The Threshold of Sounds’ ‘She’s Mine’ is highly regarded among ‘60s garage rock collectors. The song, one side of the group’s first single, was not entirely indicative of the band’s sound, however. Forming from the New Orleans garage band Their Dyrtie Bodys, The Threshold of Sound would shorten their name to The Threshold and release a total of three 45s…each one providing a distinct snapshot of the evolving ‘60s rock & roll landscape. Without question, lead guitarist Dave Johnson provided one of the better interviews we’ve had the privilege of conducting. Part band historian and part humorist, Johnson elegantly captured not only what it’s like to be one member of a teen band, but also what the New Orleans rock scene was like during The Threshold’s heyday. The Threshold never quite achieved lasting success, but Johnson’s experiences paved the way for lasting friendships…and the desire to do it all over again. His new band, Rock’n’Horse, which includes several members of The Threshold, will be releasing a CD shortly.
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| Dave Johnson, February 1969 |
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An Interview With Dave Johnson
60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Dave Johnson (DJ): My grandmother was a piano teacher and my father also played, so I was exposed to music at an early age. I took piano lessons from my grandmother beginning around age seven and played mostly classical piano. She got me well grounded in the different major and minor scales and an understanding of music theory. I enjoyed playing the piano and sometimes still do. However, I would turn out to be the lead guitar player in the Threshold and it was the Porter Wagoner TV show that got me interested in the guitar in the early '60s. Those guys could really pick and I was fascinated with that sound. So I bought a guitar and taught myself to play with some “learn the guitar” record that I found. I was a musician already so I just had to learn the mechanics. Then I later heard The Beatles and I was sure that I had made the right choice. They were way cooler than Porter Wagoner. The Beatles remain my favorite group and inspiration to this day.
I began to play with some friends who also owned guitars. We played at each other’s houses and we would teach each other new rock songs using little amps or, sometimes, no amps at all. We played a lot of Ventures, as many budding guitarists did back then. I didn’t so much decide to play in a band as it just happened. People would hear us messing around and ask us to play at their party. Soon after we started playing, they would usually ask us to leave. But, gradually, we got better and actually gave the band a name and started demanding money.
60s: Was Threshold of Sound your first band?
DJ: I was in the above mentioned band called The Topics with two other future Threshold members. We were not very good and the band never really got off the ground. We were together only a few months in mid- to late- 1965. But the Topics would play a part in the formation of the Threshold of Sound. The members of the Topics were: Dave Johnson - guitar; Barry Holzenthal - guitar; Wayne Molinary - bass; and Harry Payton - drums. We all attended the same high school. I think we were sophomores. We were just kids. We played mostly Ventures songs (and, of course, 'Pipeline') and didn’t sing much.
60s: Where and when was The Threshold of Sound formed?
DJ: We were all from New Orleans and its suburbs. The Threshold of Sound was a merger of three of us from The Topics and a band called The Royal Lands. The Royal Lands consisted of Lee Holzenthal on organ/vocals and Gene Colley on drums. Lee was the older brother of Barry Holzenthal of The Topics. The Royal Lands desperately needed some backup and we needed some new energy so we decided that, together, we would be a better band than we were individually, so we merged. That would have been early in 1966.
But the name “Threshold of Sound” would come later. The new band was originally known as Their Dyrtie Bodys. It was a much better band and we began to get lots of bookings. At this point the band consisted of two guitars, organ, bass, drums and an additional “stand-up” singer. Four of us sang and Lee, the lead singer/organist, could also play a trumpet, which came in handy on occasion. He was also the leader as he was a couple of years older. Since I had a more extensive music education and I could “pick out” songs, I was looked upon as the musical director of the group. We had very primitive equipment at this point, Silvertone guitars and amps from Sears, and were about as raw as you could get.
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| Their Dyrtie Bodys, October 1966 |
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We all loved the name “Their Dyrtie Bodys." It was memorable and a little naughty but it soon became a liability. It didn’t play well with most of the Catholic high school principals. “We’ll not have any 'Dyrtie Bodys' at this school!” Thus, we were losing out on some very lucrative dances.
So it was decided that a name change was in order and I believe that Lee came up with "Threshold of Sound." We later shortened it to just "The Threshold." So The Threshold of Sound and The Threshold are one and the same. We recorded under both names.
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| Their Dyrtie Bodys |
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| The Threshold Of Sound |
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The original members were:
Lee Holzenthal — lead vocal/organ/trumpet. Lee was the leader of the group and made most of the business decisions, as well as eventually handling the bookings. As a singer, he had exceptional power, range and stamina. Though he was somewhat limited stylistically, he could be counted on to do a decent job of just about anything. When we used to play Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4,' which is next to impossible for most humans to sing, you could hear him just beginning to strain a little, but he would nail it. He usually stood behind a Vox Continental organ, which he played with authority, and would occasionally play his trumpet. He had a commanding presence and loved the spotlight. The girls seemed to like him, too; a fact that didn’t hurt our popularity.
