Nickel Bag Bassist Bill Brackin spent a good part of the '60s in two popular rock groups, The Million Dollar Babies and The Nickel Bag.  Neither band recorded, and although The Million Dollar War Babies were primarily a University Of Illinois group, The Nickel Bag toured the Midwest and performed with several national bands.  After internal strife caused The Nickle Bag to fold, Brackin joined a popular Latin band, but never played professionally again after graduating college in 1970. The Nickel Bag, 1969: Bill Bracking in upper right An Interview With Bill Brackin 60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music? Bill Brackin (BB): I lived in Metairie and Kenner, Louisiana between the ages of five and 10, and I loved the New Orleans R&B of the era.  It was everywhere I went while I lived there, and it became the background noise of my life.  I still love that music.  Fats Domino, Aaron Neville, and the myriad of fantastic artists from New Orleans are never far from my conscious.  I also loved the humorous music of the mid- to late-'50s, like 'Purple People Eater' and 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.' When I was 10, we moved to Puerto Rico for three years, and I added a love of Latin music. In 1960, we moved to Baytown and Houston, Texas.  I became totally hooked on Roy Orbison, Bruce Chanel and a number of local R&B bands, like BJ Thomas & The Triumphs, Roy Head and The Traits, and Sonny & The Sunliners.  I also discovered the blues, which became a lifelong passion of mine.  I first connected with Jimmy Reed, Bobby Blue Bland, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, and Albert Collins, but I soon discovered Lightening Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and more.  My family always watched Ed Sullivan and other variety shows on TV, and I vividly recall the first time Jerry Lee Lewis was on TV.  He blew me away.  I also got hooked on The Rolling Stones and The Kinks. It was while I was in Houston that I joined my first band.  I also spent much of my time at Teen Hall, which was a teen dance club that hosted many great bands.  In 1964, my family moved us to Oswego, Illinois, which is southwest of Chicago.  There I started getting to see many touring bands including The Rolling Stones (first three concerts in Chicago), Bob Dylan (when he went electric with The Band), The Byrds and more.  60s: What was the name of that first band? BB: My first band in Houston, Texas, was The Eightballs.  This was purely an R&B band with six-seven musicians.  I started off playing maracas and singing backup, but our bass player also played great piano, and he taught me bass so that he could move over to that.  I also started singing a little lead.  The first song that I performed with the band was 'Sea of Love,' the old Phil Phillips song.  I was in that band for about a year. I was then hired away from The Eightballs by a successful local surf band, The Surf Riders.  They were a four-piece band who played a lot of high school fraternity and sororities in the wealthier neighborhoods of Houston.  I actually made some good money in that band--$25 per night.  I was in that band for about a year until my family moved to Illinois. 60s: Where was The Million Dollar War Babies formed? BB: The Million Dollar War Babies, not to be confused with the eventually famous band of the same name, was formed on the University of Illinois campus by a bunch of Jewish guys who were friends.  They needed a bass player and somehow found me.  I think the founder was a guy with a goatee and glasses named Sonny.  He was the lead singer.  We were all war babies, and came up with that name from a news article where the baby boom problem was referred to as "the million dollar war babies." 60s: Who else comprised the band? BB: I am sorry, but I can't remember any more names of the members.  We had two guitars, a bass, keyboards, drums, and a lead singer who played tambourine and other rhythm instruments.  60s: How would you describe the band's sound? What bands influenced you?  BB: We played top 40 songs and whatever was popular.  We played a lot of Turtles, Lovin' Spoonful, Spencer Davis Group, Young Rascals, The Monkees and similar styles.  60s: What was the local rock and roll scene like during the time The Million Dollar War Babies was together?  BB: There were many local bands playing around Champaign-Urbana, plus the major influence of the School of Music at U of I.  Jazz was often played in bars around town.  The biggest local rock band when I started was The Clansmen.  They played lots of drunken frat parties, and 'Louie Louie' was the most commonly requested song.  I remember a frat bringing Doug Clark and The Hot Nuts to town.  They played in silver or gold jock straps and nothing else and sang lots of dirty songs that raised the roof off of the place they were playing.  There were many local beer joints, and they often had bands.  There were often spring riots and panty raids on campus.  It was a wild and crazy time.  Long hair was just starting to happen, but was still rare.  There were about 50 of us with long hair on campus, and we used to hang out together in coffee shops on campus. 60s: What other local groups of the era do you especially recall?  BB: Like I said, The Clansmen.  They were very popular.  I don't remember the others from that year.  After forming The Nickel Bag, I remember more.  I remember The Seeds of Doubt and REO Speedwagon.  I occasionally filled in for their bass players if they were sick. 60s: Where did the band typically play?  BB: We mostly played frat and sorority parties.  60s: Did you play any of the local teen clubs? BB: That band did not.  I was not frequenting teen clubs, so I don't know.  60s: How far was the band's "touring" territory?  BB: We rarely played outside of Champaign-Urbana.  60s: Did The Million Dollar War Babies have a manager? BB: No manager; just us.  60s: How popular locally did The Million Dollar War Babies become?   BB: We were kept busy with jobs, but we were just a local band.  60s: Did The Million Dollar War Babies record, or write any original material?  