Pebbles Although Ralph Straight has never “had aspirations of stardom or even popularity,” his teen band The Pebbles (evolved from The Satins) is fondly recalled by garage band collectors/researchers as a result of their lone single and appearance in a forgotten (and most likely lost) B-movie.  Straight is currently still playing, and a member of an active group named The Straightup Blues Band. Ralph Straight Recalls The Pebbles I grew up in a musical family. Not professionals you understand, but back porch pickers who did it just for sheer pleasure. My dad, Ray, played the mandolin, which, by the way, still hangs on my music room wall. Mom, Inez, knew a few basic guitar chords. She sang like an angel and yodeled like a Bavarian mountain girl.  My Aunt Hazel played guitar and sang and Uncle Frank, no real relation, bowed a mean country fiddle. They called themselves The Orange Blossom Band. This countrified quartet brought broad smiles and boisterous hand clapping to backyard gatherings and school auditoriums around St. Petersburg, Florida where I was born and raised. Occasionally Mom would let me fram on her Gretsch arch top guitar, something I really enjoyed doing. When I was about ten, my dad decided I should take accordion lessons. Why? I don’t know. I hated the stupid looking thing but squeezed on it for about three years. By the time I was 13 I had covertly practiced on the guitar, ignoring the squeezebox, until I was able to follow along with the rock and roll songs of the day. Real music, to my ears, was just blooming. Ray Charles, Buddy Holly, Chet Atkins and all the early greats were churning out a musical sound that was mesmerizing. This was about 1957 or 1958.  One evening during the summer of that year I announced to dad my intention to put aside the accordion and concentrate on playing guitar. His response—Get a job and buy one then. I did just that. I mowed neighbors’ lawns for the rest of the summer and earned enough to buy a Dan-Electro six-string and a small, antique amplifier with an electro-magnet voice coil to drive the speakers and three tubes. Real interest in becoming a musician came in the early ‘60s with the enthralling guitar work of Duane Eddy. The Satins was not my first band. We started out as The Ramblers and as I recall we played a couple of gigs under that name at The Pinellas Park Community Center in Pinellas Park, Florida. The Ramblers were Dennis Downey, Elwood (Woody) Downey, Ralph Straight, Bill Berthold and a bass player whose name I don’t remember. After about eight months this band became The Satins. Woody was replaced with Joe Cammucio and the bass player was replaced with Gary Hardy; the rest of the members stayed the same. The Satins began in the St. Petersburg/Largo area of Tampa Bay in Florida in mid 1964 with the core members of The Ramblers. I was the designated leader of the band. I set our bookings, kept contact with our part-time agent, first name Perry, and handled practices. The Satins became The Pebbles in mid-1965 when we recorded our one and only record. The Pebbles consisted of: Joe Cammucio – Vocals (from Philadelphia) Dennis Downey – Rhythm Guitar (Florida) Bill Berthold – Drums (Unknown but Florida, I think) Ray Griffin – Bass Guitar/Vocals (Florida) Ralph Straight – Lead Guitar (real live Floridian) The Satins/Pebbles sound was the generic style of the day.  We were highly influenced by The Beatles and the Liverpool sound in general. Soul and rhythm and blues played a large role in our sound and rounded out in our play list. Locally our friends and venue-mates The Impacs, The Roemans and The Velvets influenced us. We never had a large fan base. Our lot in the local music community was that of “opening for.” I don’t remember participating in any battle of the bands competition. I have no photos or playbills of The Pebbles – again – lost in the big “D”. We dressed in black sharkskin shirts, black pants, wore a white dickie and played with a white glove on our left hands.  The gloves would only last for one night. You could by a pair of ladies’ silk gloves back then for 39 cents. I had a drawer full of right hand gloves. The Tampa Bay area in the early ‘60s was home to several teen clubs like The Surfer’s Club in Madeira Beach. Dances were held regularly at the civic centers and National Guard armories up and down the west coast of Florida. The Gulfport Casino just outside of St. Petersburg was one of our favorite venues. There we played opposite the Impacs and backed stars such as Jimmy Clanton, Tony Orlando, Bobby Vee and even Roy Orbison. Our touring area spanned as far south as Ft. Myers on the west coast to Ft. Lauderdale on the east. We didn’t go north of Clearwater and if we had gone west we would have had to be on a boat. My youthful experiences with The Pebbles and the other band was just that—A fun time learning about life, playing music, etc. I have never had aspirations of stardom or even popularity. I was just growing up, having a good time and enjoying my youth. ‘Endless Tears’ and ‘Vicki’ were the only original songs written by members of the band. I have no recollection of how we might have hooked up with Ronald Paul Hitchock, the producer on our “one hit” record.  We also did a demo of ‘Wooly Bully’ that night. The demo was cut straight to an old disk cutter. It turned out pretty good but it disappeared in a divorce in 1979.  I do recall that the recording was done at a house converted into a “garage band” studio. The house was in West Tampa. For this recording session I had a White Gibson D-12 Double neck guitar played through a Fender concert amp. The songs are heavy with twelve-string chords. I remember they wouldn’t let me use any reverb. They wanted to add it in the mix down. I pitched a fit so they agreed to let me use a touch of “’verb.” The reverb came from a Hammond reverb unit. It was a great sounding box. The Pebbles appeared only once on a local teen dance show. The name of the show is lost to me. We lip-synced and played air guitar on both songs. Only the drums were live. The show was a local version of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.  In the summer of 1965 we were invited by someone to go to Ft. Lauderdale to appear in a movie. We went to a club called The Martinique Club. This was about 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening. I recall we signed some paperwork, which they said was a release form. There was another band playing on the stage at the club (Note: The Surftones). We were staged to one side of the bandstand, on the floor, with our instruments and played ‘air guitar’ to the music of the stage band. Someone with a movie camera and lights was filming us. We only did this for about 15 minutes and were told that we were done.   The band broke up in early fall of 1965. I joined the army in November that year and lost contact with the others. John Ringelspaugh (Johnny Ringo) of The Impacs joined with me. After a three-year tour in the Army, I continued with my music “hobby” by getting involved in the Jesus Movement of the early-‘70s. We put together a band called The Joyful Noise. We cut three albums and did over 500 concerts in churches, coffee houses, the beaches and any where we could plug in an amp. The Joyful Noise became The Monday Night Prayer Group Unlimited in 1979. I recorded one album with The Monday Night Prayer Group Unlimited. I got divorced and re-married in 1979 and did nothing musically for the next 15 years.   My bio on our current Web site reads as follows: Born to Play the Blues  Born and raised in Florida during the ‘50s and ‘60s, I followed the crowd and played the standard rock and roll of that era but always felt a little empty and sought something more from the music. Then I discovered Blues. It wasn't easy pursuing my interest and love of the genre because of the social and cultural differences of the times. As a result, my desires lay dormant for many years. In the mid ‘90s, in my late ‘40s, I decided to "come out of the musical closet" and follow my dreams. The Straightup Blues Band is the result of that decision.  My career became law enforcement. I was a deputy sheriff for The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office for 34 years. I retired in 2001 but got bored and went back to work at the Sheriff’s Office as a civilian. Musically, the Straightup Blues Band works an average of one weekend a month. We rotate between two local venues—Pastino’s Italian Grill and Biff Burger. Biff Burger hosts a bike night and a classic car night. It reminds me a little of the drive-ins we hung out at as teens.