| Born Dale Warren Fansler April 20, 1956 in Port Huron Michigan. Grew up in Lapeer, MI. Early Influences 1950's My grandmother was a song writer and when we would visit her she would play the piano and sing these songs she had written. So I was exposed to music and performing at a very early age. 1960's My folks had one of those entertainment centers with the TV, radio and record player in it. We used to watch shows like Porter Wagoner and the Grand Ol Opry and American Bandstand and Soul Train. Before I was old enough to buy music I remember listening to my folks play thier big band records, Boots Randolf, Perry Como, Mitch Miller and Earl Grant who played the Hammond organ. My older brother had records like the Ventures, Brenda Lee, Petula Clarke, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and Rita Pavone.Not long after that I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and everything changed for me. That's when I started drooling over the electric guitars and amps in the back of the Sears and Roebuck catalogs. We had a cottage about an hour north of our house and we would spend the entire summer there. The guy next door lived there all year round and had a Hammond B3 organ. We used to go over and listen to him play all the great organ classics. I'll never forget that huge organ sitting there in his living room overlooking the lake with the foot pedals and leslie whirling away and the incredible sound it made. On the other side of the lake were some older teenagers who had a band and you could hear the music echo across the lake and I thought that was so cool. The first record I bought was a 45 RPM "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" by Neil Sedaka, the second was "Kentucky Woman" by Deep Purple. After that the Beatles records started coming out and I slowly graduated to albums My first "group" was the Sound Express. I played electric guitar and sang and Jim Daniels played drums. I remember doing "Time" by the Chambers Brothers and some jam that he and I had made up. We used to set up and play at lunch hour in our 6th grade english class. It was 1968, we were 12. The next year in Jr. High I got together with some guys from my contemporary music class for the talent show and won. We started learning songs and by the next year our parents were driving us to play at parties and wedding receptions and getting paid! The name of the band was "Orange Contrast" or "OC" for short. 1970's In 1971 I was a freshman in high school and I started meeting a lot of new people. I started hanging with some musicians from Flint, MI. Flint was a fairly large city compared to Lapeer with lot's of places to play and things going on. The name of the band was "Speedwell" which later changed members and was called "MAJI". We started playing out of town gigs and at all my high school dances complete with Glamrock clothes, a light show and "Roadies". While in Maji, I met Marshall Dodge, who was our lead guitar player. Marshall and I became close friends and went on to form many other new projects in the Flint area. I think one of the first was called "Shotgunn". We rented a practice room above a music store in downtown Flint. There were several "rooms" there and most of the best bands in town had one, so we would meet all these guys from other bands. You could walk around the halls and hear all these different bands rehearsing, funk, hard rock, blues, R&B, acoustic, just about anything! Shotgunn turned into "Alexas" and played local clubs for quite a while especially the infamous "T-Bird Lounge". TO BE CONTINUED.... as I remember events and the order in which they happened. |
