It is not known for certain just exactly how all the members of the late 50’s band known as Larry Dowd & the Rock-a-Tones came together.
During late 1958 through 1959, the band consisted of 19-year-old singer/songwriter Larry Dowd, 24-year-old guitarist Ivan Rousseau, 22-year-old drummer Ron Fiscel, 21-year-old bassist Don Archer and 17-year-old pianist Michael (Mickey) Montgomery, a high school sophomore.
Dowd had written a number of songs and was mostly responsible for gathering the musicians he felt he needed to produce the sounds he could hear in his head around those songs. The band rehearsed them as often as they could until they felt they had them down enough to try and get a recording contract somewhere to be released nationally.
The solution came in early spring of 1959 when Des Moines local AM Top 40 station KIOA began promoting a “Battle of the Bands” contest for local bands with the top prize being a recording contract with the well known Chicago label “Spinning Records.” The contest was the brainchild of popular deejay Frosty Mitchell who was the station manager.
The contest took place at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines and the Rock-a-Tones won the top prize. A recording session was arranged immediately at the home/studio of Vic Blacketer and four of Dowd’s songs were recorded including “Pink Cadillac” and “Blue Swinging Mama.” Those two were to be the A/B sides of their first release, in early April 1959.
During the last week in May, the annual National Disc Jockey Convention was held in Miami, FL. Because there had been much in the way of national promotion of both the songs, “Pink Cadillac” was rated #1 and the flip side #2 on all the charts in Miami. It was always felt that because of that fact the record sold a little more than 800,000 copies nationally.
As the result of that success, a New York concert promoter known as GAC (General Artists Corporation) booked the band for a six-month road tour as opening act and backup band for the very popular Frankie Ford (Sea Cruise), Santo and Johnny (Sleepwalk), Troy Shondell (This Time) and Preston Epps (Bongo Rock).
The successful tour led to a long-term booking agreement with Chicago agent Herb Gronauer. He worked for the band for the remainder of 1959 and early 1960. Mickey Montgomery left the band after the GAC summer tour to be replaced by Don Godown. In 1960 the band disbanded as each musician decided to head in a different musical direction.
At presstime for this book, Dowd and Montgomery have not been located. Drummer Fiscel passed away in January 2004. Rousseau lives in Des Moines and occasionally plays with local country groups. Archer went on to become a well-known jazz guitarist. He was inducted into the Central Iowa Jazz Hall of Fame in 2004. He has been a member of the Iowa Country Music Hall of Fame for a long time. He retired from professional performing back in 1974 and became a private music teacher. He now resides in Tucson, AZ.
Update 7/5/2005 - Larry Dowd has been located!
Jan 26, 2006 We received word that Larry Dowd passed away today, our prayers and sympathy go out to his Family and Friends.
