Note: This series of articles is designed to remember and celebrate all the wonderful bands that have played in the Southern Kentucky region and become a part of its musical history and legacy.  We are continuing our series with the band Slickrock as remembered by former members Mike Clark, Mike Hildreth,  Mike Harpring, Mark Comfort, Bill Judd, Mike Maggard, Vic Beach and Marlene Cherry on behalf of Bennie Beach.

Where did you get the name Slickrock?

Hildreth: The name Slickrock came at a suggestion from Mike Maggard.   We all thought it sounded like us.  The name was based on a small community in Barren County by the same name.  The name in contention at that point was Flatrock.

How and when did the band begin? 

Hildreth: I think it was 1971 till 1978

Judd: I moved to Bowling Green from Greensburg in 1972 to attend WKU.  My introduction to Slickrock came via Mike Clark.  Mike and I immediately became good friends and I am happy to say that we are good friends today.  Mike Clark is also my brother-in-law.  Soon after I met Mike, he invited me to a couple of Slickrock gigs.  Mike and I jammed on several occasions over the next couple of years but never discussed playing together in a band.  I was in Headquarters Boutique one day buying some t-shirts. Bill Greene (the owner) and I had become friends and he knew I was looking for an original rock act to join.  He asked me if I had heard Slickrock recently and I said no. He told me that they had added another guitar player [Ken “Hog Farmer” Smith] and were playing many original songs, so I should go see them.

After hearing the new band configuration, I knew Slickrock was heading in a direction that I had been pursuing, so I approached Mike Clark about joining the band.  Mike set up a jam with Slickrock in his parent’s basement…we jammed on a few songs…had a good jam…and soon after I was asked to join the band.   If my memory serves me correctly, it was in 1975.

Who were the members?

Clark: Here’s the roster:

• Mike Hildreth –1971-1978 – Bass
• Jamie Ebbert – 1971-1978 – Guitar
• Vic Beach 1971-1973 – Drums
• Hal Neel – 1971-1972 –Keyboards
• Mike Maggard – 1971-1973 – Vocals
• Mike Clark -1972-1977 – Guitar
• Mike Harpring -1973-1975-Drums. Vocals
• Chris Snyder – Drums
• Kenny Smith (aka Kenny Lee) 1974-1978 – Guitar
• Bill Judd – 1975-1978 –Drums, Vocals
• Benny Beach – occasional drummer

Hildreth:  Our road crew was always a big part of the Slickrock family,  they included: Mark Comfort, Danny “Coop” Cooper, Roger Anderson,  David “Little” Walker,  Daryl Traughber, B.B. Davis, Brent Browning, and Marc Owens,  who was our Drum Tech and occasional drummer on reunion gigs.

Judd: It would not be right if I didn’t mention Mark Comfort, Danny Cooper and Darrell Traughber.  These guys worked their fannies off to help us prepare for each show.  We were lucky to have such dedicated, great guys working with us during those years and now we are lifelong friends.

What kind of music did you play? 

Hildreth: Slickrock was formed to play heavier music than we had been doing.  Most of us were still doing current hits like Mitch Ryder, Rascals, and Wilson Pickett etc. Slickrock started doing album cuts mostly in the blues genre such as Johnny Winter,  Edgar Winter, Free,  Foghat, Savoy Brown, J. Geils Band, Rolling Stones etc.

After Kenny Smith joined we had three guitars and no keyboard player, so we became really blues-based. It was at this time we started doing a lot of ZZ Top.  I think at one point we played the entire Rio Grande Mud album!  We also started doing more blues covers from people like John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Jimmy Reed and Jeff Beck.  We started rearranging covers like “Ode to Billy Joe”, “Little Red Rooster” and “Who Do You Love?”  to make them our own.

Kenny began to write material for a multi guitar band in a southern rock format with lots of harmony guitar parts but it was mostly based on the shuffle and cut shuffle beats.  This was the heyday of southern rock and we wanted to be the Kentucky southern rock band.  We started opening shows with a Synthesizer version of “My Old Kentucky Home” that was played to total darkness and then we started our set.  The Atlanta Rhythm Section started with “Gone With the Wind” so why not?

