You’ve heard about the Bunk House Boys — I’ve talked about them enough.
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And you are familiar with my brother Craig — even if you never knew him — because I keep running pictures and telling stories about him.
Craig loved his guns. If you asked how many he had, he would say, “Not enough.”
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If you said no to either of those things above, you have probably quit reading by now or else you are open to hearing just who-what-why-how the Bunk House Boys really were.
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First of all, there were three brothers (in order of age) Craig, Wade, and Bart. We all started playing music while we were teen-agers and formed the Bunk House Boys in 1975. Craig was 22, I was 19 and Bart was 16 at that time.
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We lived in a small town smack-dab in the center of Kansas called Hoisington. It was a small town and not much happening there. But it did happen to have one of the best drummers around — Ron Bailey. The way you can tell him apart from one of the Ward Brothers is that he has red hair.
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The core group underwent some changes over the five years we were together. Bart was always interested in new music (at this time that was called New Wave) and hard rock and was really into the blues. Even at his young age he had taught himself some mighty hot licks.
Bart Ward Rockin’ The Guitar
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He left the group for a while and we experimented with other guitarists. Some were more successful than others. The big picture on the Bunk House Boys page on my web site shows the incarnation of Craig, Ron and me with a steel guitarist named Gary Mater and a lead guitarist (he had two necks on his guitar!) Barry Green.
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Barry was a whiz, no doubt about it. He was fast and he was tasty and we really liked him. Unfortunately he left us for another band. When I talked to him later he said that he wasn’t happy with Gary’s playing and knew that we were friends so he didn’t want to make us choose between him and Gary.
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We also had a guitarist named Ron M. who we took on mainly because we had some gigs booked and needed a guitar player. We were in the union and had contracts requiring us to show up with four musicians, so Ron M. was our warm body. But none of us were happy with his playing.
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We fired him when we had a break between gigs and the next player was a young cat named Phil. Unfortunately, Phil had a strong taste for the wacky tobacky and it affected his playing. Of course, he thought his playing was stupendous when he was high.
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Bart came back and played with us. You can see pictures over the course of our time together and Bart was going through his growth spurt by the time he graduated from high school. He became the tallest of the brothers even though he was the youngest.
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Toward our last year together, Bart and Ron Bailey started playing with a couple of other guys in a rock band at the same time — the Bunk House Boys weren’t booked steady so there was time to split between them.
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It was all nice and friendly. Bart and Ron were playing with two friends from our old home town, Norton — fellows who went to school with Craig.
A 3-Hour Cruise in the back yard. How could they get lost?
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John HIx was not only an amazing guitar player, he could play just about anything with strings. He was so versatile that he could play everything from Jimi Hendrix to bluegrass. He would sit in with the Bunk House Boys to play fiddle or banjo as well as guitar.
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Mike Miller not only played bass but he was an ace sound man. He had top quality equipment and came along to our gigs to do the sound. In fact, when Craig and I were starting out, we bought our first professional guitar amp from him. It was a classic Vox Beatle (if you want to see what I’m talking about, watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan YouTube clip and look at their equipment).
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Mike eventually moved to Kansas City and opened a recording studio which is still going strong today. He eventually convinced Bart to move to Kansas City and they played and recorded together frequently. Bart is still playing in KC — with his son Ben, as well as some other people.
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Rounding out our close circle of friends is the guy who was like “The Fifth Beatle.” Dave Collier was always there for us. He would carry our heavy loudspeakers, drive our bus, do whatever was needed — and always had some jokes. Usually bad jokes — but we liked his attitude.
Dave Collier — always there to help.
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Dave was a truck driver, so he and Craig had a lot in common. One other thing about Dave — he wrote a verse and presented it to me. It was for a truck driving song. I fleshed it out and added some music and — Voila! — Dave became a hit songwriter. Well, at least a songwriter.
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Dave and his wife Gloria were not only close friends who went out to party with us, they actually hosted our parties on two Fourth of Julys — uh, Fourths of July? Whatever — they risked their lives and their property to let a bunch of wild people and wild musicians come out and get wild. Incriminating photos exist!
Ron and Gail Bailey with Craig relaxing in the country.
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And Gail Bailey took the daring step of marrying Ron Bailey and coming to many Bunk House Boys performances. Fortunately, there were no ill effects on her or the subsequent Bailey children. In fact Ron and Gail are grandparents now.
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Now you have a pretty good picture of the Bunk House Boys and their associates. At least a mental picture.
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Stay tuned tomorrow and see some real pictures — more vintage photos of the notorious Bunk House Boys 4th of July Picnics.