The Dwight Twilley Story

by Kent H. Benjamin

Copyright May 2001, Kent H. Benjamin, Austin, TX. Used with permission. Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily shared by the artist, although we've come to agree more than disagree.

This is the very convoluted but wonderful true story of two boys who met around ages 15-16, wrote, produced, and recorded their own original songs, dreamed of becoming pop stars, and against all odds and through an incredible plague of bad luck and circumstance, actually achieved that goal. Along the way you'll hear about thieving managers, the mafia connection, Jaws, Dick Clark, Elvis, The Beatles, the rain, the park, and more. And most of all, you'll read many details of some of the finest rock'n'roll songs ever written (released and unreleased), in this writer's opinion. The story will be told here in more detail than ever before, as it deserves....

Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour met around 1967 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at an afternoon screening of A Hard Day's Night . Dwight had taken his kid brother and Phil had taken a neighbor, each for the same reason: it was ‘bring a kid and get in free day' at the theatre, and both were Beatle fans. Being the two tallest people in line, they noticed each other, talked, and discovered they had a mutual friend, who had just moved away. It was one of the most fortuitous meetings since the church picnic at which Paul McCartney met John Lennon.

That same day, they went back to Twilley's house and began to record songs together that Twilley had written; from the very beginning, they conceived a partnership with both singing lead vocals that would take them to the top of the charts. Both of them were already proficient multi-instrumentalists and singers. For the next several years, they continued to record literally hundreds of songs together, sometimes with assistance from a lead guitarist, Bill Pitcock IV. Both also performed live in various combinations with other Tulsa musicians who would figure later in their careers.

They developed a close two-part harmony sound derived from The Beatles, with influence from many other top chart acts. The band christened itself ‘Oister,' signifying two halves that made up a whole. Years later, after signing a record deal, Shelter Records honcho Denny Cordell rechristened them The Dwight Twilley Band, but the name Oister was used on the records as Twilley & Seymour's production team name. Right from the time they met, Dwight and Phil would get together in Dwight's room and/or at the Seymours' house and record songs, with Dwight overdubbing piano, guitars, and vocals, and Phil adding drums, and vocals. All would be mixed onto a AKAI 2-track deck. They recorded constantly, and even put together their own little ‘concept' records.

Oister Presents Swirling Clouds was the first concept album recorded by the duo, pressed on really thin, cheap acetates, and sold in a limited run of about a dozen to their school classmates. It included “All My Love I Send To Her,” “Listen,” “I Am Here,” “Do You Have Appointments,” “Going There Again,” “Season of the Body,” “Melody For Melanie,” “I'm Only A Tree,” “Second Time,” “I Have A Window,” “Bye Bye,” “Ride On Lonely Cowboy,” and “White Patches.” Still in high school, the band had nevertheless made one of the first DIY/indie albums for their ‘debut.'

Oister's Greatest Hits was a second home-pressed acetate Dwight and Phil made to sell to friends in school, in another limited run of about a dozen copies. It's unknown if any survived, because they were made to only last for a few dozen plays. The songs do still exist on tape, however. This time around they basically cut live with acoustic guitars to 2-track tape the songs they considered their best at the time, including: “Titanic,” “Cold Weather Woman,” “Lay Down The Sun,” “Bitty Bacon,” “Gwen,” “Western Sun,” “In the Falling Rain,” “All Of My Life,” “Stella Wisdom,” “Save My Dog,” “If I Had A Bird,” “You're Still A Child,” and “Captain Cardboard.”

Extra Oister tracks from the early high school years include titles such as: “Yes, I Have A Photograph,” “Marilyn,” “April Fooler,” “It's A Beautiful Day,” “Happy Birthday,” “Oh Girl,” and “Landlady.”

Recording continued throughout junior high and high school, still mostly at Dwight's and Phil's houses onto mono tape and 2-track. For the most part, Dwight has described the songs as being very much in a Simon & Garfunkel/Everly Brothers/early Beatles vein. Other titles recorded during these years (two of which were re-recorded in the late ‘70s) were: “Daydream Lady,” “Counting The Whiles,” “When The Lights Went Out,” “Someone Sleeping,” “It's True,” “Linda Jones,” “Tumbleweed,” “When Two Stars Collide,” “Aubin My Ozone,” “Sing You A Song,” “Want This Girl,” and “Seven Dollar Man.” Among the less folky titles were: “Please Understand Me,” “Good Evening And Friend,” “Broken Man Blues,” “The World You've Never Lived In,” “Allegheny,” “She Isn't Lonely,” “To Wait Is To Waste” (which shares a line with the later and more familiar song “I Wanna Be A Rebel” from the B Album), “Different,” “Hello,” “My Mother Was Shot -- In An Elevator in New York,” “What Is The Time of Day,” “A Long Time Ago,” “Swandial,” “Dahnant,” “She's All My Light,” “And So Do I,” “Me and Melanie,” “Sometime,” “Interaction,” “Who Wields Me Wields The World,” “In The Light of a Street,” and “Uncle Scavenger.”

In archetypal Twilley fashion, his home got a name as if it were a studio: Zunis, named after the street it was situated on. It was a little white house across the street from an icehouse, and on some songs (like “Round and Around,” released in 1999 on Between the Cracks, Vol. 1 ) you can actually hear the rattling of the icehouse on the tapes. The duo's first ‘professional' recording in a real studio was at a tiny indie recording studio called BJ Recording just across the state line in Van Buren, Arkansas, in the foothills of the Ozarks south of Branson. The first version of “Sky Blue” (one of the most often recorded yet unreleased Dwight Twilley compositions) was the only song cut in Van Buren.

When Dwight and Phil decided to pool up their money and drive to the nearest recording studio, they headed out towards Nashville, figuring New York and L.A. were way too far to drive in their beat-up old Chevy station wagon. Crossing the bridge over the Mississippi, they headed down Union Avenue in Memphis. They'd decided to stop at the first recording studio they saw, and miraculously, that turned out to be 706 Union Avenue, a little place called Sun Records. Going inside, they played a tape for Sam Phillips' brother Jud, who suggested they meet Ray Harris. Harris was an original Sun rockabilly artist (“Come On Little Mama” and “Where Did You Stay Last Night” being his best-known cuts), and he'd gone on to considerable R'n'B/soul success as co-founder of Hi Records. The boys then played Harris a couple of songs on their acoustic guitars, sounding very like Simon and Garfunkel. A rather red-faced Mississippi good ol' boy, Harris immediately told them ‘ya'll sing like pussies, you need to sing like you're throwin' bricks at cars' but then scared them half to death by following with ‘let's cut some sides!!!' He told the boys they needed to ‘get some taters and grits under your belts.' Not knowing what to make of this, and rather intimidated, the boys slunk back home to Tulsa.

Soon after, they called Harris, asked if he remembered them, and he said ‘you the boys drivin' that ‘58 Chevy? Come on down and let's cut some sides!' He had a studio in Tupelo, Mississippi, so the boys made the long drive down to Tupelo, where under Harris' tutelage, they started to learn about the real roots of rock'n'roll, and to be immersed in Sun rockabilly. It was an education that would serve them well, and ultimately help to make them sound like no one else on the ‘70s music scene. They recorded with Harris in a studio near the Natchez Trace Inn, the Trace and Statue. Here's a list of some songs recorded in four of the sessions, some of which you'll recognize from later versions. The first session produced “Lay Down The Sun,” “Cold Weather Woman,” and “Misty.” The next session produced “You're My Lover,” “6th of June” (which is Dwight's birthday, of course), “Runaway,” “You Never Listen To My Music,” and “Only People In The World.” A third session produced “Lizzy Walker,” “Let It Rain,” “In Changing From A Car,” “I Won't Buy,” “Second Time,” and “Like Last Night.” The final Tupelo session featured “29 Times,” “Help Me Jesus,” and “Sunshine.”

During this time, they were immersed in the mythical Source of rock'n'roll itself -- the Sun Records sound of Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis; prior to meeting Harris, the teens thought Elvis was just a guy who made movies. They learned that his music was the veritable heart of rock'n'roll. And, quite by accident, they developed a sound that was composed of equal parts of Elvis Presley and The Beatles, and that had never been heard before in rock music -- a sound that was uniquely and identifiably their own.

But these weren't nearly all the songs Dwight and Phil recorded in the early ‘70s. A blossoming friendship with Bill Pitcock IV, already an outstanding Tulsa guitar player, had led them to hook up with Bill Pitcock II, his granddad, who owned a ‘funky old shop' called Pitcock Electric. The elder Pitcock supported the boys with advice and free space, allowing them to set up their own recording studio above Pitcock Electric with egg crates nailed to the walls. They soon dubbed it ‘The Shop.' Twilley and Pitcock played together in a cover band in high school called 1950, and used the money earned at gigs to buy recording equipment. The recordings were made on a Teac 3340 4-track deck, sometimes with Dwight and Phil, occasionally Dwight on all instruments, and often with Pitcock IV contributing lead and rhythm guitars.

Among the songs stockpiled during the early days at The Shop were: “Only Child,” “Summer Day,” “I'm On A Dream,” “Let's Go Home,” “For Now On A Year,” “Mercy Killer,” “Dreamer,” “Southern Girl,” “Break Down Inside,” “Lazy Boy,” “Long Dry Spot,” “So Many Times In The Past,” “Ice Captain,” “Parents,” “Remember Me,” “Earth Cut,” “Dear December,” “Real Live Baby Girl,” “Never Can Tell,” “C'lyn,” “Take A Walk In The Snow,” “Way Down The Road,” and “Think It Over.” It should also be noted that a few tracks cut during this era (and in the early Shelter days) included contributions from Tulsa friends like Randy Vincent, Jim Barth, Jerry Naifeh, Rob Armstrong, Roger Linn, Frank Prentice, Ronnie Dobson, and Rob Roach. An interesting trivia note is that some of these musicians were the very same people who served as The Dwight Twilley Band's extra touring musicians (appearing on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert , for instance) and were also featured on Twilley's 1999 comeback album, Tulsa . All these early recordings were produced by Twilley and Seymour.