Barry Holzenthal — rhythm guitar/vocals. Barry was not in the band on the merits of his guitar playing but he had an exceptional high falsetto voice. Barry and I were the primary backup singers and he always took the high harmonies. His voice enabled us to do things like Beatles and Bee Gees songs. He was quite a clown and would often entertain the crowd between songs.
Dave Johnson — lead guitar/vocals. As the one with the most formal musical training, I was the unofficial musical director. I handled the arrangements, scored the horn charts and played all of the complex guitar parts. When I wasn’t on stage, I was home practicing the guitar. I was pretty obsessed with it at that time and wasn’t happy unless I was learning something new every week. I would also sing some of the lead vocals, but I was mostly content to play my guitar and contribute to the harmonies.
Gene Colley — drums. Gene was a very solid drummer with an excess of youthful energy. There were no “jazzy” rhythms, just straight ahead rock. He only weighed about 125 pounds at the time but he would break through the heads of his snare and kick drum as often as I would break strings. He was capable of playing long drum solos like the one in 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.' We started out practicing in his parents’ garage, which had been converted into a billiards room. Gene was very entertaining on stage and a joy to work with.
Wayne Molinary — bass guitar. Wayne was one of my school buddies that I learned to play guitar with in the very early days. I had known him since the sixth grade. He could play guitar pretty well but switched to bass because, I guess, somebody had to and I was the better guitarist. But he turned out to be a natural on bass. He could keep it in the pocket or he could let loose like Jack Bruce when the situation called for it. He studied his parts well and there never seemed to be anything he couldn’t cover.
Kenny Breaux — vocals. Kenny was in the band only a brief time at the very beginning. I think he was a childhood friend of Lee’s and he sang some of the lead vocals early on. He wasn’t serious at all about a musical career and quickly dropped out of the picture.
That was our lineup when we recorded 'She’s Mine.' Our next two records included two new members:
Rodney Lafon — trumpet. Rodney was, and still is, a very professional musician. A superb trumpeter, he reads music (like most brass players do) and would later play with Wayne Cochran & The CC Riders, Jerry Lee Lewis’ band and, currently, with Luther Kent & Trick Bag. He could do all the Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears that you asked him to.
Ralph Adams — sax/flute. Ralph was, perhaps, the other two-thirds of the horn section. He could play sax and flute equally well, although not at the same time. But his flute playing added a unique dimension to the Threshold. When everybody was doing 'Color My World,' we were the only ones using a real flute in the solo. We tried for years to drop that tune but audiences kept demanding it. He used it to good effect in many other tunes and contributed greatly to our versatility. He was also electronically inclined and built and operated our stage lights. Looking back on it, we probably didn’t pay him enough.
With the addition of the horn section in 1968 (Kenny Breaux dropped out of the band around this time) we now had a seven-piece band capable of covering practically any record made by man. (If it was made by a woman, we would just lower the key.)
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| Live at Jamie's, December 1968 |
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60s: How would you describe the band's sound?
DJ: The answer to that would depend on what week of what year you asked it! We were young and young people are attracted to everything that’s new. And, during that time there was something new every week. Although there are some all-time favorites of ours, like The Beatles, we were equally excited by the next one-hit-wonder to hit the airwaves. I’ve mentioned The Beatles several times and we did play many of their songs, but it wasn’t really our goal to sound like them. They were just the most important role models. We played any music that we liked, no matter what style.
What you hear on the Nettie 45 is pretty typical of our sound in The Dyrtie Bodys days. It was very raw and garage-y. In those days we were playing Kinks, Animals, Beatles, Raiders…even Troggs. What you hear on the second record on Mor Soul is typical of our sound a couple of years later. We were more similar to The Buckinghams after we added the horns. We were a little older and were getting more sophisticated on our instruments. The music that we were covering was getting more sophisticated too, so it was a reflection of that.
We were together for about five years so we were continuously growing and developing. What we recorded was a snapshot of where we were in that moment. Probably less than a year after we recorded 'She’s Mine' it would have sounded very dated to our audience. It’s important to know that we were essentially a working cover band that released some original singles. Most other local bands cut records, too. It was the thing to do. But our focus was on always sounding “up-to-date” as rock music evolved and keeping ourselves marketable. A lot of local bands came and went during the life of The Threshold. I think we survived longer by adapting to the changes.
