Hurricane Katrina hit August 29, 2005, and there now is no visible sign of the restaurant. He performed there with his band "Jerry Fisher and The Music Company." Jerry and Melva sold the restaurant to a San Francisco entrepreneur in the Spring of 2005. On September 30, 1976, they bought the "Dock of the Bay" Restaurant and Nightclub in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi. Planning on staying on the Mississippi Coast for about six weeks to produce an album, Jerry and Melva never left. In 1971 The band, through Columbia Records, released New Blood, from which two songs climbed to the top 20.Īfter leaving BS&T, Jerry and his wife, Melva, spent the next couple of years biking and backpacking their way across the country. Yet, for him, for everyone, all these changes meant time spent rehearsing and reorganizing instead of recording. After Fisher joined BS&T, he was offered the opportunity to record a solo album for New Design but he decided instead to focus on the BS&T. But audiences wanted to hear the big hits, so BS&T picked the most requested ones and performed them in concert along with their current tunes. The other members were pleased about that, wanting to move on with new material. He wanted to join the band as a new singer singing new songs. Transition from solo performer to BS&T įisher had a sizable following and was considered by one Texas music critic as "probably the greatest white blues singer in the business." When Fisher joined BS&T, he didn’t want to sing all the old material sung by David Clayton-Thomas.
He was also recording singles with New Design, a subsidiary of Columbia Records, BS&T’s label. Fisher, at the time, had a great blues band and was playing at his place in Oklahoma City. Two of the tracks with Doyle on keyboards were recorded by Fisher at Columbia studios, and are on the New Blood album. For one reason or the other, things didn't work out with Bobby, and Fisher was chosen as the new singer. ġ971–1972: Recording in New York When BS&T decided to replace David Clayton Thomas, Bobby Doyle went to New York and spent a few weeks playing and recording with the band. Price also harbored artistic differences with the drummer, which led to Fisher firing the only two horn players left – Price and Fletch Wiley (trumpet), adding a female vocalist, and keeping the drummer who, one month later, joined Sonny & Cher. Post said that they'd hear a band with a lot of horns and a white singer who sounded like Ray Charles and they'd think " Blood, Sweat and Tears." Price then grew discouraged about the band ever making it big, despite the fact that the band had a permanent gig at Jerry's in Dallas. Price disagreed, but Post said that audiences wouldn't understand the subtleties that he was talking about. After hearing the demo, Post said that the group sounded too much like Blood, Sweat and Tears. While we were in Tahoe, Jerry and Price flew to Los Angeles to play their demo for composer and producer Mike Post, whom Fisher had met earlier. The group worked mostly in the Dallas area with occasional trips to Oklahoma (Fisher's home state), and a month in Lake Tahoe. Price arranged most of the music and wrote two songs for Fisher. The band's instrumentation was: guitar (Kenneth Ray "Catfish" Renfro 1948–1976), keyboards, bass, drums (Wilford Dahrell Norris, born 1946), and four horns (trumpet, two tenor saxes and trombone), and Fisher. Price agreed and recruited the players, mostly from North Texas, which included Steve Turré, who played not trombone, but bass. Fisher restored it, named it "Fisher's, and opened it January 8, 1971." In the early 1970s, Fisher approached Earl Lon Price (born 1946), a saxophonist studying at North Texas, about being the musical director of a new band he was putting together in Dallas. Fisher, who had been wanting to have his own club, was able to obtained the lease of Nero's Nook located at 3118 Oak Lawn.
Fisher had been performing at Sammy Ventura's, "Gringo's Club Village when a pre-Christmas fire (1970) forced the club to close temporarily close, ending the gig. This 10 piece group opened at the Dunes on Ross ave. The band also performed nightclub circuits in Las Vegas ( Caesars Palace & the Thunderbird), Lake Tahoe ( Harveys), and Oklahoma.ġ970–1971: The Jerry Fisher Group, "Cherokee" In 1970, Fisher formed a group composed of members of the North Texas Lab Bands. 6 Notable sidemen with The Music Companyġ964–1970: "Jerry Fisher and the Night Beats" Beginning around 1964, Jerry Fisher formed "Jerry Fisher and the Nightbeats," a R&B band that performed in popular nightspots around Dallas, such as The Music Box on Cedar Springs, Club Village, Gringos on Oak Lawn, and the Loser's Club on Mockingbird.2 Transition from solo performer to BS&T.