Silent Slickrock video from 1975

Harpring: At first the other members were Mike, Mike and Jamie then this hog farmer from Nobob, KY (Ken Smith) showed up all dressed in fancy clothes so we let him get up front.  He was a good picker and the girls loved him.  The band did strictly cover songs when I first joined.  Kenny left Buster Brown and Louisville about the time I started at Western.  He was looking to play and Slickrock was a logical fit for his songs and style.  “Sharon Share Alike” was a sweet but sad song.  Then there was “Does this go to the Disco in Frisco Cisco?” – what a hook! 

Can you name a few of the cover songs that Slickrock performed?

Hildreth: “Morning Dew” –Jeff  Beck, “Bad Motor Scooter” – Montrose, “Maybelline” – Chuck Berry, “Ode to Billy Joe” – Bobbie Gentry, “Little Red Rooster” – Howling Wolf, “Thunderbird”, “Waitin on the Bus”, “Jesus just left Chicago”- ZZ Top, “Sweet Mary”- Argent, “Let the Good Times Roll”- B.B. King, and “Live with Me” by the Rolling Stones

Comfort:  ZZ Top’s “Francine”, “Ride My Chevrolet” and “Just got Paid” as some of my favorite cover tunes. “Six Days on the Road” was a great one.  The only originals I remember are “Dark Eyes” and “Hog Farmer” by Kenny Smith and “Breastplate of Fire”  by Jamie Ebbert.  I sure wish I had a CD of one of our gigs so I could hear the boys one more time.

Harpring:  Well, we did about everything from ZZ Top’s  first two albums. “Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers” was our theme song. It could have been written about Bowling Green at the time.  We did a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd too. I heard they wrote “Three Steps” about Jamie.

Did you write your own material?

Hildreth: Kenny Smith wrote songs like “Barren River”, “No Tell Motel”, “Working Man”, “Dark Eyes”, “Hog Farmer”, “My Guitar’s Hot”, “Cold on the Highway”, “Streets of Nashville”  and “Who’s that Girl?” [Who’s That Girl can be heard in the Amplifier’s local music jukebox] Jamie Ebbert wrote “Breastplate of Fire”.

What sorts of gigs did you guys typically play?  Clubs?  H.S. Dances?  Festivals?

Cherry:  Slickrock was considered the house band for the ATOs.  I know because I was president of their little sisters and spent a lot of time in the basement dancing happily to their music.

Harpring: We mostly played for the college age crowd, fraternity and sorority parties. Bars and a couple of Spring Breaks in Daytona.

Beach: People loved to boogie to Slickrock’s high energy danceable music.  We played a lot at all kinds of places: J C Pavilion before Rory Gallagher, Electric Circus in Nashville Lynyrd Skynyrd (before their first album came out), big WKU parties including the usual frat and sorority parties, the infamous Senator’s Club, a few clubs in Louisville and for some of you oldies, the Wine Barrel in Bowling Green.

Can you tell us about one or two particularly interesting gigs?

Hildreth: One gig that stands out for me for lots of reasons is when we played at a little road house bar in Clarksville, TN.  I can’t remember the name but it was small and HOT as in temperature! No AC! Supposedly Jimi Hendrix played there while stationed at Fort Campbell.  We played for two weeks in July.  They gave us a room above the club to stay in.  It had one bedroom and a pool table.  No AC so the windows were always open.  This allowed a bunch of flies to come in at will.  We dubbed it “Fly City.”   Two bar waitresses that worked there happened to be sisters who lived in a little trailer out back of the club.  Let us just say that one of the guitar players became friendly with both of them.  This led to a brawl between the girls that ended in one throwing the other one’s clothes out of the trailer. We sat around during the day listening to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.  It was quite a fun time.

Daytona Beach in ’75 was really fun.  We played at the Safari Beach Motel which was located directly on the beach.  We played by the pool each night to the college Spring Break crowd.  Once, we got a great deal to open a series of shows with the band Exile from Lexington in 1975.  It wasn’t much money but it was one of the most fun gigs we ever had.  We played with them lots of places like Reflections in Cincinnati, the Family Dog in Richmond and other shows.  It was always fun to play with Exile.