60s: What was the New Orleans rock and roll scene like in the '60s?
DJ: Well, New Orleans didn’t immediately embrace the British Invasion. But then this city doesn’t accept any kind of change easily. There were so many other firmly established music scenes in the city — Jazz, Dixieland, R&B, Soul and fifties-style rock & roll. Young, white, long-haired rockers like The Threshold of Sound faced an uphill battle to gain any credibility. Of the bands that we encountered at dances and battle of the bands in the mid-sixties, it seems like most were playing soul music. Soul music was the thing in New Orleans for ages. We liked some soul, too, but we were also a new generation and predestined to march to our own drummer.
I think the barbers were the first to notice the change. Having long hair in those days was about the same as being black. Half the people looked at you funny and the other half wanted to beat the tar out of you. The police were constantly stopping us, searching our cars and emptying our pockets. There was no public outrage about profiling in those days so we just had to endure it. None of us ever had any interest in illegal drugs. In New Orleans you had the Frats and the Pits, which was akin to the mods and the rockers in Britain. We frats were very tolerant of the pits but they did not respond in kind. If I had shown up at one of their hangouts I would have probably left on a stretcher. So, in the early days, there were still some clubs that we were better off avoiding.
Fortunately that didn’t last long. The pits gave up and so did the barbers. As the decade wore on and the new music matured a little, everyone seemed to be listening to the same things and looking more alike. In fact, we became heroes in some of the places that we would have avoided a couple of years earlier. Nevertheless, it still didn’t hurt to sprinkle your sets with some Sam & Dave or Otis Redding. I guess music does sooth the savage beast after all. As audiences’ tastes began to change, the old soul bands either disbanded or regrouped as more contemporary acts.
The latter part of the ‘60s seemed like a utopia of rock music and culture. The New Orleans Pop Festival was held in 1969 and featured the likes of Santana, Janis Joplin, It’s a Beautiful Day, The Byrds, The Youngbloods, Chicago and Iron Butterfly. It was our little Woodstock. I had never seen so many biggies in one place before.
There was a place called The Warehouse in New Orleans. And it was a warehouse. Peons like us didn’t play there. The roster of big names that we heard there is too long to be included here but The Stones were among them.
Rock stars seemed to be very attracted to New Orleans. And if you went to Bourbon Street after a concert, you could usually find them walking up and down, checking out the clubs. One of my friends called me from a club on Bourbon at about 3:00 a.m. in the morning and said he was catching an impromptu Led Zeppelin concert. They had wandered into the club and the house band had somehow enticed them to play. I could hear them playing over the phone. It was like that. You never knew what might happen. We thought it would never end. But, in 1970, The Beatles broke up and it did.
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| Dance Ticket |
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| Admission Ticket |
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| Ad for an appearance at the Dream Room |
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60s: Where did The Threshold typically play?
DJ: We eventually played everywhere a band could play. In the very early days, some of us weren’t even old enough to enter the clubs. But most club owners didn’t seem to care. They assured us that, as long as we were on the stage, it was perfectly legal. I remember one of the guys bringing his underaged girlfriend into Casey’s Lounge one night. The owner just said that it was okay, but she’d have to sit on the stage with us! Some others had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. But, fortunately, everybody seemed to want us…clubs, school dances, fraternity parties, Mardi Gras balls, Pontchartrain Beach, private parties…even on steamboats. Our cards read: “For all swinging affairs!”
Early on, there weren’t many rock clubs in the French Quarter. They were all jazz and Dixieland. There were lots of them later, but it took a while. We often played at a place called the Dream Room on Bourbon Street. But it was way down at the other end…away from most of the activity. There was one other rock club in the Quarter called the Encore where we played regularly. We didn’t do much to advance the progress of rock music in the Quarter, either. Gene had this revolving yellow spotlight inside of his kick drum…the type you might see at some roadside construction site. In the middle of one of the songs at the Dream Room, it overheated and set his drum on fire!
60s: What about teen clubs?
DJ: There weren’t many teen clubs in New Orleans to my knowledge. Most of the clubs we played were real bars. There are lots of them in New Orleans and some of them never close. The ones I remember most were the Club Sands, the Beaconette, the Crazy Horse, the Boot, F&M Patio, Casey’s and the Palace. The Pink Potato in Norco was a bonafide teen club…no alcohol, and the average age of the patrons was around 15. We played there a lot. I assume that’s what you mean by teen club. But those were the ones that we played regularly. Mostly the Sands and Beaconette. The Beaconette was a little hole in the wall club on Claiborne Ave. owned by Roy LaRocca . Everybody played there. Right down the street was The Beacon restaurant owned by his brother, Vic. We were playing at the Beaconette the night of the first moon landing in 1969 and everything stopped so we could watch it on a little black & white TV on the wall. I guess everyone remembers where they were that night…that’s where we were.
