We did a blog a short time ago that was a fun blog about long haired music. A young man who turned out to be Punky Caldwell, quite well know in his day, got noticed and commented on a lot. His daughter found the blog and sent us additional pictures.
It seems Punky died young but was quite a musician in his day. Here is a picture of Punky and his band.
Band members were C L Coyle, Coot Brown and Bishop Horten. They were together in the late 50's and played at "The Silver Moon" outside of Searcy. The Silver Moon is famous for having been a started place for Elvis Presley and other singers who became great.
C. L. Coyle became involved in real estate and I remember him as the husband of an early and great realtor Dell Coyle. Dell was one of the pioneer women in real estate in Searcy Arkansas because at one time it was considered a "men's only" vocation.
Here's Punky, according to his daughter, with his dad and stepmother.
And this piture shows him with his family. Comments about Punky are one from my husband who remembered Punky and the band members. He says Punky lived in a big white house on a corner in West Searcy. It had a wrap porch and he'd go by and see and HEAR Punky playing the saxaphone on that porch with tremendous power and sound.
Another comment comes from Bobby Fuller. " I had the privilege of playing with him when I was at Hendrix. He and Al English came over from Searcy for some dance gigs we played. It was just a combo. I always played (piano) from what we called a "fake book." A fake book was printed with just the melody and the chord names, leaving me free to sort of "doctor" it up whatever way I wanted to. Well, one time we did a tune that Punky didn't know. So he stood and looked over my shoulder at the fake book. He put so much air through his clarinet that it actually turned the page of the fake book. All of us got a good laugh out of that."
You might enjoy going back to the earlier blog and finding out more information about Punky and old Searcy Arkansas. Thanks to his daughter for providing more pictures!
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