I titled this The Wonder Years, but anything from 1980 to 1985 should really be The Wonder WTF I Was Thinking and Doing Years. It’s not like it STOPPED in 1985, but 1986 began The Return To Balance Years (it took about two years and a few more lessons learned to get anywhere near a “new normal” in 1988).
Last night I was writing from the POV of The Musician, and it started me thinking about musicians I’ve known well, and musicians I saw a lot of who were good to great but sometimes never got their big break or were in their own WTF Was I Doing Years. I thought about a band I met through friends of one of the… Bad Boyfriends? This isn’t about him. It’s about the band, then called Mike and the Maximums, led by Mike Duke, who for a time was in the band Wet Willie, the band The Outlaws, and worked with Delbert McClinton and Chuck Leavell among others, and helped the Marshall Tucker Band get discovered. If you haven’t heard of these Southern rockers, as a prolific songwriter, Mike Duke also wrote hit songs for Huey Lewis and the News.
Turns out in 2020, through good efforts of a label and an executive producer, an album called The Mike Duke Project…took a while was made. Since there are a couple of other musicians I know through social media with new albums out, this morning seemed like a good time to purchase those and Mike’s album and get them into my iTunes library. This puts them in rotation on my car playlist to be nice surprises when I’m out and about.
Thinking about Mike and the Maximums sent me to my photo albums. I believe the photos I’m about to share were made in spring or summer of 1985. I’m not sure why I had the idea to order a cake and bring it to them, if there was something specific going on or what. I can’t read the writing on it, but it seems to start with “Thank You” and goes on to list the band members, but I can read only two of their names. Sorry, guys. It’s been a few decades. I just remember that I’m the one who had the idea to give them a cake that night, and the one who brought it.
By that night, the Bad Boyfriend was back with his previous girlfriend, and that’s all I’ll say about that. Someone I’ve blogged about before (in 2011) who was kind to me when I needed kindness, was with me that night, as was my camera. So I figured if Mike ever googles his name or his old band’s name, maybe he’ll stumble over this post and know that I still remember how good he was, and now I get to listen to him again. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos. It was a club and it was film, the days when you never knew what you had until it came back from a photo lab.
Mike: I can’t hear you!
The guitarist on the left was the only one whose face I could remember (other than Mike’s) before I looked at the photos. Then everyone was familiar. He and the bass player on the right were as amazing as Mike was on keyboards. This band freaking rocked.
Managed to get the drummer, too! The woman on the right in front of Mike was one of the friends who introduced the Bad Boyfriend to the band (and therefore, me, when I was still the Other Girlfriend).
Cake!
This is a guy who worked at the same place as Bad Boyfriend and me who had fun with cake. I wish I remembered his name, but I tend to forget a lot of details from traumatic times.
I think a woman who was really nice to me during that time, who I also worked with, took this shot in our office. She was one of the few people who could make me smile by the summer of ’85 (if it helps at all to give you context, my dog died in March and my father died in April, the only two events I’m comfortable disclosing). I have no way to find her, but I hope if she ever thinks of those days, she knows that she helped me through some of the darkest times of my life.
That was my actual hair color. It’s been a long time since I saw it without benefit of root touch-ups, highlights, then going blonde. Thanks to the pandemic, every strand from root to tip is now natural–gray or white–and I’ll never color it again.
Thank you, Mike and your band, my gentleman friend from Auburn, and my coworker who held me together. You were good people in a terrible time. My life has known other sorrows since, but it has been amazing, too, filled with creativity, love, family, friends, dogs–all better than the woman in the last two photos could have imagined lay ahead for herself.
Always dream. Always hope. Always believe in yourself. Accept a hand when you need one. An ear willing to listen. A person who can be trusted. And always, always listen to the music.
This song is two years old in the chapter I’m writing, and I can picture The Musician taking his love’s hand and dancing with her when it comes on the radio in the kitchen. Everything is ahead…
You have always been an attractive woman. Your look then was very on trend.
I think there are an awful lot of incredibly talented people out there who never hit the big time. Only a tiny fraction do.
Thank you.
Yes, it’s a combination of talent, drive, hard work, luck, the right support and assistance, and what the (fickle and unpredictable) public wants. That being said, “success” on a grand scale is one thing, and many artists feel successful when they find their niche and place and audience on a much smaller scale.