One distinct memory that I have from the Sands is the night we opened for The Classics IV. That was the first time I had met anyone that "important" and I was really in awe of Dennis Yost’s voice. He approached me before we went on stage and I thought he was just going to be social. But he said, "Do you mind if I look over your song list?" I handed him the list and he studied it intently. He handed it back and said, "I just want to be sure that you don’t intend to play any of our songs before we come on." I said, "God, Dennis, why would we want to do that?" He said, "I don’t know, but we’ve had opening groups come out and play 'Spooky' and 'Stormy' and it really irritates me." I assured him that we had no such plans and he got a little friendlier after that. We exchanged some chitchat and I told him how much I admired his singing. In fact, I would have been embarrassed to play those songs on the same stage as him. No one could possibly sing them as well. But I got the impression that he wasn’t quite as sure about that as I was.
We also backed up Benny Spellman one night. I remember that Benny was as cordial as could be and we met backstage to run through some songs. We had already rehearsed his well-known hits, figuring that he would sing those, and he did. He also wanted to sing 'Yesterday' and he asked if we knew it. I said that I did and started playing it. He said, "Oh no, I can’t do it in that key." I understood that his deep voice was the complete opposite of McCartney’s, but have you ever had to transpose 'Yesterday' on the fly? There are lots of chords and some of them are not obvious. We decided on the right key for him and ran through it a couple of times, but by the time we got to playing it onstage I had forgotten some of the changes. We managed to bluff our way through it but at one point he was moved to say, "Help me out fellas!" He never stopped smiling, though. Other than that one song, the rest of his concert went smoothly. We did "Fortune Teller" and "Lipstick Traces" flawlessly and I’m pretty sure that he sang some Ernie K-Doe songs. When he left, he drove off in a station wagon with a sign on the door of some dry cleaning company. I thought to myself, "My God, does he have a real job?" I was completely disillusioned. Surely the great Benny Spellman doesn’t have to work like the rest of us. But, according to his bio, he gave up music in 1968 and 'ecame a beer salesman. I came to realize that his hit record 'Fortune Teller'/'Lipstick Traces" was only one brief moment in his long life. He had moved on but the record was frozen in time as if he were always that successful. I learned something that night.
60s: How far was the band's "touring" territory?
DJ: Not far. We played along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and probably only as far west as Baton Rouge. We played many LSU functions. We didn’t venture north very much. We played at Southeastern College in Hammond on the "North Shore."
We were all in school so we couldn’t actually tour. I remember playing at the Pass Christian Yacht Club in Mississippi in early 1966. I think the band made about $60 that night. At the end of the night Lee Holzenthal, who always took care of the financial matters, informed them that we wouldn’t agree to come back for less than $90. We haven’t been back yet.
60s: Did Threshold of Sound participate in any battle of the bands?
DJ: Yes and we have the trophies to prove it! I have one of them on my bookshelf and it is a second place from St. Raphael CYO, June 18, 1966. I seem to remember there being three or four trophies on the windowsill where we practiced in the old days. As I indicated earlier, it would most likely have been a soul band that won the battles back then, but we occasionally placed. And as we got better established, there was no reason to keep entering.
60s: What other local groups of the era do you especially recall?
DJ: Groups like John Fred & The Playboys. They were probably the most successful group to come out of the area in the '60s. They played a lot of soul but they were good at it and they could really play anything. When they did covers they would do their own arrangements of them. They actually had an album, or maybe a couple of them. They eventually had a national hit with 'Judy in Disguise.' It’s disappointing to me that 'Judy' was the one that took off because it wasn’t typical of what they did. It was a novelty record and they had much better ones.
The Palace Guard was a great band…very British. They were a little older than us and we kind of looked up to them. They had a cool record called 'Better Things to Do' and we would actually cover it in the early days.
David & The Giants were very popular. Their drummer was Keith Thibodeaux, "Little Ricky" from the I Love Lucy show. Even when he grew up he was still little and everybody wanted to call him Ricky. He was always saying, "My name’s Keith, man!" He turned into a great drummer. I remember one of their records was 'Superlove.'
The Glory Rhodes played our circuit, too. I remember a couple of their records. One was 'Not That Kind of Guy' and another was 'Old Laces.'
The Paper Steamboat was very popular around town. They always had top-notch musicians but it seems like they could never decide which ones to keep. It was like a revolving door. They had a leg up on everybody at one time because they actually had a guitar player from England! "You’re from England? Woooooow! Do you know The Beatles?" He didn’t. I don’t recall that they made any records.