Of course, the shows in Atlanta were the musical high spot for us. Playing with R.E.O. Speedwagon and Leslie West in that venue was the high mark for us I think. We played Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom in Atlanta a few times.  We opened for Goose Creek Symphony in B.G., Kraftwerk in Memphis as well as The Charlie Daniels Band and Wet Willie in Owensboro.

Harpring: Another memorable gig was New Year’s Eve 1974 playing in Louisville for one of Western’s more lively fraternities.  A little after midnight, the president of the fraternity was having a disagreement with one of his frat brothers.  Just as things really heated up, Mike Hildreth got in the middle of it to try to break it up.  One good swing and Mike ended up with a broken nose. 

There was a  two week gig at a quaint nightspot called The Palms located on the beautiful Ringgold Valley near Clarksville, TN.  It was across HWY 41 from Fort Campbell.  We were provided with the penthouse accommodations above the club. The girls frequently focused their attention on Jamie, especially the two sisters who lived in the trailer behind the club. (That’s another story to itself!)  This was a time when more was better.  And the beer purchased on the army base was cheap.  I don’t know how, but we drank 8 cases in one 24-hour period.

Judd: Some of my most memorable gigs were with REO Speedwagon, Leslie West, Barefoot Jerry and Hydra. To me, a rock show contains both great performances by the musicians and special effects and theatrics.  I wanted to bring some additional special effects/theatrics to Slickrock that would enhance the light show they had developed   They cautiously agreed to let me start fires on stage and ignite explosive devices …Ha! What were they thinking?  At the end of every show we would close with “Guitars Hot” which had a drum solo at the end.  About halfway through my solo, I would toss my drumsticks, Marc Owens would hand me some tympani mallets that were ablaze and I would finish my drum solo in the dark with these flaming mallets. Marc would soak the felt tips in kerosene, shake out the excess, set them on fire and then hand them to me from behind a Marshall stack.  The funny part is that it was hard to know when to stop shaking out the fuel and many times my drumheads would catch on fire from excess fuel.  To my rescue came Marc. Using a squirt gun, he would keep extinguishing each drumhead as it would catch on fire.  Marc Owens is a great guy to work with and a good friend.

Did you go on tour?

Hildreth:  We did not tour but we spent a lot of time on the road when we opened for Exile.

Did you ever make a record? 

Hildreth:  We did not make a record but we were in the studio several times and made demos.

Harpring: In the summer of 1975, we recorded some demos at Fultz studio in Fairdale, KY, Jat Petac, engineer.  I made an audio recording of us playing at Daytona Beach in 1974,  We were a little out of tune that night and it seems like we played everything a little faster and harder than we needed to but, we did a good job of warming the crowd up for The Exiles.

Beach: There was no record deal, just good hard playing fun with some great local musicians. 

What happened to the band?

Hildreth: We broke up in ’75 or ’76 I think.  Mike Clark left the band and a potential record/management deal had not worked out.  Southern Rock was fading and disco was the popular music of the day.  We decided to hang it up at that time.

What do you think folks remember about Slickrock?

Hildreth:  I think people who remember Slickrock think of all the fun they had when we played. We were playing blues rock to a rock and roll crazy bunch of people.  They didn’t complain about the volume; they liked it loud. This was a time when people really cared about the bands and the quality of the music mattered to them.  I think we delivered that to them.

For all the gear geeks (like me) out there, Slickrock was one of the first bands around here to use Marshall stacks and Les Pauls.  Nobody else was doing that until we did.  It defined our sound.

Harpring: A lot of people associate us with their college days so they remember us going at it hard and fast.  We were the only local “rock” band at the time.  At one of the fraternity parties, a frat bro got up and jammed away hard playing air guitar.  Everyone swore that he sounded great!  So yeah, you start with a bunch of college students who are full of pent up energy and ready to let loose, then add all that beer (and whatever else) you can consume.  Then you rock them out on ZZ Top, Foghat, Chuck Berry etc played over 110dB for four hours. I’d say we generally got good reviews.

Beach: I feel like we created a solid foundation for rock in Bowling Green during those days and I loved every minute of it.

Do you keep up with each other?  Do you ever get together now?

Hildreth: We do keep up with each other and we sometimes jam together whenever possible.  Mike Clark, Kenny Smith and I still live and play around B.G.  Jamie lives in Clearwater, FL and sometimes comes for visits and Billy Judd is always here a couple times a year. The early members of the band are close by too. So we talk to each other from time to time. We haven’t done an organized reunion in a while but if we get a quorum of members, we will jam!