After high school, Seymour played with a band called El Roacho, who scored a record deal, while Twilley attended college for a year. Twilley had made a deal with his dad: if he completed a semester of college with straight A's, his father promised to support him in his decision to try a career in the music business. Dwight fulfilled his end of the bargain, so his dad, George Twilley, agreed that Dwight could try to make it in the music business.

Dwight and Phil then reformed as Oister, with Phil simply bailing out of El Roacho right on the eve of recording their first album. Dwight and Phil with Bill Pitcock back at their side worked feverishly to polish up and rework many of Dwight's best songs, so that they could have a tape to play for record companies in Los Angeles, get a record deal, and fulfill their dream of being stars (listen to the lyrics of “I Wanna Be a Rebel,” written around this time: “... I get the feeling I should split for the coast tonight/Hollywood, Hollywood/ I get the feeling that could be aw-aw-alright/do you good, do you good ...”). A friend, Jim Barth, was a sometime member of Oister on piano; he later engineered some Dwight Twilley Band recordings at The Church. It should be stressed at this point that Jim Barth was a very important component of the band; after all, how many bands actually had their very own engineer in the band?! It meant a lot when it came to learning how to get down the sounds they heard in their heads onto tape.

Because they had only one 4-track tape deck, they made a deal with a Tulsa singer named Dean Grider in which he would allow them to borrow his Teac 2-track deck to use in compiling their demonstration reels, and they would allow him to take one of Dwight's songs, wipe the lead vocal off, and record his own lead vocal on top of it, to use as his own demo when he went out to L.A. himself. The song was called “Love Is A Train” (see Teac A Tape, below). Dwight and Phil then used the borrowed tape deck to compile two reels of what they felt was their best material to date.

The first tape, labeled “TEAC A TAPE” contained the following songs: “You Were So Warm,” “Rock Yourself, Son,” “Come And See Me,” “Love Is A Train,” “Release Me,” “No Resistance,” “Look Like An Angel,” “You're My Lover,” “Hot Mama,” “Just Like You Did It Before,” “Miserable Lady,” “Lovin' Me,” and “Baby's Got The Blues Again.” A remarkable ten of the 13 tracks were later re-recorded for Dwight Twilley Band and Dwight Twilley solo albums. In 1999, Dwight revisited “Baby's Got The Blues Again” with a band of vets who all appeared live with the Dwight Twilley Band, and the new version was included on Tulsa.

The second tape, labeled “TEAC B TAPE” contained eight songs, of which only “Sky Blue” would subsequently be re-recorded: “Pop Bottle,” “You Just Might Make It,” “Lightning,” “Little Stars,” “You Can't Remember It,” “Didn't You,” “Sky Blue,” and “It's Ruff.” Other songs that were in the running, but not actually included on either tape were “Let Me Down,” “Silenced,” “The Daze of Swirling Clouds” (no relation to the Oister acetate album, although I'd argue it's one of Twilley's very best lyrics, a mini-epic like “Sleeping” or “Looking for A Dreamer”/”Look Like An Angel”), “May Never Will Be,” “Dead,” “Story Never Told,” “Suzie Glider,” “Through the Window,” “Before It's Too Long,” “I Don't Even Know My Name” (original demo), “Eli Bolack,” (on Between The Cracks, Vol. 1 ) and “The Planes.” Two of these would also be rerecorded years later.

The TEAC Tapes are a pretty remarkable accomplishment. For starters, remember that in 1973-1974, NO ONE was doing DIY recordings. Sure, Pete Townshend made his home demos, and there was McCartney's 1970 solo album, along with excellent one-man-band albums by Emitt Rhodes (1970) and Todd Rundgren ( Something/Anything in 1972). But those were albums produced for a label in professional recording studios, and, most importantly, with a sizeable budget attached to the recording. The TEAC Tapes admittedly sound a bit rough and tinny -- they were recorded in a home studio on 4-track, two decades before home recording was truly available and affordable for the masses -- but the quality of the songwriting, the singing, and the arrangements was outstanding. Of the familiar titles fans will recognize from later studio versions done for Sincerely, the songs sound like blueprints. You can hear how great they'd be with better production values, and indeed they were. Several of the songs that were not redone for Shelter are as good as anything the band ever did, including “Pop Bottle” (with actual pop bottles used for percussion), the original of “Love Is A Train” (sung by Seymour), the rockin' “Hot Mama” (a quintessential Midwest rock song), and especially, “Lightning” with its haunting refrain “... a man can't live on lightning/with the woman out in the rain ....”

At this point, it might be a good idea to tell you exactly how the Dwight Twilley Band differed from nearly everyone else in the music business in the mid-1970s. Twilley and Seymour had developed an almost uncanny ability to sing together in impeccable harmony. By the time they decided they were ready to make a real record, they'd been practicing almost daily for nearly ten years, and had worked out a very distinctive sound. They had the ability to overdub layers and layers of vocals, trade off lead and harmony vocals (frequently one sang the lower lead melody, and the other sang high harmony above it, and both traded roles), then add intricate counterpart melodies on top of it. One of their engineers once swore to me that they could lay down a part apiece, then lay down the next layers of harmonies without even listening to the first parts back, and it would be perfect (Twilley says that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's still incredible that an engineer would remember it that way!). In fact, in the history of great two-part harmony singers, I'd argue that there are Phil & Don Everly, John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel, and Dwight Twilley & Phil Seymour. Add to that the fact that they were capable of making a near-perfect and unprecedented melding of Sun rockabilly and Merseyside pop, factor in their genius in arranging and producing, and the ace in the hole super-guitarist Bill Pitcock IV, and you had a hit-making machine waiting to happen. And to top it off, Dwight Twilley had written over a hundred excellent songs before they ever went to a record company.

At long last, Oister was ready to sign a record deal and achieve the dream they'd had since meeting at the screening of A Hard Day's Night -- to make records like the Beatles and become stars. The boys (with Bill) made the long drive out to L.A. in early November 1974 and found a decrepit little apartment to stay in. They were followed to L.A. by the aforementioned Dean Grider, who made a beeline to Shelter Records (owned by expatriate Brit Denny Cordell and Tulsan Leon Russell). While Dwight and Phil had never really considered talking to Tulsa-based Shelter Records (partly because nothing on the label sounded like their own music), Grider had gone in with the demo of “Love Is A Train” and played it for the Shelter execs. They'd loved the song, but had not been impressed by the singer. When they expressed interest in the song, and wondered if Grider had written it, he immediately volunteered that if they ‘... like[d] this song, the guy who wrote it has two full tapes with other songs this good.' And so, against all logic, within two weeks of their arrival in Los Angeles, Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour were signed to Tulsa-based Shelter Records. The years of home recording and preparation were about to pay off in spades with a Top Forty single.

It's nothing short of remarkable that within two weeks of arriving in L.A., Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour had achieved their lifelong dream of landing a record deal. And from the first company they talked to, at that. Years later, Twilley still expresses amazement and bemusement at the fact that it came so easily. Just barely over twenty (Twilley was a year older than Seymour, two years older than Pitcock), the boys were so naive that they really had no idea it was supposed to be hard to get a record deal. Even more remarkably, within six months time from signing the deal with Shelter, the newly christened Dwight Twilley Band would land in the Top Forty nationally with the first song they recorded for the label.

Here's the story behind that remarkable first hit, a song which some consider to be among the greatest rock'n'roll singles of all time (in fact, The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed it ‘the best debut rock single from a band, ever'). The trio were staying temporarily in a dilapidated duplex with no furniture, a few blocks from Shelter's offices. Just before Thanksgiving, when they were to return to Tulsa, ostensibly to cut some demos of old tunes the label already liked, Twilley walked to a little park down the street from their apartment called Lemon Grove Park and wrote a new song with a catchy hook, “... you ain't, you ain't, you ain't got no lover ....”; he called it “I'm On Fire.” The floating chorus refrain of “I'm On Fire” was inspired by Lou Christie's “Lightning Strikes Again,” but the song sounded absolutely unique, not directly like anything that had come before it in rock'n'roll.

Back at the apartment, the three worked up a tight arrangement of “I'm On Fire” with all the layered harmonies and guitar parts fully worked out. What became a trademark Twilley distorted guitar sound was influenced by the only ‘amp' available, a tiny radio speaker into which Pitcock managed to plug his guitar.

Returning to Tulsa for Thanksgiving, the trio entered The Church Studio on November 27, 1974, where Shelter head Denny Cordell teamed them with fellow Brit Roger Harris as an engineer. No stranger to the music biz, Harris had started his career as a gofer for the legendary Joe Meek, and had just moved up from Texas, where he'd worked with Freddy Fender and Huey Meaux (he engineered some of Fender's classic hits). Out in the hallway before the session, Seymour pulled Twilley aside and said “... let's don't just do demos, let's cut a hit record right now ....” So, much to the surprise of the Shelter execs, who assumed they were just going to work up more polished versions of the songs they'd already heard and loved on the Teac Tapes, the trio went in and cut “I'm On Fire,” written only a few days earlier. The band gave it their all, since, as Pitcock put it, they didn't know if they'd ever get a chance to make a record again. The trio played all the instruments, and Twilley & Seymour produced the song as well. Amazingly, the song marked Phil's debut as a bass player on record, and from then on, he'd be the primary Dwight Twilley Band bassist in the studio.

