patrick Shanahan ↩︎
26. Randy Meisner interview with Ken Sharp, 2006 ↩︎
27. To The Limit: The Untold Story Of The Eagles by Marc Eliot, 1998 ↩︎
28. Interview with Patrick Shanahan ↩︎
29. Correspondence with Jennifer Meisner. ↩︎