The Milestones, The Sixth Edition, Greek Fountains, Nantucket Sound, The New Era…we used to hear them a lot.
Groups used to come in from Mississippi and Florida, too. One of my favorites was The Flower Power from Gulfport. They had a girl singer, Sandy Craig, who was fabulous. They had some great records, too. 'Bye, Bye, Baby' — a Janis Joplin cover and 'Orange Skies,' a cover from Love’s Da Capo album. But they did it much better. They also cut an album of originals but I’ve never heard it. They played a lot of originals live but they usually cut covers. Go figure. Their keyboard player was Greg Giuffria, who later achieved fame with the heavy metal bands Angel and House of Lords.
Then there was Eternity’s Children. They were fabulous. They had a girl singer and a vibes player! They had a hit record, 'Mrs. Bluebird,' and an LP to go with it. I still enjoy hearing 'Mrs. Bluebird.' It was so well done.
And I remember seeing The Yellow Payges at the Crazy Horse. They were an awesome show band and their recordings don’t really do them justice. You had to see them.
I remember The Zoofs, too. Nelson Calongne lived around the corner from me and I was good friends with his younger brother, Warren. The Zoofs were a little older than me and I never got to see them at a gig. But I would sometimes hear them practicing at Warren’s house. Occasionally they would sing out in the street with an acoustic guitar. I remember a few of them walking down the middle of Taft Place singing 'Help' and I was pretty impressed at the time. That was 1965, right after Hurricane Betsy had hit the city and we had no electricity for weeks. Maybe that’s why they were shouting for help. They were good but Warren was constantly bragging about them to the point where I got sick of hearing it. One day I was finally able to silence him. They had moved out of town and he came back to visit a couple of years later. I brought him to one of my gigs and he was dumbstruck. During the break he told me, "I know I used to brag about how good Nelson was but, man, he didn’t play anything like that!" It’s funny, the things you remember when you try. I haven’t thought about that in decades.
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| Traci Borges |
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60s: Did Threshold of Sound have a manager?
DJ: At first we had a couple of friends that booked us. Then we eventually met Traci Borges, a local recording studio owner/promoter and he took us on. It was great! We had free reign of his studio when it wasn’t being used. He was not very active in booking us, we were doing that ourselves by that point. He was mostly trying to make recording artists out of us. He produced our second and third record, both of which were much more ambitious than our first one. With that kind of advantage, you’d think that we would have made more of the opportunity. But in reality, we were just kids having a good time. Of course we were interested in recording a hit record, but that was pie in the sky and we were very successful already as a live band. As a result, we didn’t work hard enough at it and never really had the kind of management that we needed if that even existed around here.
60s: How popular locally did Threshold of Sound become?
DJ: The Beatles made us sign a non-compete contract when they came to town. (Not really.) But we were one of the mainstream groups in 1960's New Orleans. We were constantly booked up, playing four-five nights a week through most of high school and college. I can’t honestly remember when we weren’t popular. Even as far back as Their Dyrtie Bodys days we had lots of bookings. Of course our popularity was mostly due to our live gigs, not our recordings. Forty years later, when I mention The Threshold, people usually remember us. By 1968 we had our own truck with a couple of roadies on the payroll. It was an old bread truck. I was in art school at the time and I painted our name in huge psychedelic letters on the sides. I also designed and silk-screened some Threshold of Sound posters, which got permanently hung in some of the clubs where we played. With day-glo ink, of course. Two of them are still around and one is hanging in our present band room.
I think people would keep coming back to see us because we played what they wanted to hear. We didn’t put on much of a "show." It was just the right selection of music and we had the personnel to play things that most smaller bands couldn’t pull off. There were better bands in town at one particular genre or another but there was no one more versatile. We could do Beatles probably better than anyone locally. We would play a 15-minute Beatles medley that never failed to get a standing ovation. I knew that the applause was probably more in appreciation of The Beatles then it was for the performance, but not many other bands could have pulled it off. We kept things interesting and that was the kind of thing that made us popular.
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| 'She's Mine' on Nettie |
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| 'Nobody But Us' on Nettie |
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60s: What were the circumstances leading to the recording of the Nettie 45?