No.  60s: What year and why did the band break up? BB: I left them in 1968 to form The Nickel Bag.  I wanted to play blues.  I was the founder and original manager of that group.  I first wanted to form a Chicago blues band, and hired for that.  We had worked up about 20 songs when half of the band quit.  They felt we couldn't make any money playing blues.  I asked the remaining members what they wanted to do, and they said we should start learning R&B and the new emerging Soul music that seemed very popular.   We decided that we wanted to make the theme of the band music that made you want to dance.  We mostly focused on Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and James Brown.  We also played Gene Chandler and other stuff, but hot dance music was our focus. 60s: Did the Million Dollar babies continue on after you left? BB: I don't think so, but I honestly don't know. 60s: Who comprised The Nickel Bag? BB: I can't remember them all.  There were two versions of the band.  The sax player in the lower left of the picture (see above) left the band and was replaced by a trumpet, and we added Lonnie Bowman as a second singer/trumpet player. Lead Singer: Tommy Gibson; Second Singer/Trumpet:  Lonnie Bowman; Lead Guitar: ?  (He married one of the groupies that followed our band); Hammond B-3 Organ: Teddy (My brother met him and talked with him, and he was still in a band in Mobile, Alabama about 15 years ago); Drums:  Billy; Alto Sax: Leonard Levell (Nardy); Trumpet:  ?; Original Tenor/Baritone Sax: ?; Bass:  Bill Brackin. 60s: Were you aware that there was another band at Southern Illinois University that recorded for Rembrandt Records that also used the "Nickle Bag" moniker? BB: No. 60s: Did your Nickel Bag record? BB: No. 60s: Did The Nickel Bag also primarily play frat and sorority parties, or did you play bars/clubs?  BB: We mostly played in bars/clubs.  In 1969 we toured Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana much of the summer with Steppenwolf, and played concerts with The Fifth Dimension, The Turtles, The Buckinghams, The Shadows of Doubt, The Flock and more.  Larry Lujack, the WLS disc jockey, loved us and frequently talked about us on his show.  We played in small clubs to over 10,000 person venues. Our favorite club to play was The Dungeon in Aurora, Illinois.  We liked it because it was always packed with kids that liked to dance and were very diverse culturally.  There were rich and poor, white, black and brown.  All got along well and loved our band.  One night we were doing Gene Chandler's Rainbow '65, and when we started the four-piece vocal background harmonies, the crowd crowded the stage.  Tommy got very emotional in his singing, dropped down on to his knees, and began simulating crying.  A bunch of girls stormed the stage and started ripping off his clothes.  We had to rescue him and carry him out into the alley while the management calmed down the crowd.  The owner came out into the alley after about 10 minutes and told us that nothing like that had ever happened in his club before.  We wondered what was coming next.  To our amazement and satisfaction he said, "I am going to pay you double the next time I have you back!"  We were thrilled. 60s: What year and why did The Nickel Bag break up?  BB: Our story was much like The Commitments of the movie.  We were doing Okay, but our booking agent wanted us to take on Lonnie Bowman to add more fire to our act.  Lonnie was a great singer with high falsetto, and could hit very high notes on the trumpet.  He did add a lot to the band.  Unfortunately, he was also very high strung, basically did not like whites (three of us were white), and was somewhat of a sociopath.  One night, while playing in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Lonnie overheard some redneck make a negative remark about the blacks in the band.  He started wising off to the audience over the PA system and almost got us beat up.  It reminded me of the scene in The Blues Brothers movie in the country bar. Another night, he tried to talk all of the band into ripping off a PA system from a hotel that we played at in Wisconsin, and I had convinced most of the band to not go along with him.  I was not about to have that happen and threw a fit.  I was successful in stopping them from doing so, but that was the beginning of the end.  It was not long after that a few of us, including me, quit.  I needed to choose between finishing college or becoming a professional musician, and I knew I was not the quality of bass player that should make a career of it.  Our guitarist got married and left the group, and I think at least one more quit.  I heard that they continued on for a while with new members, but I quickly lost track of them.  The Black Power movement also was part of the issue.  Some black members of the band felt that they had to distance themselves from their white friends.   I then joined a Latin band called Los Cumbancheros that played occasionally around Central Illinois.  We were very popular among the Latin community and people came from St. Louis and Chicago to dance to us.  I graduated from college in the summer of 1970 and never played professionally again. 60s: What keeps you busy today?  BB: I am the Director of Volunteers of America North Sound 2-1-1, a community social services information and referral program that serves five counties north of Seattle.  I also manage an Emergency Shelter Intake System and oversee all telephone services and systems for our large agency. I quit playing actively many years ago.  I often attend clubs, concerts, and music festivals, and I love to dance.  I still love the blues, R&B, funk, and funky jazz.  I also do a lot of sea kayaking, fishing, camping, skiing, and other outdoor sports.  I am an amateur photographer, and I enjoy watching old movies.  60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with The Million Dollar War Babies? BB: We had a lot of fun, made a little spending money, and helped a lot of people party.