As a first session, it was remarkably productive. They also recorded the track which was to be the non-LP B-side, the Jerry Lee Lewis-inspired Sun rockabilly rave-up, “Did You See What Happened?” (variously called “Did You C What Happened?,” but not on the original single). A third track, “Lovin' Me,” was a new recording of one of the best Teac A Tape tracks (which you'll remember is what they were supposed to be cutting), and is arguably one of the band's finest moments. That it was not released until 1991 was a tremendous shame, since it, too, sounded like a hit single had it been released at the time.

The band continued to record songs both at The Church, at Leon's 40-track studio in Tulsa, and also in Los Angeles. Among the tracks recorded in 1975 were “Please Say Please” (earmarked as the B-side of the unreleased 2nd single, “Shark” -- see below for details), “I Can't Get No,” “Shark (In The Dark)” (first version), “Sky Blue” (40-track version), “I Wanna Be A Rebel,” “Shakin' (In The Brown Grass)” (two versions, one cut at The Church, and one cut in April on the 40-track home studio at Leon Russell's house, which was considered ‘best'), “Tiger Eyes,” and “Tulsa Girl.” Although each was among the band's greatest songs, none would be released at the time. Trivia note: the near-buried vocal in the bridge of “Shakin'” says “... she likes Perry Como/she don't know, she don't know ....” “Shakin'” is one of Twilley's all-time best rockers, alongside “Betsy Sue” and “TV.”

In March 1975 they journeyed to England, where they spent four to six weeks recording at Trident Studios in London. With Robin Cable producing, they recorded a whole album's worth of material: “England,” “Look Like An Angel” (really a medley of the song of that name from the Teac A Tape and a separate song called “Looking For A Dreamer”), “Rock Yourself, Son,” “Shark (In The Dark)” (a very good second version never released anywhere), “I Don't Even Know My Name,” “Miserable Lady,” “No Resistance,” “Dancer,” and a heavily produced Spectorish version of “Sky Blue” (which Dwight to this day doesn't like, although it's a personal all-time favorite of mine). Additionally, Cable remixed the earlier Tulsa recording of “You Were So Warm” (which would ultimately become the 2nd single, and an album track on the first album). The sessions were a great success, but it didn't take long for both Denny Cordell and the band to rethink the decision to use an outside producer. The majority of the tracks would not see the light of day for over fifteen years. Why? Because after the unprecedented and enormous success of “I'm On Fire,” which had been produced solely by Oister, everyone involved felt like Dwight Twilley Band material was best when produced by Dwight and Phil.

Released in April 1975, “I'm On Fire” immediately rocketed up to #16 on the Billboard charts, with virtually no promotion and without the band ever having played a live gig as The Dwight Twilley Band. The song also came with a picture sleeve with shots taken in a photomat, Dwight with mirrored shades on one side, Phil sticking out his tongue on the other. It came out on what might have been the first-ever 12" single, with photos from the photomat shoot along the edges. The hit got the group an appearance on American Bandstand on July 26, 1976. For the show, the duo elected to perform their hit, and a previously unreleased number called “Shark (In The Dark).” Clark, remarking on their youth and incredible luck to have a hit with their first ever recording, asked them if they knew what would happen when the bubble burst. It was to prove a tragically prescient question. In another tragedy (at least for us fans), the show was accidentally bulk erased (along with many many others) from Clark's archives when an overly ambitious employee was bulk erasing episodes of another series, so far more fans have heard of the show than have ever actually seen it (Twilley's copy may be the ONLY surviving one, and it's never been transferred to VHS or any playable format).

On August 3, a second single was recorded, a new version of “Shark (In The Dark)” co-produced by Leon Russell on his 40-track home studio, one of the first in America at the time (and we should note that while I'd like for this song to have been recorded on Aug. 3 as the original master tape box clearly says -- my birthday -- it's the same version used on Bandstand , which was nine days earlier, so the Aug. 3 date may refer to a final mix or overdub). “Shark” was scheduled to be the single a-side, coupled with the earlier “Please Say Please” (continuing a tradition of Dwight on lead vocals on one side, Phil singing lead on the other). The song was already becoming a hit in several cities where DJ's had actually taped it off Bandstand and played it on the air, to terrific audience response. But disaster struck in the form of, well, one of the first landmark ‘disaster' movies, Jaws , which was on its way to becoming the first true ‘blockbuster' summer hit by August of 1975. Some unnamed nervous Shelter executive pulled the plug on the release of “Shark,” fearing the band would be viewed in the film's wake as a novelty act (never mind that two versions of the song had been recorded well before the film's release). Had the record been released in August as scheduled, I've always maintained that it would've really changed things drastically in the Tulsa/Shelter music history, and certainly in Twilley's career. In all likelihood, “Shark” would've gone top ten, the album would've been out in the fall and been a massive hit, and it would've been Twilley who became a major star before fellow Shelter artist Tom Petty. Petty was a close friend, particularly of Seymour's in the Shelter daze. He was in the studio watching for many of the sessions that produced their debut album, and plays on a couple of cuts. Twilley and Seymour also sang on Petty's first album on “Strangered In The Night” and Phil's the main backing singer on Petty's first breakout hit “Breakdown” and on “American Girl”; and as Petty notes in the liners to his boxed set, it was Twilley who suggested that the guitar riff at the end of “Breakdown” be moved to the beginning, as that was clearly the hook. Ironically, “Shark” became the first recorded Twilley cover version in 1978 via an indie 45 by Gary Charlson (with an delightful parody of the “I'm On Fire” sleeve, and scratched into the vinyl, ‘Twilley don't mind but Charlson don't care'). An ‘80s version recorded by a Midwestern group Blue Steel and produced by Noah Shark and Max also predated any Twilley version into the stores.

As it transpired, the scheduled September release of an album called Fire never even made the test pressing stage before the plug was pulled on it, too. The title was something the band never liked or agreed to, but a cassette from Seymour at the time contained these tracks, for posterity: “I'm On Fire,” “England,” “Looking For a Dreamer/Look Like An Angel,” “I Don't Even Know My Name,” “Lovin' Me,” “Rock Yourself, Son,” “Sky Blue” (the Cable version), “Shark (In The Dark)” (the Leon version), “Miserable Lady,” “You Were So Warm,” “No Resistance,” “Dancer,” and “Please Say Please.” This is the genesis of the myth behind the “B Album,” the Great Lost Dwight Twilley Band album that never was. By fall of 1975, in the very first articles that appeared on the band, even though they only had one single in the stores, writers were amazed at the enormous backlog of stunning material they had accumulated. A little known fact is that once the label declined to release “Shark” as a single, it would never again be considered for the debut album, and would forever after be consigned to the ‘B Album' ( Sincerely was of course the ‘A Album').

Meanwhile, the label belatedly released a 2nd single, “You Were So Warm,” coupled with a terrific recent track, “Sincerely” (recorded with assistance from Roger Linn, about to become famous as the inventor/namesake of the first synth drums). “You Were So Warm” was Phil's first lead vocal on an a-side, and remains one of the band's best loved songs. However, Shelter Records was undergoing major changes -- with label owners Denny Cordell and Leon Russell splitting up -- and while the single got numerous rave reviews, it was barely findable in the stores, and such a stylistic change from “I'm On Fire” that it didn't really get any benefit from being a somewhat belated follow-up to a hit single; if you heard it at all on radio, you probably would never recognize it as the same band.

The band continued to soldier on in the studio, and as more and more terrific tracks were cut, the projected line-up of the debut album continued to evolve. It's not unreasonable to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that what was released as the critically acclaimed album Sincerely in late summer of 1976, was more or less Dwight and Phil's favorites the week they had to turn in a final line-up. For instance, in early 1976, there's a handwritten list from Dwight with a ‘final' line-up of two albums: Sincerely [Side A: “I'm On Fire,” “Could Be Love,” “Feeling In the Dark,” “You Were So Warm,” “Dancer,” “Sincerely,” Side B: “Shakin' (In The Brown Grass),” “Release Me,” “Three Persons,” “Baby Let's Cruise,” “Just Like The Sun,” “England,” “TV”] and “The B Album” [Side A: “Rock Yourself, Son,” “Look Like An Angel,” “I Don't Even Know My Name,” “Sky Blue” (marked 40-track or Robin Cable version?), “I'm Losing You,” “Shark” (marked 40-track or Robin Cable version?), and Side B: “Please Say Please,” “I Wanna Be A Rebel,” “Tulsa Girl,” “Miserable Lady,” “Tiger Eyes,” “”Lovin' Me,” “Did You See What Happened?”]. Fascinating -- close, but so far away....

Shelter Records got a new lease on life for a time. Cordell was sole man in charge and Russell was out of the picture. Initially, they'd been distributed by MCA, and had more or less gone under in the fall of 1975. By 1976, they'd been picked up by ABC, and while all the momentum from the previous summer's hit had dissipated, the band was allowed to continue recording, making the album better and better, and a final debut album was assembled in the spring.