DJ: None of us now have a clear memory of how that came to happen. I think that that we just decided it was time to cut our own record. Most of the groups around town were cutting records and you had to have one to be anybody. At that time the local media and radio stations were pretty good about promoting New Orleans recording groups, so it garnered us some good publicity. After that, our captions would read: "Popular recording group The Threshold of Sound"…so it was a good business decision. Lee had written the notorious 'She’s Mine' and a couple of other tunes very early on that we worked into our act. That was around the time of 'Psychotic Reaction' and you can hear the similarity. I really have no recollection of why that song was chosen to record, except that perhaps it was the most outrageous. Why we cut the instrumental on the B-side and not another original is even more of a mystery because we had a couple more pretty good ones. But sometimes things happen for a reason, as you’ll see later. Our memories of those days are so fuzzy that it is entirely possible we also cut some other tunes and the decision about which ones to release was made by the producer. Whoever that was.
60s: Where did The Threshold of Sound record?
DJ: The sessions for the Nettie 45 were recorded at Cosimo Matassa’s Studio in New Orleans. I had the great privilege to record in the same building as Little Richard, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Earl King, and Ernie K-Doe to name just a few. If you are familiar with Cosimo’s or, if you Google it, you’ll know that the list of classic rock & roll hits that came out of that institution is staggering to the senses.
Unfortunately, ours wasn’t one of them. That day I felt like the scarecrow, creeping timidly in to ask the wizard for a brain. I almost expected to hear (tons of echo and thunder), “You DARE to ask the great and powerful COSIMO to record you?" But they treated us respectfully and got right down to business.
I’ll tell you the few things that I can remember. We recorded 'She’s Mine' at that session. I had a primitive fuzz tone plugged into my guitar, which I believe was my old Dan Electro Silvertone. You know, the one with the amp built into the case. I didn’t use the built-in amp though. I had bought a bigger one. I intended for the opening riff to sound a lot fuzzier but the engineer asked me to turn down some so I dialed back the volume knob on the guitar. That made it lose some of its drive, but I was so nervous I didn’t notice. When we played it live it was much fuzzier.
The other tune we recorded that day was the flip side instrumental 'Nobody But Us.' Ventures fans will recognize it as a cover from one of their albums. The original title was 'Only The Young.' Since we were young at the time, we renamed it 'Nobody But Us.' We used to play it at our gigs — I believe to close the night — and it worked well as a slow dance song. The flip side actually got way more airplay because one of the radio stations used to play it before their news break at the top of every hour. So it was played on-air once every hour for months on end! Because of that one executive decision, The Threshold probably got more airplay than any other local group that year, with the possible exception of John Fred. I’m not sure anyone knew it was us, but that didn’t matter. Our friends knew. I can’t honestly remember hearing the other side on the radio although I’m sure it was played.
Despite the legendary status of Cosimo Studio, they certainly didn’t seem to put much effort into our recording. Maybe they didn’t think it was worth any more effort, I don’t know. When I hear it now all I can think of is how out of tune the bass was. You would think the producer would have noticed if he was worth his title. But, at one point, I overheard someone in the control room comment, "Damn good guitar player" so I guess it wasn’t too horrible. That made me feel pretty good. But at the end of the day, The Beatles position in the charts remained secure.
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| 'Run To The Morning Sun' on MorSoul |
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| 'Make Believe Girl' on MorSoul |
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60s: We're aware of the Nettie and Mor Soul singles, but you alluded to a third...
DJ: Yes, we released three records. You know about the first one. Our second record (of which I don’t think I have a copy) was on the Mor Soul Label. (There’s that soul thing again.) The A side was 'Run To The Morning Sun' and was written by Lee Holzenthal. This was the first record produced by our manager, Traci Borges, and was recorded at his studio on Metairie Rd. He actually had two studios on Metairie Rd. at one time or another. The first studio was in the basement of a large residential house and was engineered by a very electronically inclined fellow named Billy Stubbs. I don’t even remember if the studio had a name, but it may have been "Knight." Later, he moved down the street and built another studio, which he named Knight Recording Studio, and still operates today. We never saw Billy again. But all of our recordings were done in the old nameless studio. By this time we had the horn section and they are very prominent in the track. I can understand why some may question whether it is the same band that recorded 'She’s Mine.' But it is. The second side, 'Make Believe Girl,' was written by Traci. Traci was a very prolific songwriter and wrote about a song a day back then. We recorded lots of them, although that was the only one released. He had a keen eye for royalties. We couldn’t have cared less. Oh, the innocence of youth!
