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The Churchkeys
Jesse Winchester spent his last 30 plus
years as a solo performing act, so sometimes
his bands from his early formative
years of performing are forgotten. In a
1971 interview, Jesse estimated he had been
in 9 to 10 bands during his high school and
college days. One of Jesse's high school
buddies,
Mason Schumacher recalls Jesse's first high
school band,
"We
had a band the fall of '61 to spring of '62.
The name of our band was 'The Churchkeys,'
in honor of an appliance used a great deal
by various members of the group. There was
Jesse on guitar/vocals, Teddy Paige on lead
guitar, Rand May and me on background
vocals, David Lowery on rhythm guitar, Joe
Wolf on bass, and John Rodman on drums
(replaced later by Eddie Robinson)....
Played a lot of CYOs.... Jesse
was so talented that he could show each
member what to do!" The
band's name was later changed to The
Jesters.
The Night Sounds
After high school, Jesse enrolled in Williams College
in Massachusetts where he also played in
college bar bands.
In a 1970 Rolling Stone interview Jesse
remembered playing the college circuit in
Massachusetts, "... we were
playing for fraternity dances … Taj Mahal
used to work that same circuit.”
During his junior year
of college, Winchester went to
Germany for the purpose of studying
German and Philosophy. In reality he spent
most of his time as a lead guitarist and
lead singer in a German band called
The Night Sounds
that toured in Germany and Holland. In a
2007 interview Jesse remembered his days in
Europe.
"I went to Germany for a year, to the
University of Munich, and I didn't study
there either. I had a wonderful time. I got
a job playing guitar with this band of
German fellows, and we went all over the
country that way. To tell you the truth, I
think I learned more German doing that than
I would have in the school, because I saw
all the other American students there, and
they were all hanging out together, talking
English to each other all the time, whereas
I was out there speaking working-class
German. I didn't learn what I was supposed
to be learning, but it was OK. We played the
Top Hat club in Hamburg, Germany, where the
Beatles played. They were long gone, but it
was still happening. I really felt like a
Bohemian."
les Astronauts
Jesse's
first band in Canada was a French
Canadian group called
les Astronauts.
He often mentioned this first group in
articles about his early days in Canada.
"I was very well accepted by the French
Community. The band did mainly French
numbers, you know that intense Aznavour stuff.
I was the exotic part of the show. I'd come
up and sing 'Papa's Got A Brand New Bag.'
The band played some real peculiar gigs …
boy, did I see the wilds! I suppose it was
good in a way, but I got awfully depressed."
Jesse put up with the loneliness of being
the only English speaking member of the
band, but he eventually reached his limit
when the manager of the group insisted that
the group wear astronaut costumes.
Despite the steady $100 a week pay, unheard
of in those days, Jesse was not wearing
a costume.
John Cold Water Group
After his stint in les Astronauts,
Jesse formed an R&B group called the
John Cold Water Group
with musicians he had met while on the road
with les Astronauts. The group primarily
played at clubs in Quebec. According to
Jesse, "We played a little too jazzy and
little too loud for the commercial jobs that
we got, though, and finally had to break up
because we couldn’t make any money at it. We
played rhythm ’n’ blues, you know, Sam & Dave,
Otis Redding, and Ray Charles. I was singing
and playing guitar, and we had some really
good musicians in that band..."
Jesse Winchester Band
After John Cold Water Group and a
subsequent short-lived psychedelic band split up,
Jesse tired of the constraints of life in
a band. He worked as a single for quite
a while, and, during this time, he began
writing songs because the clubs he was
playing in expected that. Of course singing
his own original songs eventually led to
his recording of his critically acclaimed
first album, "Jesse Winchester."
Supporting a debut album made the use of backing
musicians a necessity.
A 1969 Montreal Gazette article
listed one of the first
Jesse Winchester Band
incarnations, which included Jean
Charbonneau on bass, Ken Pearson on piano,
and Guy Black on drums. Pearson and Black
also played on the first album.
Jesse Winchester & The Wallbangers
After the release of his second album
Third Down, 110 To Go, Jesse's
then-current band adopted the name
The Wallbangers. The
name was derived from playing at fellow
Tennessean Barry Bozeman's
Châtelet
Hotel in Morin Heights, Quebec.