For the most part, the released Sincerely consisted of late ‘75-early ‘76 material, and most of the older tracks were abandoned, for all intents and purposes; the band would never again come close to releasing any of them before they split up. The final album line-up was “I'm On Fire,” “Could Be Love,” “Feeling In The Dark,” “You Were So Warm,” “I'm Losing You,” “Sincerely,” and Side Two: “TV,” “Release Me,” “Three Persons,” “Baby Let's Cruise,” “England,” “Just Like The Sun.” It's worth noting that several of the most recently written and recorded tracks included on Sincerely are among Twilley's best, including “Could Be Love,” “Baby Let's Cruise,” “TV,” and “Just Like The Sun.” In 1989, DCC Compact Classics reissued the album with four bonus tracks: “Look Like An Angel,” “Miserable Lady,” “Rock Yourself, Son,” and “Did You See What Happened?”; in 1997 The Right Stuff reissued the CD again with these bonus tracks: “Tiger Eyes,” “Please Say Please,” “Miserable Lady,” and “Rock Yourself, Son.” The Right Stuff's version uses the “I'm On Fire” single front and back covers for the album; it was one of the all-time cheapo album cover shoots, being part of several rolls of shots taken in a photo booth one day. A single was released just after the album, “Could Be Love” backed with “Feeling In the Dark.” The album received rave reviews, making many year end Best Of lists, but Shelter Records was putting all their promotional dollars into Petty's record by that time.

By the time of the release of Sincerely , both the music press and the fans who'd bought “I'm On Fire” and the debut album were all abuzz about the fact that the band had another equally good album in the can before the first one was even in the stores. In truth, by my count, there were something like 50 releaseable and excellent songs that had been recorded under the auspices of Shelter during their first 15 months there. For posterity, the tape that was compiled to reel as “The B Album” as of the summer release of Sincerely consisted of these tracks in this order: “Rock Yourself, Son,” “Looking For a Dreamer/Look Like An Angel,” “Sky Blue” (Cable version), “I Don't Know My Name,” “Shark” (Leon version), “Shakin'” (40-track version), “Dancer,” “Please Say Please,” “Did You See What Happened?,” “I Wanna Be A Rebel,” “Lovin' Me,” “Tulsa Girl,” “Miserable Lady,” “Tiger Eyes,” “I Can't Get No,” and “Shakin'” (Bob Schaper-produced version). Most of these tracks were collected on DCC's The Great Lost Twilley Album. Only the versions of “Sky Blue,” the earlier version of “Shakin'” (Schaper version), “Tulsa Girl,” and “I Wanna Be A Rebel” remain unissued; while the re-recorded “Shakin'” is definitive and released, the other three tracks are all terrific, and will hopefully be released one day.

It's worth noting that this reel was at no point an album, or anything that they'd planned to release at the time. It was, irrespective of the myths that have since surrounded it, truly nothing but a reel that compiled the best of their leftover songs. Mind you, virtually all of them are brilliant songs, and should by all rights have been released. In a better world, had “Shark” not have been pulled, followed by Shelter's dissolution, there should've been several more Top Forty hits from this tape. At the very least, twenty-five years of hindsight have made clear that there were at least three glaring omissions from the album: the ‘75 Leon Russell/40-track versions of “Shark” and “Shakin',” and either the Robin Cable or the 40-track version of “Sky Blue” (both ‘75). All three were seemingly left off in favor of more recently recorded tracks, that with hindsight, were perhaps not as strong. Those three tracks probably rank in the Top Five tracks Twilley wrote for the Dwight Twilley Band, and among his career Top Ten. It didn't matter, ultimately, because Sincerely remains many fans' favorite Twilley album, one of the greatest US albums of the decade.

It's also worth mentioning at this point, since there seems to be a bit of confusion among fans, that most of the songs sung by Phil Seymour in the Dwight Twilley Band were written especially for Phil to sing, with his vocal style and range in mind. Generally if Phil sang a song, two things are true: there's no earlier version with Dwight singing it, and Dwight never recut the song after the band broke up (there's two exceptions we'll mention later). For example, one day Phil asked Dwight if he could write a song for him like “California Girls,” only maybe about Tulsa. Hence, “Tulsa Girl,” with its references to Tupelo girls and Tulsa girls, and the silly Twilley backing vocals ‘ooh bop T.G.....'

In April of 1976, having already finalized the debut album, the band convinced Shelter to allow them to set up a mobile studio in a house in Los Angeles, the so-called “ShelterVision” studio. ShelterVision was used as Leon Russell's video laboratory. The band cut a number of demos of new tracks intentionally meant for a second album, including: “Prisms and Glass,” “Didn't You Say,” “Trying To Find My Baby,” “Skywriter,” “Too Young For Love,” “Two Of Us,” “You Never Listen To My Music,” “Chance To Get Away,” “Rock'n'Roll 47,” “Twenty-nine Times,” and “Living In The City.” Several of these tracks were included on the compilations The Great Lost Twilley Album and Between The Cracks, Vol. 1. Other tracks written and/or recorded in early 1976 were “Mr. Rabbit,” “Alone In My Room,” “Cryin' Over Me,” “Flippin' (On The Mention of Love),” and “Someone Sleeping” (a newer version). A couple of the ShelterVision tracks used an early synth drum machine with Phil himself programming in the drum parts.

In October-November of 1976, the Dwight Twilley Band made their first live appearances in about a dozen venues in Southern Cal., the Midwest, and the upper east coast. Live, Twilley played guitar and keyboards, Phil was down in front beside him playing drums, Pitcock off to the side on blistering lead guitar, and there was essentially an entire second band behind them composed of several of their former Tulsa bandmates like Bingo Sloan and Rob Armstrong. The sets were far more raucous, screaming rock'n'roll than anyone who'd heard Sincerely could possibly have imagined. And by the time they finally played live on stage, only a few Sincerely tracks were ever played. Already the set was full of tracks from what would become the second album, along with many tracks that wouldn't have an official release for over two decades. The legend of the band's stockpile of unreleased songs continued to grow. Several radio concerts were broadcast, including a King Biscuit Flower Hour from a set recorded at the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland that is just brilliant.

By the start of 1977, Shelter Records had been taken over by Arista (except for Tom Petty, who managed to escape relatively unscathed), and Twilley's next two albums would appear on Shelter/Arista. When the band returned to the studio, they were invigorated by the live performances, and determined to try to capture the sound that the band got on stage. Consequently, when they went in to record the album, they had decided in advance exactly what was going to be on it, and that's just what they recorded. All but one track had been written and demoed in advance; “Sleeping” was written at the hotel while recording was in progress. The resulting album, Twilley Don't Mind was released in August, 1977. It included: Side A: “Here She Come,” “Looking For The Magic,” “That I Remember,” “Rock'n'Roll 47,” “Trying To Find My Baby,” and Side B: “Twilley Don't Mind,” “Sleeping,” “Chance To Get Away,” “Invasion.” A single outtake was included on the DCC 1990 CD reissue, “Falling In Love,” and it was quite literally the only song extra that they cut, left off at the time because the recording of it was so problematic, that by the time they'd finished it, they were a bit tired of it. The 1997 reissue by The Right Stuff added only three remixes by Noah Shark, who took it upon himself to do the remixes on spec, hoping to convince Twilley to work with him in the future (it worked); this reissue also restored the cover shot Seymour and Twilley had wanted, not the one Clive Davis insisted on at the time, and has a more effective playing order similar to the original cassette release, which moved “Twilley Don't Mind” to the opening slot.

Three singles were released from the album: the title track b/w “Rock'n'Roll 47,” “Trying To Find My Baby” b/w “Here She Come” and “Looking For the Magic” b/w “Invasion” but all failed to catch on with record buyers in what was becoming known as the age of disco; all three came in the same picture sleeve with the album cover photo, but only the first is commonly seen. In England, “Trying To Find My Baby” b/w “Rock'n'Roll 47" and “Twilley Don't Mind” b/w “Looking For The Magic” were issued on Arista UK, to good reviews but no significant sales. In the early fall, they performed lip-synched versions of “That I Remember,” “Chance To Get Away,” “Looking For The Magic,” and “Twilley Don't Mind” on a Chris Beard-produced program called The W.A.C.K.O. Show ; intended to be a Saturday morning kids version of Laugh In , the program was barely on the air longer than it took to air their four episodes in September and October. It was missed by most fans (who were older) and didn't serve to attract a younger audience, either. A pre-superstardom Tom Petty appeared on bass alongside Twilley, Seymour, and Pitcock (Tom had guested on guitar on the album on “Looking For The Magic,” and was just starting his long run of hits).

Another brief fall tour was undertaken in November to promote the album, and the band turned in some remarkable shows, in spite of sometimes being booked as the opening act to some extremely ill-suited punk acts and over-the-hill rockers. The band were performing their only cover, an excellent version of The Soul Survivors' “Expressway (To Your Heart).” Again, several radio concerts were broadcast. At some point, Twilley hopes to release a Dwight Twilley Band live album drawn from Oct. ‘76 and Oct. ‘77 performances taped for radio broadcast.

Some recording also continued into late 1977 and early 1978, but nothing has ever been released from this period. Songs like “Treehouse” date from around this time.

By early 1978, with the release of the final of the three singles, “Looking For the Magic” (impossibly rare in its picture sleeve version, darned rare even as a black label stock copy!), the band was beginning to give up hope. They were booked to appear on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert in April, 1978; the band, which included Twilley, Seymour, Pitcock, Robbie Armstrong, and Bingo Sloan, performed four songs: “Twilley Don't Mind,” “Trying To Find My Baby,” (these two survive, and we think Dwight's two lead vocals were:) “Here She Come,” and “Chance To Get Away.” It was an amazing performance, and a seriously incongruous appearance, alongside The Sylvers in their silver spacesuits, and Kansas. In a bit of bad luck so typical for The Dwight Twilley Band, this appearance, which might well have put the album high in the charts, was canceled because of legal problems over use of the footage of the headliners, The Sex Pistols.