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| 'The Bottle' on Knight |
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| 'Which Direction?' on Knight |
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Our third 45 was on the Knight label and one side was recorded on Metairie Rd. and the other side at Robin Hood Studio in Tyler, Texas. I don’t remember why we went to Tyler but it was a great studio and fun road trip. I remember that some of the guys were annoyed that it was in a dry county. We had heard about those. But, never fear…driving all the way to the next county was not too much trouble for young, thirsty teenagers. On this record I emerged as a songwriter, penning both sides of the record. The A-side is titled 'The Bottle' and ya gotta hear it to believe it! It consists of some bewildering lyrics (ala Lennon at the time) about a master of his trade casting a bottle into the sea. It makes little sense but it sounds like it does and it‘s quite good musically, garnished with some ambitious harmonies. It was well recorded by the guys in Texas, too. The flip side is a funky little tune called 'Which Direction.' The lyrics ask the question "is love good or is it evil? — I can’t decide which direction it comes from." I guess I had recently discovered love. Apparently, I had also recently discovered the wah wah and I was all over it like a kid in a candy shop. Again, the horn section is prominent and they did a great job. I do have a copy of this one and I will send you a scan of the labels for the archives.
60s: Did Threshold of Sound write many original songs?
DJ: Not many. Lee Holzenthal and I wrote all of the originals although we didn’t write together. It seems like we put more effort into writing in the very early days. But the more successful we became as performers, the less we wrote. We were having a great time performing and making money. It was a dream job for a teenager. My other friends had to work real jobs if they wanted money. We were making it by partying every night. But to really put a number to that question, I can think of about five of Lee’s songs and a similar number of my own. About 10 altogether.
Since we’ve begun playing again, I’ve written and recorded more than a dozen new songs. We’re really making the music that we always wanted to make because there’s no pressure to do anything else. And if we’re the only ones who ever hear it, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just about the music now. We all make good livings doing other things.
60s: Do any other '60s Threshold of Sound recordings exist? Are there any vintage live recordings, or unreleased tracks?
DJ: There’s one that I wrote called 'What More Can I Say?' that I wish we had released. It’s very '60s and reminiscent of The Swinging Medallions hit, 'Double Shot,' although slightly more bubblegum. When we first met Traci Borges in his studio we played a bunch of cover tunes for him as an audition. He looked kind of bored and then he asked if we had any originals. When we played 'What More Can I Say?' he jumped off his stool and started paying attention. He was very excited and, because Lee was playing a trumpet riff, he said that it sounded like Herb Alpert with vocals and that he thought it would sell. Then he said he had a morning flight to Los Angeles and that we would record it when he got back. Man, we thought we were in like flint. Well, we did record it shortly after but it was never released for some reason.
In fact, it was this song that led to the addition of the horn section to the band. Traci said, "You can’t sing and blow a horn at the same time. How do you intend to perform this song live? You need another horn player." So, on his advice, we hired a horn section. Prior to that, Lee would only pick up the trumpet occasionally as a novelty. But sometimes things happen for a reason. By the time Chicago released their debut album, we were ready for them! That’s all people wanted to hear after that and we had it covered.
We recorded another tune shortly after that probably should have been released. It was a song I wrote called 'Children of the Sky.' It was borderline psychedelic and the lyrics were a putdown on the drug culture. The drums were "phased," something that later came to be commonplace, but was pretty unique at that time. In those days we recorded on 2” tape and I can remember that the engineer achieved the sound by pressing his thumb on the master tape as he re-recorded it on a second tape.
We recorded a lot of other songs at his studio that I hope are never discovered.
We used to record a lot of our gigs and we still have several reel-to-reel tapes of live performances. The ones from the early "garage band" days are all but inaudible. However, the later recordings (1969-70) sound pretty good. I don’t believe that any of our originals are on the recordings, though.
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| Threshold Of Sound, July 1969 |
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60: Did the band make any local TV appearances? Does any home movie film footage exist of the band?
DJ: I can remember one TV show. We were interviewed and lip-synced one of our records on a local late night show. Red Kagan was the host of a show called New Orleans Night People and he would invite bands to perform. It was on Channel 26, a local UHF channel. (That’s "Ultra High Frequency" for those of you born into the post cable world.) He later had a show called Kagan’s Korner, but I’m pretty sure we were on the earlier show and "performed" our record 'Run to The Morning Sun.' I don’t know of any movie footage but we have two albums full of snapshots thanks to some of our girlfriends. In fact, it is largely due to those photo albums, complete with dates, news clippings and ticket stubs, that I’m able to remember a lot of these things.
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| The Threshold, post Dave Johnson |
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60s: What year and why did the band break up?
DJ: The original band broke up in 1971 and later reformed with some new personnel. We had been together for about five years and some of us were ready for a change. There seemed to be a lot of unrest around this time. We began trying out some new members. We hired a new keyboard player who also had a fabulous voice. I really enjoyed playing with him and, shortly after, he was lured away by someone else to start another band. So I decided to join his new band. When I announced that I was going to leave, Gene Colley and Wayne Molinary decided that they had had enough and dropped out. At that point the band disintegrated. Guys were also starting to get married and playing in a rock band for a living didn’t seem the sensible thing to do as we got older and more "mature." Although we were making decent money by this time. But no one knew how long that could last.