Comfort: Would like to see Jamie, Marc Owens and Danny Cooper again.   It’s been probably 20 years or more.  I still run into the three Mikes every so often and we email once in awhile.

Cherry: I thoroughly enjoyed the Slickrock reunion held at Checks.  They drew such a good crowd, that it wasn’t long after that Checks added another ballroom which they needed to do anyway.

What are each or you up to now?

Hildreth: I am currently teaching school and playing in Skip Bond and the Fugitives. 

Comfort: It’s funny. It seems that the time I spent with Slickrock kind of set the stage for my career as a behind the scenes guy.  I’ve spent my post-Slickrock days as a creative professional.  I’ve been a TV station Art director, as ad agency Creative Director, writing, producing and directing spots for TV and radio.  Right now, I’m sort of “sleeping with the enemy.”  I work as a Graphics Specialist with EKU.

Judd: After I graduated from WKU with a B.S. in chemistry and a minor in music, I moved to Houston for a couple of years and then to Massachusetts where I have lived for 25 years.  I have been an Environmental Health and Safety consultant for 23 years and currently run a small company.  I have played in several bands since Slickrock but none as successful or fulfilling.  Although my main instrument was drums when I was in Slickrock, I have played guitar in most bands since then.  I write my own material these days and plan to officially release a CD sometime this year. 

Beach: I moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 1973.  I moved back home in 1996.  I live in Kingston Springs, a suburb of Nashville.  I teach Math at Nashville School of the Arts, an Arts Magnet School for Metro School District.  I suppose I finally found a way to blend my Math and Music.  I have my own group, Victor Beach Clear Light.  Like my Slickrock days, I am still the drummer, but unlike those times I have become a songwriter and singer as well… all those years in LA coming through.  We play a little around Nashville and currently we are working on a CD of some of my original tunes.  Dave Dorris, another Bowling Green boy, is my bassist so; we never seem to fall too far from the tree.

Harpring:  I graduated from Western in August 1975.  The other guys in the band decided to get another drummer rather than give me two weeks’ notice. I moved to Louisville and got on at WDRB-TV.  Billy Judd picked up drumming duties and fit right in. It was like a hand in a glove.  Other than 4 years playing in bands and working at a music store in Louisville, I have been doing audio for the TV business for 34 years. For a few years, I was sore about getting fired from the band but that was the best thing for everybody.  My career was and is in Louisville.  I haven’t played with the guys since 1975, but we talk every so often and keep saying we’ll get together and play sometime

Thanks so much for taking time to reminisce.  Anything else to add?

Hildreth: I would like to add that Slickrock came to be because of a music culture that existed in B.G. at that time.  There were places to play and people that supported it in big numbers.  That legacy is still here but I hope that this community can someday get back to that supportive response.  It was a big deal when Slickrock and other bands played locally.  Hopefully that scene with return.

Judd: I loved playing with these guys.  Mike Clark, Jamie Ebbert, Mike Hildreth and Ken Smith…they were all great guys and could really play.   We had a kind of brotherhood and a friendship that was irreplaceable.  We were serious as a heart attack about our music but boy, did we have fun. I felt very lucky to be a part of Slickrock.  Many thanks to all the guys in Slickrock and all the others who supported us during our time – long live rock and roll!

Last but not least, it is almost impossible to pursue your dreams if no one believes in you or you don’t believe in yourself.  I have been fortunate throughout my life to have parents and a great sister who supported me from the beginning-through the good times and the not so good times.  Also, over the past 23 years my wife [Jackie] has picked up where they left off.  Without her support and constant encouragement, I would not be as close to my dream as I am today.

Beach:  Thanks for giving me this chance to remember, or should I say try to remember what it was like in those days.  Maybe this will stir the pot for a reunion. Now wouldn’t that be a sight and sound for Bowling Green!

Jack Montgomery is a librarian, author and associate professor at Western Kentucky University where he handles bookings for musical acts in University Libraries, Java City coffeehouse. Jack has also been a professional musician since 1969 and performs with a local folk duet called “Shadowdancer” with Graham Hudspeth.