In a way, it was the last straw for Phil Seymour. Both he and Dwight were gutted over having recorded so many brilliant tracks, and then having bad luck prevent the music from being heard and appreciated as it so richly deserved to be. Neither had ever envisioned themselves as ‘cult items,' nor was it a role they aspired to. In addition, Phil had always seen himself primarily as a singer, not as a musician, from day one. He was unquestionably one of the finest drummers in America at the time, and Dwight very much wanted him to continue to play drums. And as a bass player, he was quite good, but as Roger Harris put it, he really only played bass on record merely because he knew what parts the songs needed, and he knew he could deliver them. But he didn't want to play either instrument live. He wanted to be down front with Dwight, just singing. It's also reasonable to assume that while Phil was the one who talked Dwight into calling the band ‘The Dwight Twilley Band' (a true if little known fact), it was undoubtedly a bit galling to be singing lead on most of the singles and often be called ‘Dwight Twilley' in live concert reviews. Twilley was always the leader and songwriter, but in a similar way to the relationship George Harrison had with the older John Lennon, the younger Phil felt the need to get out from under Dwight's shadow. The commercial failure of the second album was the final blow. Phil signed away the rights to all the Dwight Twilley Band's material and name, in exchange for which Dwight assumed the by-then very substantial debt owed to the label for advances, promotion, expenses, etc..

Phil Seymour went on to a successful solo career at first, scoring a big hit in 1981 with “Precious To Me,” one of the first songs he'd written himself, before joining the Textones temporarily as a drummer around 1985. Soon after, he developed lymphoma, which he succumbed to in August, 1993. He continued recording and performing right up until the end. Contrary to some reports, he and Dwight never ceased to be lifelong best friends. Twilley helped out on Seymour's solo debut, Seymour sang on Twilley's first solo album, and they recorded together from time to time until Phil's death. Shortly before he died, they had agreed to record another album together, but sadly, it was never to be.

At the time, when asked who sang which songs (since the records never identified them), Twilley replied: “Phil's the good voice, and I'm the one that's all over the place.” For posterity, here's a little help: listen to “Look Like An Angel” on the original DCC reissue of Sincerely -- it's virtually the only song in their catalog where Dwight and Phil are on separate stereo channels. Phil's the first voice you hear, then Dwight; Phil's the lead singer on both the “Looking For a Dreamer” and “Look Like An Angel” segments of the song. A few more reference points: Phil sings lead on “Twilley Don't Mind,” “You Were So Warm,” “Could Be Love,” “England,” and “Trying To Find My Baby,” while Dwight sings lead on “I'm On Fire,” “Shark,” “Looking For the Magic,” “Sincerely,” and “TV.”

Dwight Twilley continued to record for Arista immediately upon Seymour's departure, this time under his own name, and went on to achieve vastly more commercial success. Both Bill Pitcock IV and some of the Tulsa mafia were still in the backing band. Sessions began for his next album, which was released under the title Twilley in the early fall of 1978. It was a very stressful and trying time for Dwight, doing his first solo album without his right hand man, but he rose magnificently to the job, handling all the vocals himself. The studio was draped with tinfoil and Christmas lights, giving it a very party-like, fun atmosphere. Phil contributed harmonies to “Darlin'.” Seven of the songs were brand new ones. The final lineup of the album was: Side One: “Out of My Hands,” “Nothing's Ever Gonna Change So Fast,” “Runaway,” “Standing in the Shadow of Love,” “Alone in My Room,” Side B: “Betsy Sue,” “Darlin',” “I Want To Make Love To You,” “Got You Where I Want You,” and “It Takes A Lot of Love.” “Runaway” was originally written for Phil to sing, and contained an extra verse; it was one of only two songs ever written for Phil to sing that Dwight subsequently recut himself (the other is “Living In The City”). “Alone In My Room” was also a latter-day Dwight Twilley Band song (never heard in an original studio version), and “Betsy Sue” had always been a highlight of the band's few live shows as far back as 1976 -- in fact, the song was originally written when Twilley was fifteen. The other songs were new. “Out of My Hands” was released in an edited version I hope one day to see on CD, and in early 1979, “Runaway” was released as a second single although neither achieved chart status. In terms of outtakes, the most interesting tracks I've heard are a radically different remix of “Betsy Sue” and “I Want To Make Love To You” with noticeably different mix and different bridge. Still, the album was well received, and today is considered the single most glaring omission for a CD reissue. In fact, some fans consider it song for song to be Twilley's best album.

Noah Shark and Max co-produced with Dwight, the first time he'd allowed anyone to produce him (and used the results); Noah'd gotten the job after doing some test remixes of three songs from Twilley Don't Mind , and because he was just so entertaining as a character, and so much fun to work with in the studio. He'd remain as Dwight's production partner in crime for the first few years of his solo career.

Amazingly, there was actually a promotional video made for “Out Of My Hands,” although since it predated MTV by three years, there was virtually no market for it to be shown. Dwight hated the video, and it's never been seen since, so it's very existence is unknown to most fans (me, I knew about it, but could never get a copy and it's the only Twilley video I've never even seen).

“Burnin' Sand” is a rather remarkable track recorded in 1978 and released as the incredibly hard-to-find b-side to “Runaway.” It's a wacky little bit of silliness with a huge rave up ending straight out of “A Day In The Life” via a Midwest sandstorm, and marks the first appearance of some Cowsills on a Twilley record. John Cowsill was to become, for a time, the best drummer Twilley had ever worked with after Phil Seymour (and a fine backing singer, to boot), and Susan Cowsill was to take over for nearly ten years as a harmony/backing singer both live and on record. While Dwight has always viewed the track as a throwaway, many fans consider it among his best songs. Apparently some four versions were cut more or less at the same time. The version that appears on The Great Lost Twilley Album is believed to be the uncut take that the single version was edited from, although I certainly hope we can have the single version on CD if Twilley is ever reissued. Note: the Blueprint version of “Then We Go Up” mentioned below was cut at the same time as “Burnin' Sand.”

On July 21, 1979, Dwight cut what would become a signature song for him, “Somebody To Love,” with a hot version of Barrett Strong's “Money” (written by Berry Gordy) on the flip side. Released in both 7" and the new 12" versions (with a sleeve cropped from the front cover of the unreleased Blueprint album), the song very nearly became a major hit, garnering substantial airplay all over the country. The version of “Money,” derived mostly from the Beatles' cover, found Twilley taking liberties with the original version by inverting the riff completely, and only playing it ‘right' in the instrumental. The song grew to be one of the most popular on stage numbers, and ironically, became an excuse for the audience to toss money up on stage, ones, fives, change. That era ended when they started bringing Monopoly money to the gigs. Twilley in the fade singing ‘MasterCharge' has always made the song for me.

Twilley and Pitcock undertook a little mini-tour, primarily to raise funds to pay the band, with Jerry Naifeh and Jim Lewis (aka ‘Captain Slime') in the group (both of whom would be the core band for the next album). The tour was notable in that the set lists were chock full of Sun rockabilly classics, Elvis and Jerry Lee songs, among them “Too Much,” “Hard Headed Woman,” “C.C. Rider,” “Great Balls Of Fire,” “Treat Her Right” (a Texas rockabilly track by Roy Head), and a very cool and original medley of two Ray Harris Sun tracks, “Greenback Dollar Watch And Chain” and “Where Did You Stay Last Night.” Twilley has explained that the primary reason for all the covers was that it took about four singers to cover all the harmonies on most of his songs, so it was much easier with this stripped down line-up to do the covers. It would be the first and last time since “I'm On Fire” for their set to include much non-Twilley material. And, of course, the shows also featured, you guessed it, more unreleased Twilley originals. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing but audience tapes surviving from these gigs.

The next era of Twilley's solo career was marked by a relatively large number of recordings, the overwhelming majority of which would never see the light of day. This period included one of two completely unreleased albums in Twilley's career. From 1979 until the very last months in 1981, Twilley worked on the follow-up album to Twilley for Arista. Entitled Blueprint , the album was originally finished by Sept. 24, 1979, and actually appeared on Arista's new release sheets in May 1980 with the number AB4251 assigned to it (alongside The Kinks' Low Budget and albums by The Sports, Eddie Kendricks, and David Sancious). As mentioned earlier, a differently cropped version of Blueprint 's front cover appeared on the 12" of “Somebody To Love,” and in full-length positive/negative photos on a British six song EP called Dwight On White (in white vinyl, natch). The rear cover was an ‘in studio' shot of the band (Twilley, Pitcock, Naifeh, and Jimmy Lewis), Dwight in front with some studio blueprints in his hands; a Cowsills record and a Sincerely cassette can be seen. Produced by Noah Shark and Max again, the final line-up of the album (as of 9/79) was: Side One: “Somebody To Love,” “I Love You So Much” (version one), “She's All My Light,” “Like You Did It Before,” and “Dancer.” Side Two is: “Money,” “Then We Go Up,” “Leave Me Alone With My Baby,” “I Found The Magic” (version one), and “Cryin' Over Me.” All tracks were recorded in late 1978 and early 1979. “Dancer” is a new recording of the B Album track, a great song about Elvis (“Deke Rivers/backed up by The Quarrymen.../man was a helluva dancer/oh lord, he gave us the answers/we all stood back and watched/as he knocked out the world...”). Deke Rivers, of course, was Elvis' character in his second (best?) film Lovin' You , and the Quarrymen evolved into the Beatles. “Like You Did It Before” was a new recording of an old Teac Tape song. “I Found the Magic” was a bit of a sequel to “Looking For the Magic,” and on this version, had an extra verse and phased guitar break, different to what was eventually released. “Leave Me Alone With My Baby” (“we're tired, we're cold and we're crazy...”) is one of Twilley's very finest songs, and was rerecorded in the ‘90s, and is included in the summer 2001 CD edition of The Luck . “Love You So Much” was recorded in at least two versions, the 2nd of which appeared on The Great Lost Twilley Album. Co-producer Jack Nitzche was going through a very bad period in his life (divorce, etc.) when the album was recorded, and to Twilley, it always felt like a rather dry and sterile recording. Arista wasn't entirely happy with it, either, so a mutual decision was made to put it on the shelf.