Bozeman and a
group of Americans
ran the Hotel. Bozeman stated, "...
we offered country
music and Harvey Wallbangers to our new
Canadian friends."
The
Wallbangers band was comprised of Steve Deady on lead guitar, Stuart Wright on
rhythm guitar, David 'Butch' McDade on drums
and Jeff 'Stick' Davis on bass. Steve Deady
recalled,
"We
played gigs around Montreal and made one
epic Winnebago trip all the way to Vancouver
and back, playing at colleges along the way.
This was the tour where we subbed for a
then-unknown Bruce Springsteen, who had
canceled as opening act for Paul Butterfield
in Vancouver.
Stuart and I amicably left the band during
the recording of "Learn To Love It," as
Jesse couldn’t afford to keep a five-piece
after the label support money was
exhausted."
Jesse Winchester & The Rhythm Aces
After The Wallbangers, Steve Deady
joined ex-Wallbanger Wright in the newly formed the
Stuart Wright Band, and they even opened
for Jesse at several Canadian gigs. McDade and Davis
continued as Jesse's rhythm section,
and they adopted the name
The Rhythm Aces.
They also worked with Jesse on the recording of
"Learn To Love It" during which Butch
McDade introduced Jesse to another native of
Tennessee, songwriter
Russell Smith who had previously been in a band with
McDade & Davis
before they moved to Canada. Jesse was
impressed with two of Smith's songs and
recorded them for the album. In a very
unusual move, Jesse let drummer McDade take
the lead vocal on Smith's "Third Rate
Romance." Jesse took the lead on
Smith's other contribution to the album,
"The End Is Not In Sight."
Shortly after the album was recorded, Smith, McDade and Davis
headed back to Tennessee and
formed
The Amazing Rhythm Aces along with
Barry ‘Byrd’ Burton, and two others. The
Amazing Rhythm Aces had
a rather large hit with their own version of Smith’s
“Third Rate Romance,” this time with Smith on lead
vocals. Their first album also
featured Smith's "The End Is Not In Sight," and a
song written by ex-Wallbanger Stuart Wright.
Jesse Winchester & Midnight Bus
Jesse’s longest lived band was
Midnight Bus,
which was named after his song of the same
name on the “Third Down and 110 To
Go" album. The Midnight Bus
band primarily
consisted of Bob Cohen on guitar, Marty
Harris on bass, Ron Dann on pedal steel, and
drummer Dave Lewis, who had replaced original
Midnight
Bus
drummer Chris Castle. Bob Cohen recalled
there were times when he was busy with other musical
projects and famed guitarists Albert Lee,
or Mike 'Pepe' Francis, or
John Till would replace him at some gigs.
Also, Jody Maphis, son of Joe Maphis, would
occasionally sub on drums. In this ad from
1977 we see the
Stuart Wright Group
opening for Jesse Winchester & Midnight
Bus when Jesse made his way
back to Tennessee in 1977.
Midnight Bus played with Jesse from
1975 through 1977 and played on
his albums "Let The Rough Side Drag,"
"Nothing But A Breeze," and "Live At The
Bijou Cafe." They also backed him on
his first tour of the States in 1977 which has
since spawned a lot of bootleg recordings.
In a 1976 interview Jesse
gave this band high praise, "This is by far the
best band I’ve had, and they all have their
own musical lives, so I imagine that it’ll
be the longest lasting. I have no intention
of changing. They all write music themselves
and they play with other people, so they’re
not gonna get bored.”
Jesse Winchester Band
Midnight Bus guitarist, Bob Cohen was
also a member of Jesse's last known
band, the
Jesse Winchester Band, pictured above in 1978. Other members
of the band were
Paul Booth on bass, Greg Geddes on sax and
keyboards, and drummer N.D. Smart II, who
had earlier appeared on "Third Down, 110 To
Go."
Jesse took this band into studios in
Montreal and L.A. to record a new album. However,
after completion of the recording, he was dissatisfied
with the effort and scrapped the project.
Bob Cohen noted that several of the songs
were later recorded for Jesse's the 1981 Talk Memphis album.
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