June 2, 1973: A band called Peppermill

 

An in-house relationship here. Guitarist Darrell Miller was working in the composing room at The News. Until we moved from the newspaper’s old building at Main and Seneca streets in the spring of 1973, I ran into a lot of the guys from the composing room. I was a regular customer at their coffee urn. 

May 26, 1973 

Peppermill Satisfies Variety of Tastes 

IT’S A MIRACLE. Guitarist Darrell Miller calls at noon to say the fair-weather plan is still on and the first Peppermill group picnic will be held, yes, outdoors.

          A month of rain, however, is enough to inspire caution in even the most intrepid hearts and so Neal Davis, bass guitarist, vocalist and first of the band to muster into Akron Falls Park, has taken care to claim a table under a thick maple tree – the kind that takes a flash flood to moisten the ground beneath it.

          The picnic has a family feel. Wives and kids, keyboard man Harry Willard brings a girlfriend. There’s charcoal, roasted marshmallows, hot dogs and hamburgers brimming with trimmings.

          Summer salads in big casserole dishes, plenty of cold beer and wine, lots of kidding around and the regular snatching of toddlers from the brink of misfortune.

* * *

IN A WAY, the outing also is an expression of group solidarity and success. Sure, there’s still a conflict or two between Harry and drummer Larry Pack, both high-spirited, and the more temperate Neal, who’s been in music long enough to feel that unrestrained good times can lead to disaster.

          But the band now, Neal and Darrell agree, is at least as tight as the group they took touring a couple years back, the aggregation which lost three members who thought that life on the road was too tough.

          A check into their home base, The Switchyard on Packard Road near Niagara Falls International Airport, confirms that opinion.

          Peppermill turns out to be a rather unpretentious commercial band that’s more interested in getting people up to dance than in assaulting them with a high-powered show – more concerned with satisfying a variety of tastes at present than with sticking to a single unrelenting style.

          Their medley of old rock ‘n roll songs is a case in point. The vocals move around, the revivals are revised in tempo and the floor is so full of jitterbugging couples that it hardly matters that the band isn’t putting on a show too.

          The most obvious strength is big Larry Pack, whose strong drumming and singing add a spark to the group that you’d expect at first from singer Ruth Hengst.

          Red-haired Ruth, her experience of 11 years singing at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Niagara Falls, carries her parts well enough, but she’s still learning to project her voice and personality from a nightclub stage.

          Harry and Darrell keep the harmonies and backgrounds right. Harry has the distinction of playing just about the only Hammond X-77 organ to be found among local groups.

          “I got it used from an old organist who used to play at John’s Flaming Hearth,” Harry says. “It’s like a car that was only driven on Sundays.”

          Darrell, the group’s on-stage spokesman, business manager, booking agent and arranger, has the weakest voice and gets the smallest singing role.

          “He does one song,” Neal says. “A sentimental thing called ‘Midnight Hour.’

* * *

“BACK WHEN he had a group, I went up to him after I heard him sing ‘Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,’” Neal adds, “and I asked him if he needed a singer. Oh no, he says, we don’t need a singer, but we need a bass player. So I learned the bass.”

          The ballads go to Neal, whose Southern-styled voice adds to their allure. “I like Neil Diamond and Mac Davis,” he says. “They write things that appeal to country fans as well as rock.”

          With the support of Switchyard owner Joe Buccelli, they’ve built a following which has come to visit them at other stops like the Treadway Inn and the Picadilly in the Falls and Gord’s in St. Catharines, Ont. They’ll be back at the Switchyard Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays beginning June 13.

          “We have to credit Joe with the start of our popularity,” Harry says. “The place was new when we went in there last fall and the group was relatively new and we both sorta grew hand in hand.”

* * *

AS A RULE, the band tends to avoid picking material they consider “corny,” though Neal still ribs them about not doing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree.”

          “I brought that one in five months ago before anybody’d ever heard of it,” Neal says, “and I said let’s get on this one, it’s going to be a smash. But everybody says no, it’s too corny. We missed the boat on that one. Do it now? No, it’s too late.”

          After their previous touring hassles, Darrell and Neal aren’t anxious to hit the road again. They feel they’d get farther if they could find a backer who would help pay for recording one of the hundreds of songs Neal’s written.

          “To be truthful,” Neal says, “if we got just one hit out, we’d have 15 to follow it.”

          Neal’s mentioning how he’s related to Louisiana Gov. Jimmy Davis and singer Hank Williams and old Confederacy president Jefferson Davis (“my father’s great-great-uncle”) when the skies pucker and spit big raindrops, the kind that splatter big as half dollars.

          The kids are corralled, the salads are stowed away and the tree suddenly doesn’t seem like such a surefire shelter. Weather miracles, it seems, are only temporary. 

The box/sidebar: 

Partners Again – Direct Group 

          Darrell Miller and Neal Davis renewed an old musical partnership when they formed The Sound Edition, predecessor to Peppermill, about three years ago.

          In the early ‘60s, Neal had been one of the vocalists with the Vel-Tones, a vocal quartet (later a trio) from Niagara Falls which climbed to the bring of having a hit with a song called “One And All.”

* * *

“IT WAS a national record that bombed,” Neal says. “They played it on American Bandstand for a week and the kids gave it a B ‘cause they liked the beat.

          “We had another one called ‘Playboy.’ If anybody’s got one of those, it oughta be a collector’s item now.”

          Darrell played guitar in The Vel-Tones’ backup band in the Falls, but didn’t follow them on the road. He went to working nights as a printer’s apprentice and the group sank in the title wave of Beatlemania. And Neal got drafted.

* * *

PEPPERMILL, after a few early personnel changes, has stabilized like this:

          Ruth Hengst, 21, vocals, Niagara Falls High School, single.

          Neal Davis, 33, vocals, bass guitar, piano and organ, born in Blackrock, Ala., chief clerk for Penn Central in Lockport, married, four children.

          Darrell Miller, 31, guitar and occasional vocals, born in Oceana, W. Va., printer, married, one son.

          Harry Willard, 26, piano, organ and vocals, born in Rockford, Ill., graduate of Drake University, grade school music teacher in Niagara Falls, single.

          Larry Pack, 21, drums and vocals, Lockport High School, single.

          Ruth and Harry joined the group – the first for both of them – about 18 months ago, not long after Neal came up with the group’s current name. Both have performed in local churches.

          The addition of Larry last summer ended a three-month search for a drummer who could also sing harmonies. He’d played and toured with White Heart, Bags and Lockport area bands.

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: From left, front, Neal Davis, Ruth Hengst and Darrell Miller; rear, Harry Willard and Larry Pack.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Neal Davis actually was Leonard O’Neal Davis. He worked 20 years for the railroad and retired. He went on to perform in a group called Against the Wind (a Bob Seger tribute band?) and died in 2009 in Grand Prairie, Texas.

One of Neal’s children is named Troy Hengst, but I can’t track down Ruth.

Darrell Miller actually was Estil Darrell Miller. He worked for The News right up until six weeks before he died in 2002. His obit notes that he later played with New York Life and Sunny Daze.

Larry Pack’s death notice in The Buffalo News in 2013 noted that he had been a professional musician for more than 45 years and played with Dawgs in the City and the Stonebridge Band.

Meanwhile, Harry Willard went on to teach elementary school music for 30 years in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas and died in 2007. According to his death notice, he was noted for his choirs, was a church organist and was musical director for the Las Vegas Little Theater.