Meanwhile, Twilley had the first of over a half dozen songs used in film soundtracks when National Lampoon's Up The Academy film featured the Dwight Twilley Band's recording of “Trying To Find My Baby” in 1980.

Twilley continued to work on Blueprint throughout 1980, recording new songs, revisiting some old Dwight Twilley Band material, and cutting new versions of some of the tracks. At least twice, the album came close to being released again before being pulled, but neither version came as close as the 9/79 version. In 1980, Dwight gave some friends a cassette of a second version of Blueprint that would have been as follows: Side One: “Rock Yourself, Son” (a 1980 Twilley version of the B Album track), “Sky Blue” (the same basic track was started in 1978, and continued to be worked on an improved, until it was finally completed with a contrapuntal guitar part added on March 21, 1981; this version remains unreleased, but the finally completed ‘81 version was featured on both The Great Lost Twilley Album and on XXI ), “Shark (In The Dark)” (a Twilley solo version, which can be found in this version on the long-deleted Rock Yourself semi-unauthorized CD), “Baby's Got The Blues Again” (a brilliant reworking of the Teac Tape track with harmonies from Susan Cowsill), “Tiger Eyes” (arguably Twilley's best-ever rockabilly song, in an outstanding new version, of the B Album demo), “It's So Amazing” (a little fragment, which existed elsewhere as a complete song), Side Two: “Then We Go Up,” “She's All My Light,” “Cryin' Over Me,” “Somebody To Love,” and “Money.”

When it became apparent that Blueprint might not be released by Arista, and when Twilley was unable to work for legal reasons for nearly a year, he gave both “Then We Go Up” and “I Love You so Much” to Phil Seymour for his debut solo album in 1981, although they were completely new tracks with Phil doing all the vocals (Pitcock was on both Phil's covers and Dwight's originals). Dwight remembers that he and Susan Cowsill might have sung or played on Phil's version, but that is uncertain. When Phil's first single “Precious To Me” hit the charts in early 1981, the label decided to pull the b-side “Baby It's You” and replace it on an immediate second pressing with another track. Phil asked Dwight for a song, and Dwight suggested he do “Suzi Glider,” a very early Oister track. Dwight, Susan, and Bill all played on the record, and it came out, with Phil's name added as co-author by the label, although the song was written solely by Twilley. In England, curiously, it was credited to ‘Phil Seymour/Doug Twilley,' which Twilley found very humorous when he eventually learned of it; Doug Wiley had been an old nickname.

Recording continued until the very last months of 1981 on the second Arista Dwight Twilley album. Various legal entanglements (a year of torture and lawyers with no live performances possible is how Dwight remembers it) prevented anything from being officially released, and by late fall, Blueprint now included a fine new song called “10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancin',” recorded by Twilley, Pitcock, Roger Linn, Susan & John Cowsill on Oct. 4, 1981. A new album line-up is known from tapes Twilley made for friends at the time, but it never truly existed as an ‘album' except on cassette, featuring on Side One: “10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancin',” “Dion Baby” (a new song written for Dwight's daughter Dionne, born in 1980), “Firefly” (which came out ultimately on Great Lost ), “I Found The Magic” (unedited), “Then We Go Up,” “Cryin' Over Me,” and Side Two: “Sky Blue” (with the final overdubs, as released on Great Lost ), “Somebody To Love” (original version), “Love You So Much” (same as Great Lost version), “Like You Did It Before,” “Living in the City” (version two, only the 2nd time Twilley ever recut a song originally sung by Phil Seymour; version three came from the Jungle demo sessions two years later), and “Leave Me Alone With My Baby.” I would argue that this album just might have been the strongest of all the Twilley solo releases had it been issued. Certainly I think it's the best arrangement of all the songs from the ‘78-‘81 Blueprint / Scuba Divers sessions. By the end of 1981, Twilley was finally out of the Arista contract which had prevented him from releasing any new albums for nearly three years, and free to sign a new deal.

Signing to EMI Records, Twilley compiled an updated version of the late ‘81 Scuba Divers, adding four completely new songs, and having only ten tracks, not twelve, and in July 1982 released Scuba Divers on EMI. The final released line-up included Side One: “I'm Back Again,” “Somebody To Love,” “10,000 Scuba Divers Dancin',” “Touchin' The Wind,” “Later That Night,” Side B: “I Think It's That Girl,” “Dion Baby,” “Cryin' Over Me,” “I Found The Magic” (edited), and “Falling In Love Again.” It's nothing short of miraculous that the album came out sounding as coherent as it did, considering that it had been recorded over even longer a time than Sincerely , in a host of studios, with a half dozen bands and producers. It is, nevertheless, one of the best loved of all Dwight's albums. The title track, “I'm Back Again,” and “Touchin' The Wind” are certainly among Twilley's finest compositions; the latter track is the only one on which John Cowsill also sings. “Somebody To Love” was revisited, and in a rather remarkable job of reediting, actually had a verse and guitar parts added (not subtracted, as is usual with this kind of thing). Released again as a single by EMI, it again came very close to becoming a major hit.

Dwight Twilley became the star of one of the first ever live MTV concerts (at a time when MTV played music videos all day, and had hardly ever had either live music, specials, sitcoms, or whatever) in a terrific 70-minute live concert that featured Pitcock, John Cowsill, and Susan Cowsill, along with a couple of new band members. The show featured “Betsy Sue,” “Cryin' Over Me,” “I'm On Fire,” “Runaway,” “Scuba Divers,” “Could Be Love,” “Mr. Rabbit,” “Somebody To Love,” “TV,” “You Never Listen To My Music,” “I Think It's That Girl,” “Flippin' (On The Mention Of Love),” “Standing In The Shadow of Love,” “I'm Back Again,” “Hard Headed Woman,” “Money,” and “C.C. Rider.” The show was recorded live at Rockabilly's North in Houston, and aired on July 23, 1982. It is hoped that one day there can be either/both a live album and DVD release of this show. Incidentally, if you saw it at the time and wondered why there was only a small audience, the venue for the taping was changed because they found a pole directly in front of the stage at the scheduled venue. So at the last possible minute, it was changed to Rockabilly's North. There was no advertising aside from Twilley's name on the marquee, it was a Sunday show, and frankly, no fans knew it was being taped, so the audience was just kind of the regulars at the club and some folks who were ‘hired' to be the audience. Also of note is that The King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast seven songs from this show on the radio later that year.

Throughout the late spring and summer of 1982, Dwight Twilley toured with that same band, surely one of the three best with whom he's ever performed (the other two being the ‘77 Dwight Twilley Band and, I'm happy to report, his current live band). MTV used a clip from the live Rockabilly's concert as a video, and it was in heavy rotation for over six months, raising his public profile and ensuring packed, enthusiastic concerts. For the first time in seven years, the future looked bright indeed, and this time, the commercial success would last for several years.

In 1983, off the road for a few months, Dwight Twilley worked in a funky little broken down studio in La Crescenta where seemingly nothing worked on a particular day, prompting him to nickname it ‘Studio No.' Tracks demoed during this time included several versions of “Girls” (not the familiar one with Tom Petty guesting), “Black Eyes,” “Lullabye,” “Living In The City” (an even more raucous version than either of the earlier ones), “Let Me Down,” “Don't You Love Her,” and more. Half a dozen of these tracks appear on the 1999 Not Lame Records compilation Between The Cracks, Vol. I . “To Get To You” and “Forget About It Baby” were recorded in 1983 at Roger Linn's studio (both also on BTC, Vol. 1 ). New songs seemed to spring forth effortlessly, and the period was remarkably productive. In fact, it was the first time Twilley had ever really done an extensive amount of pre-production work on an album, since both Twilley and EMI hoped the next album would be the one that would put him over the top. The effort paid off in spades, too, at least initially. Sessions for the actual album ran off and on from mid-summer to November, 1983.