So the Holzenthal brothers, along with the horn section began the work of re-building The Threshold.
Guitarist Dave Ferrato and band mates, Kirk and Karen Steen (from the group Kolour), had joined The Glory Rhodes. After a few gigs, The Glory Rhodes disbanded, and Ferrato and the two Steens formed a "power trio" in the early summer of 1971. Before any performances by the new group, Lee Holzenthal recruited them to join the new version of Threshold with the following lineup: Lee Holzenthal — lead vocal, valve trombone, percussion; Barry Holzenthal — lead vocal, rhythm guitar; Karen Steen — vocals, bass; Kirk Steen — vocals, drums; Dave Ferrato — vocals, lead guitar; Ray Shall — vocals, organ, piano; Rodney Lafon — trumpet; and Ralph Adams — tenor sax, flute.
The repertoire for the new band featured written horn arrangements and was vocal heavy, with layered harmonies featured in many of the songs. During this period, dancing in clubs was not "cool" and most audiences sat and applauded when the group played many complex selections with extended solos from groups like Chicago, Jam Factory, Ballinjax, Ambergris, and Edgar Winter’s White Trash. The first gig for the new group was at Loyola University in the fall of 1971. Most gigs were at the local New Orleans clubs including The Sands, The Nutcracker, and The Stagecoach. Some of the other bands on this "circuit" at the time were Blackmore (featuring earlier Threshold guitarist, Dave Johnson), Orange, and Church. Bassist Karen Steen left the group to get married in the Spring of 1971, and was replaced with Loyola student and bass virtuoso Sam Adams. That summer the band played extended gigs in the beach resorts of Florida while continuing the New Orleans club grind. Barry Holzenthal then left the group to join the military. The tough club scene and economic issues were taking a toll and several attempts were made to downsize the group in an effort to economize. The Threshold played its final performance at the Audubon Tea Room late in 1971. Saxophonist Ralph Adams recorded this performance, which is the only recording that exists of this final version of The Threshold.
During the '80s, Kirk Steen and Dave Ferrato formed a group called Rumboogie, a popular rock and soul group. The horn section went on to join Harry Connick Jr. in the late '80s, and featured trombonist Mark Mullins who today heads up Bonearama.
60s: Did you join or form any bands after Threshold of Sound?
DJ: Yes. I joined my new keyboard player, Walter Barrilleaux, along with Randy Hebert, guitar/vocals; Bobby West, bass; and Steve Marcour, drums in a new group called Blackmore. We were a leaner and meaner cover band and had quite a following in New Orleans. We never went into the studio with this band unfortunately. I played with them for about two years and finally decided to retire from music.
I pursued a career in commercial art after that. My second love was art and I am currently a freelance artist working in Metairie, Louisiana. Our drummer, Gene Colley, got into the freight storage business and owns several warehouses in New Orleans. He approached me sometime back in 2001 and suggested that we get some of the old guys together and play music. (Remember, we hadn’t played in over 30 years.) He said that we could take over some of his warehouse space and use it as a permanent band room. What the hell…the offer was too good to turn down. Our original trumpet player, Rodney Lafon, also joined us. Rodney is now the Superintendent of schools in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Also joining us is Dave Ferrato, the guitar player that replaced me in the Threshold. Although we played in the same band 40 years ago, we never played together — until now.
We eventually equipped the space with professional recording equipment and I began writing again. Only this time I had 40 more years of experience to draw on and I’ve written more than a dozen new songs. So we have actually picked up where we left off in 1971! Our first CD is being mastered as I write this and will hopefully be on iTunes in the near future. The new band is called Rock’n’Horse. (Sometimes we call ourselves "The artists formerly known as Threshold." But we prefer to look forward, not back.) And it is, without a doubt, the best music we’ve ever made. Whether anyone will be talking about it 40 years from now, I guess I’ll never know. But I’m very proud of it.
60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with Threshold of Sound?
DJ: I treasure them. It was my fraternity…something to belong to during my teenage years. All of the youthful adventures that I ever had, I had with those guys, and some of the most lasting friendships. That’s why I’m doing it all over again!
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1) She's Mine (Nettie 101) / Nobody But Us (Nettie 101)
2) Make Believe Girl (MorSoul, MO-005) / Run To The Morning Sun (Mor Soul, MO-006)
3) The Bottle (Knight, KN-102-70) / Which Direction (Knight, KN-102-71)
Unreleased: What More Can I Say, Children Of The Sky
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