In early 1984, the album Jungle was released. It included: Side One: “A Little Bit Of Love,” “Girls,” “Why You Wanna Break My Heart,” “You Can Change It,” “Cry Baby,” Side Two: “Don't You Love Her,” “Long Lonely Nights,” “Jungle,” “To Get To You,” and “Max Dog.” With “Girls,” Noah Shark, who'd been co-producing most of Tom Petty's albums since the Shelter days, when Petty and Seymour were best friends, had the idea to ask Tom to do guest vocals on a song. Although a version of “Girls” without Petty had already been completed, Dwight felt that Tom's voice would work really well on that song. With an indelible Pitcock/Twilley riff, a subject everyone could identify with, and Petty's distinctive twang on the counterpart, “Girls” became one of the most heavily played song of 1984. The single's success was aided immeasurably by a promotional video, modeled loosely on the film Porky's with Twilley playing coach to a bunch of jocks, and scenes of showering cheerleaders; in fact, a rarely seen ‘R-rated' version was made for the Playboy channel and adult outlets with substantial nudity included, not Dwight's of course. Since many had noted Carla Olson's resemblance to Tom Petty, Twilley had her do a cameo in the video, miming Petty's vocal parts. MTV was at the peak of its power as a chart and hit-making force, and “Girls” became one of their most-played tracks, seemingly unavoidable over the summer and fall of 1984. Ultimately, the song would also appear in several movies over the next decade (like Worth Winning ‘89 and Ladybugs ‘92). Mention should also be made of an excellent outtake, a second track recording the day “Girls” was cut, also with Petty on backing vocals -- another version of “Forget About It Baby,” which also sounds like a hit. This version of the song is on the 2001 CD edition of The Luck (see below).

It should be noted that while Jungle is far and away Dwight's most commercially successful album, i.e., the one most fans bought, it's also unquestionably the one album that most nearly sounds like when it was recorded -- in the synthesizer crazy mid-‘80s. Most of Twilley's work sounds timeless, but only a few of Jungle 's tracks escaped those synths.

As the summer of 1984 wound on, Dwight Twilley toured incessantly, and appeared on national TV nearly every week throughout July and August, on programs like Solid Gold, Dance Fever, Merv Griffin, Rock Palace, and two different returns to American Bandstand (‘84 & ‘85). Twilley found that he'd moved from being a critics' favorite, to being asked to present awards on prestigious national live TV broadcasts, like the time he presented the Best Black Video Award to Lionel Ritchie at the American Music Awards. The King Biscuit Flower Hour aired a second six song Twilley solo set in 1984. He also appeared live at the Summer Olympic Games in L.A. in 1984.

“A Little Bit Of Love” was released as a follow-up single, complete with picture sleeve and another promotional video, but EMI failed to get any real airplay on the track. In addition, Twilley's main man at EMI, Gary Gersh, had left the label. A third single was released in 1985 with a promotional video featuring characters from the film in which it was featured, Body Rock . That song “Why You Wanna Break My Heart” was an obvious hit single, as was “Don't You Love Her,” but the public never knew it. Heavy touring continued into 1985, but few recording sessions were assayed due to the high number of in concert appearances, radio shows, record signing, and interviews on his schedule. He also did a duet with Kim Carnes (“Bette Davis Eyes”) on a version of “A Little Bit Of Love” that remains in the can to date; actually, Twilley had written “A Little Bit Of Love” specifically for Carnes to record, but Susan Cowsill's lead vocal on the demo he gave Carnes apparently was so good that she didn't try to better it.

Two songs were cut for film soundtracks, both where Twilley was contracted to just add lead vocals to tracks written and recorded for the films. The first was “Prove It To You” from Just One of the Guys (soundtrack on Elektra, 1985). The second was “Keep On Working” from the disco era Heavenly Bodies (1985). The second song marked both the peak and the beginning of the end. A hot record promotions man approached Twilley, and made very pointed remarks about the failure of EMI to achieve a follow-up hit to the massive success of “Girls,” a point of which he was only too well aware. The promo man further went on to point out his other successes, and promised that if Twilley signed with him, he would make him a massive star. He then took on promotion of “Keep On Working” and to prove that he could deliver, took the song immediately to the ‘#1 Most Added Song in AOR' position for that week. Then promptly stopped working it, after which the song plummeted from the charts (no loss, that, really). Convinced that the man could make his career take off, Twilley signed an exclusive deal with him and his label Private Records, and was bought out of his EMI contract.

Recording commenced on the follow-up to Jungle , and Twilley found himself saddled with outside producers he neither wanted nor needed. Pitcock was sometimes ‘replaced' by the standard L.A. session guys. Then one day Dwight Twilley woke up to discover that ‘his man' in the record biz had just made network news and front page headlines as part of the record business payola/mafia scam, later detailed in the best-selling book Hit Men . Of all artists signed to this label, Twilley's album was the farthest along on the road to release -- only two weeks from being released. Instead of being dropped, he found himself shunted off to a different label that neither wanted him nor planned to promote him. The resulting album, Wild Dogs , was released in 1986 on the CBS Associated label, if you can call it ‘released'; Dwight says it more nearly ‘escaped.' With no promotion, the album more or less appeared in the ‘T' section in record stores. Many fans never even knew it was out. The album contained: Side One: “Sexual,” “Wild Dogs,” “You Don't Care,” “Hold On,” “Shooting Stars,” Side Two: “Baby Girl,” “Ticket To My Dream,” “Secret Place,” “Radio,” “Spider And The Fly.” The debut single “Sexual” barely escaped at all (white label promos can occasionally be found, but the stock copy single with a picture sleeve is rarer than hen's teeth). Still, the album contained several fine songs, albeit marred by heavy-handed production and a somewhat unsympathetic bunch of session aces. Foremost in the list is the wonderful “You Don't Care,” which I feel would've been a big hit with radio promotion, “Baby Girl” which remains a staple of his live sets, and which was re-recorded in a far superior (no synths!) version for Tulsa in 1999, and most of all, “Shooting Stars,” which features the last recorded (released, anyway) duet vocals by Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour. In fact, Dwight wrote the song about his best friend after he learned Phil had contracted lymphoma, a disease that is usually terminal, and then asked him to sing on it, although he never told Phil the song was written about him. It remains a very emotional and heartfelt song.

While Dwight Twilley did a number of shows from 1986 into 1987 to promote the record, with no radio play and no promotional help to speak of from the label, the band was forced to move back into small clubs for the most part. While the band was still hot, and the set selection very tasty, few noticed. Worst of all, much to his horror, Twilley found himself effectively blackballed from the music business from the payola/mafia scandal. Never mind that by his own admission, he's probably far less business savvy or even involved in the business end of his music than most artists. Stories abound of management/label horrors throughout his career, like the time that he saw the beautiful gold-plated guitar that he'd owned around ‘76-‘77 (mentioned in “England” and pictured in Crawdaddy and other mags at the time) sitting on a pawn shop wall, stripped of the gold plating. For most fans, then, the period from 1987 until 1995 found Twilley seemingly missing in action. And for the first time since 1974, he was without a label, and after the payola/mafia scandal, no one seemed to want him. He did perform a high profile show in 1991 for the USO for Desert Storm warriors, aboard the USS Ranger .

The truth was that he was far from idle, and indeed, had more albums released on CD in the ‘90s than on vinyl in the ‘70s and ‘80s combined! DCC reissued Sincerely in 1989 and Twilley Don't Mind in 1990 with bonus tracks on each. A little rack jobbers' label issued a collection called Rock Yourself , which was not really authorized, but which did include the Blueprint recording of “Shark (In The Dark).” In 1992, Twilley was asked to give permission for one of his songs to be used in a movie based on a sketch from Saturday Night Live ; Twilley said “ I figured that meant it would be yet another awful movie that no one would go see ” (referring to the string of flop spinoffs from TV sketches originally made for that show), but it turned out to be the movie Wayne ' s World , and the ensuing soundtrack LP became an enormous best-seller (I think it would be accurate to say the soundtrack paid for Twilley's house upon his return to Tulsa in 1995).

In 1993, many of the best unreleased Dwight Twilley Band numbers along with five of the Blueprint tracks were made available on The Great Lost Twilley Album on DCC Compact Classics, providing longtime fans their first significant glimpse into the massive Twilley archives; all the tracks are noted above, and it's very nearly the B Album at last. The following tracks appear, in chronological order (not as they appear on the disc): all three tracks from their 11-27-74 first Shelter session “I'm On Fire” (the original 12" 45 mix), “Did You See What Happened,” & “Lovin' Me”; two from Feb. ‘75 “Please Say Please” & “I Can't Get No”; four from the Trident/Robin Cable sessions in England: “Rock Yourself, Son,” “No Resistance,” “I Don't Know My Name,” & “Dancer”; the unreleased single version of “Shark”; the Bob Schaper version of (incorrectly labeled as the 40-track/Leon Russell version) “Shakin'” (the preceding nine tracks all from the official B Album); eight tracks from the 4/76 ShelterVision sessions: “Chance To Get Away,” “Living In The City,” “Didn't You Say,” “Skywriter,” “Rock'n'Roll 47,” “Two Of Us,” “Twenty-nine Times,” and “You Never Listen To My Music”; and five tracks from various Twilley solo Blueprint line-ups: “I Love You So Much” (2nd version), “Then We Go Up,” “Burnin' Sand” (a longer version than the 45 b-side released on vinyl), “Somebody To Love” (original single version), “Sky Blue” (the ‘completed' version begun in 1978, finished in ‘81), and “Firefly.”

Both Dwight Twilley Band albums were reissued again in 1995 with new bonus tracks by The Right Stuff (a Capitol subsidiary which had inherited the Shelter material). In 1996, The Right Stuff (finding themselves now owners of most of Twilley's different labels) issued a career-spanning retrospective called XXI , which covered material from 1975-1996, along with two brand new songs from ‘94 and ‘95, which explains the title -- 21 songs over 21 years. The album contains: “I'm On Fire,” “Sincerely,” “TV,” “Shark,” “Looking For The Magic,” “That I Remember,” “Out Of My Hands,” “Darlin'”, “Somebody To Love,” “Sky Blue” (same as Great Lost version), “10,000 Scuba Divers Dancin',” “Touchin' The Wind,” “Dion Baby,” “Little Bit Of Love,” “Girls,” “Why You Wanna Break My Heart,” “Don't You Love Her,” “Wild Dogs,” “Shooting Stars,” “Grey Buildings” (taken from The Luck , and recorded at the same session that produced “Perfect World”), and “That Thing You Do” (a brand new song written just after the move back to Tulsa for the film of the same name, although it was submitted too late for consideration). That totals eight albums released during a time when Twilley was supposedly ‘missing'!

Dwight Twilley's daughter Dionne had been born to his first wife Linda in 1980, by which time Twilley had lived in L.A. for several years. The marriage ended shortly after, and Linda and Dionne moved to Arkansas. What this meant was that Dwight was largely a long distance father, and being a very creative type of individual (he's an artist who's had his work paintings displayed in galleries, and practices calligraphy), he had devised a rather unique and creative way of trying to communicate with his daughter, to become part of her life. For several years between the end of touring in 1987 into the early ‘90s, he spent most of his time working on a book about distance parenting techniques. He made use of the time by working on demos, and by writing a best-selling children ' s/parenting book Questions From Dad was published by Charles H. Tuttle Company in 1994, and soon became a best seller. For almost a year, Twilley was heavily tied up in promoting the book, and in doing some art exhibitions after interest sparked by the book's illustrations. The book also received an important award from the Children's Rights Council, which Twilley accepted proudly in Washington.

Picking some of the best of his recent material from the early ‘90s, Twilley recorded and shopped an album to be called The Luck that was completed in January 1994, although it was never released at the time; much of the album was produced by Richie Podolor, who produced many, many hits starting in the late ‘ 60s at his own American Recorders studio (including those by Twilley ' s ex-partner Phil Seymour). The album was to have contained: Side One: “Grey Buildings” (a song included on XXI ) , “Perfect World” (a song released in several limited places, but included on Between The Cracks, Vol. 1 ), “The Luck” (rerecorded for Tulsa in 1999), “Reach For the Sky” (released on BTC, Vol. 1 ), “You,” Side Two: “Holdin' On,”“Worry ‘Bout You,” “Oh Carrie” (released on BTC, Vol. 1 ), “I Wanna Have You” (this track would be featured in ‘96 in the film Lovers Knot ), and the epic “Gave It All Up For Rock'n'Roll” (which features an all-star chorus with Vicki & Debbi Peterson of the Bangles, Susan Cowsill, and Rocky and Billy Burnette). See below for details of a long-overdue release of The Luck in 2001.

Other miscellaneous tracks from the ‘90s include a pair of Christmas songs cut in 1992, “Christmas Night” (released in 2000 as b-side to a French Pop The Balloon single of “A Little Less Love”) and “Christmas Love,” issued on BTC, Vol. 1 . “Where The Birds Fly”(another track featured on Between the Cracks, Vol. 1) is a song that might be from 1989, but Dwight can't remember recording it. “Remedies” was contributed to Jordan Oakes' first CD sampler, Yellow Pills Vol. 1 (Big Deal Records, 1993), the sampler named after Twilley's Tulsa friends Steve Allen and Ron Flynt's song from 20/20's first album (which featured Seymour on drums). Dwight also appears on Dramarama's 1993 Hi Fi Sci Fi album singing backing vocals on several tracks (some of the Heartbreakers also appear), and on their 1996 best of collection. He also co-authored and recorded a song with Bill Lloyd called “Baby We're Back In Love.”

After relocating to Tulsa in 1995 in the wake of the big Northridge earthquake in California's San Fernando Valley, Dwight found that the return to his hometown after 20 years had caused a big return to form, and began recording again in earnest. Almost immediately after returning, he heard about the upcoming Tom Hanks film about a rock band (which became That Thing You Do ), and on learning they were looking for a title song, went into Rainbow Trout Studio in Tulsa in October and cut a song he wrote as a candidate for the title song. It was included as a bonus track on XXI , although it arrived too late for consideration for the film. Married again, now to Jan Allison, the Twilleys began constructing a home studio, which was completed in 1999 and christened ‘The Big Oak Studio'; their house is called ‘The Big Oak Ranch,' because, well, there's a massive oak tree on the property. One of the first songs done after the move was a hot version of “I Can't Take It,” the Badfinger song from No Dice, for a tribute to Badfinger called Come and Get It on Copper Records. Songs like “Miracle,” “Never Enough,” and “Runnin'” were cut as demos. “Never Enough” was coupled withe the Luck track “Perfect World” as a French single on Pop The Balloon (it had previously appeared on a CD sampler with an issue of the magazine I edit, Pop Culture Press , and on XXI ). In 1999, he and Ron Flynt of 20/20 cut duet live vocals on a song called “I See Blue” at Long Branch Studio in Tulsa for Ron Flynt's solo debut Ron Flynt and the Bluehearts: Big Blue Heart , released in March 2000 on Ya Ya Records; the track also features Bill Lloyd on lead guitar.

By 1995, Twilley returned to live performances, headlining some large shows in Tulsa, and playing a red-hot set at SXSW in Austin. With a new band, and the return to the fold (at least in the studio) in 1998 of the long absent Bill Pitcock IV (who ' d left after 1986 Jungle ), Twilley recorded and released Tulsa (Copper Records, reissued by Castle's When! label in England), his first album of new material in13 years in the summer of 1999. The album is remarkable in that not only is it one of the finest Twilley's recorded in his career, but it also is the first self-produced album he's made since 1977, and features most of the same musicians (excepting only the late Phil Seymour) who were part of the touring versions of The Dwight Twilley Band. Side One has: “Runnin',” “A Little Less Love,” “It's Hard To Be A Rebel (No World)” (which had appeared in an earlier demo version on the British Bucketfull of Brains ' first ever CD compilation), “The Luck” (a new, improved 1999 recording), “Baby's Got The Blues Again” (a 1999 recording of a Teac Tape song from ‘73-74, featuring many of the same musicians who were in the DTB), “Way of the World,” “Tulsa,” “Miranda” (a song written for Susan Cowsill and Peter Holsapple's daughter Miranda -- Dwight said that Dionne had her song, so Miranda should too), “Miracle,” “Beauty Dirt,” “Goodbye,” and a new improved version of 1986's “Baby Girl.” And so we've come full circle, Tulsa to Hollywood, and back again, with a new album that against all odds, equals any he's made.

Also in 1999, Bruce Brodeen of Not Lame Records convinced Twilley to take another dip into his own personal archives, and Between The Cracks, Vol. 1 was issued. The album was reissued in 2000 by Castle/When! Records in England. It contains three Dwight Twilley Band era songs (not featuring Seymour): “Round And Around,” “Eli Bolack,” and “Too Young For Love”; the following ‘83 Studio No tracks: “Black Eyes,” “Let Me Down,” “Lullaby,” “Don't You Love Her,” and “Living In The City” and two more Jungle demos from Roger Linn's house in ‘83: “To Get To You” and “Forget About It Baby”; some miscellaneous early ‘90s tracks: “Reach For The Sky,” “Oh Carrie,” “Christmas Love,” “Where The Birds Fly,” and “No Place Like Home,” several of them destined for the unreleased LP The Luck ; and “Perfect World” which was recorded especially for The Luck.

As of mid-2001, there's a brand-new version of The Luck about to be released. Twilley and Allison have formed their own label, the Big Oak Recording Group (B.O.R.G.) to release his future projects. Instead of releasing the original 1994 album, Twilley chose to look over the last ten years of his L.A. era and cherry pick the best tracks. Mostly recorded at American Recordings and produced by Richie Podolor (who produced Phil Seymour's solo work), the album is a remarkbly coherent artistic statement that includes several of Twilley's career-best recordings. The disc features: “You Never Listen To My Music,” (a previously unheard solo version), “Holding On,” “I Wanna Have You” (both from the original LP), “Forget About It Baby” (the fantastic version with Petty), “You” (the first version), “No Place Like Home,” “Oh Carrie,” “I Worry About You,” “The Luck” (original version), “All Of The Time,” “Reach For The Sky,” “I Wanna Live,” “Suzyanne,” “Remedies” (as found on the Yellow Pills compilation), “Leave Me Alone With My Baby” (the ‘new' version, circa ‘95), and the epochal anthem “Gave It All Up For Rock'n'Roll.”

As we go into the future in the new millennium, the future looks bright indeed for Mr. Dwight Twilley. A live Dwight Twilley Band album is planned and ready to be mastered as soon as a legal hurdle is cleared, and there's been talk about releasing live Twilley solo shows, and some archival Oister demos after that. Not to mention the future possibility of reissuing Twilley, Scuba Divers, Blueprint, Jungle, and Wild Dogs , all with copious bonus tracks. And unlike, say, the latter-day career of Elvis Presley, Dwight Twilley continues to make vital and beautiful music no matter what obstacles are placed in his path. The Kid can rock, make no mistake about it.

Kent Benjamin is a Memphis native whose family now lives in Tupelo, Mississippi. He has been a diehard Dwight Twilley fan literally since the day he heard “I'm On Fire” on the radio in June, 1975, and immediately drove to a store to attempt (unsuccessfully) to buy it. For over 20 years, he's lived in Austin, Texas, where he works as a music writer, co-founder of the Austin Music Network, regular contributor to Goldmine, Bucketfull of Brains, and the Austin Chronicle, as well as editor of Pop Culture Press. He first interviewed Dwight Twilley in 1982, is six months younger than Bill Pitcock IV, never got to see the Dwight Twilley Band live, and badly wants a copy of the 1975 American Bandstand appearance. And clearly has too much time on his hands this week....