(Check out all my music memoir stories for free at pauldemark.substack.com) 

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I was playing drums on a country song when I sensed a fight on the dance floor before I saw it.

When lead singer and bassist Ronnie Tharp saw my reaction, he leaned close to me. Out of the side of his mouth during a pause in a verse, he said, “Paul, just keep playing, if you stop it’s just gonna get worse.”

He was right, of course. The Sons of Redwood Country played right through the fisticuffs as the fight ran its course. Most people kept dancing on the packed floor of the popular Harvey’s Club in Alton, just south of Fortuna in Humboldt  County.

I’d recently been hired to play country music with the Sons Friday through Sunday nights. I was making $50 a gig, or $150 a weekend, while living a few miles south down Highway 101 in Rio Dell. One weekend would pay my $150 monthly house rent and utilities. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index says $50 in September 1975 had the same buying power of $305 in July 2026 — solid money in those days for a young, single guy like me.

I arrived in Rio Dell in March of 1975, 24 years old, for a job to play a guaranteed six months of country music with The Coopers at the Rendezvous Lounge in that small city. I’d work every Friday and Saturday for $50 a night. I’d played in a rhythm and blues band with Fortuna native Jerry Cooper in San Francisco two years prior.

Jerry met his future wife, Karen, in the big city and moved back home. When he called me in early 1975 offering me the job to play in their new country band, I took it. It was far better than what I was doing in the Bay Area.

The quartet played some vintage and modern country songs. I liked learning how to play country. It felt like a natural transition from playing blues with the familiar swinging shuffles. I liked that the drums were oriented to playing what suited a song’s arrangement and gave a drummer freedom to tastefully play musical licks to emphasize the changes.

I thought country offered a wider variety of rhythmic beats to play than the Chicago blues I’d played. (Over the years, I discovered a much wider array of blues song rhythms than I knew at the time.)

As a newcomer to Humboldt, the Rendezvous seemed like a relatively polite place to play compared to some of the rougher clubs I’d played in San Francisco the previous three years. It was a dancing crowd.

I was shy and introverted at the time. I never found a way to talk to people in the crowd who seemed quite different from the Wisconsin or San Francisco people I knew. They didn’t seem overly friendly, but then I wasn’t exactly chatty either.  

The Sons of Redwood Country hosted a jam session on Sunday nights at Harvey’s. I’d go there and play with them. They liked my playing. The club had a much wilder, heavier drinking and partying crowd than The Rendezvous. They also loved to dance.

When my six-month run with The Coopers ended in August, I needed a new gig. One Sunday night at Harvey’s jam session, Ronnie Tharp said their drummer had given a two-week notice and would I like the job?  Of course, I said yes.

I started in September and made $50 a night playing Friday through Sunday.  On Sundays we were the house band for an open country jam session where anyone could play a few songs with us.

The Sons of Redwood Country consisted of veteran musicians, all 20 to 30 years older than me. They had been playing the local honky tonks for a long time.  Ronnie liked my playing and started calling me “silk” because he thought I had a smooth playing style.

Granny Goose (I never knew his real name) played a sweet, Chet Atkins-style electric guitar.  A tall, gentle, friendly man with a Southern drawl, he could play everything from Hank Williams to Ronnie Milsap and Waylon Jennings. The oldest band member, he also enjoyed smoking pot on the set breaks in his car.

Pedal-steel player Wayne McCartney was a lanky, wiry guy with a quick, dry sense of humor. He sported a fresh crew cut every two or three weeks. It was so short, it looked like you could light an old-fashioned stick match on his head. On weekdays he drove his own logging truck carrying redwood logs for a living. He also knew his way around that wailing pedal steel guitar. 

Ronnie, the band leader, showcased his chameleon vocal skills. During weekdays he worked residential construction. On the weekends he could sound like early Elvis, Freddy Fender or Waylon Jennings on successive songs.  Ronnie wore jeans and cowboy boots, and a brown leather vest over a snap-button shirt.

A true showman with a mop of thick black hair, he liked to throw show-business lines to the crowd. My favorite was: “Harvey’s Club, the place to go whether you’re feeling high or low, and especially if you don’t know.”

I lived alone in a small house close to the Eel River in Rio Dell. I spent most of my time alone drumming on a practice pad set, reading spiritual-leaning books, writing poetry and doing yoga.

The only friend I made in my nine months in Rio Dell was a woman in her early 70s. Ernestine Godwin, rail-thin with sun-weathered skin, lived in a single-wide trailer next door with her seven cats. She was smart and fun to talk to over coffee on her tiny patio.  She didn’t seem to like many of her Rio Dell neighbors. I just listened since I was a newcomer and didn’t know them.

I frequently visited glorious swimming holes on the Eel River along the Avenue of the Giants, which winds through towering  redwood groves. On weekday nights I’d drive to Arcata and Eureka to check out the lively music scene — so many clubs and good bands playing in the relatively small cities, each with under 30,000 people. The groups played a wide spectrum of music including rhythm and blues and soul, rock’n’roll, jazz, bluegrass and country.

At Harvey’s Club, with a capacity of around 200, we’d play vintage country and rockabilly songs by Hank Williams, Elvis and Merle Haggard as well as the hits of the day. They included Freddy Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights,” Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?,” and Charlie Pride’s “Kiss an Angel Good Morning.”

The dance floor was full for four sets of music. It was a fun, well-run bar. People just hanging out and the dancers were drinking and letting the good times roll. 

The men, many of whom worked in the timber industry, dressed in jeans and cowboy, snap-button shirts. The younger women often wore western-style blouses tucked into tight jeans or short skirts.

I had bought a run-down, four-door Oldsmobile from a Rio Dell neighbor, Cheryl, for $750. She was a single mother probably around 40 with two young children. I appreciated her giving me a good deal. I’d see her around town when I’d go for walks and say hello.

On a Friday night at Harvey’s, I walked out the front door after our first set to catch some fresh air. Many of Harvey’s customers smoked up a storm while drinking. Thick cigarette smoke constantly swirled through the club.

I took two steps on the wooden front porch when someone on my right blindsided me with a strong punch to my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I doubled over to catch my breath. When I looked up, I found Cheryl staring at me.

“Why did you do that?” I angrily asked her. “Because you refused to sleep with me,” she said.  

“You never even asked,” I said.  It never crossed my mind. She was 10-15 years older than me with two kids. At the time, I was actively working on getting out of Rio Dell and moving to Arcata.

After nine months, I made the move north in January 1976.  But I kept playing at Harvey’s three nights a week into March, a seven-month run.

My friend Harry Duncan called me that month and offered me a chance to do a six-week West Coast tour with Chicago blues pianist Sunnyland Slim and the late Howling Wolf’s phenomenal guitarist Hubert Sumlin. I said yes. The tour started in April.

The next Friday night, I asked my three fellow band members to join me in Granny Goose’s car on a set break. I had news.

As Granny Goose lit up a joint, I told the band that I’d been offered a six-week tour playing with famous Chicago blues musicians.

Wayne asked for a hit off of Granny’s joint, the first time I ever saw him smoke pot. As he blew the smoke out, a smirk crossed his face.  “So, you’re gonna pull the plug on us?” Wayne asked with a laugh.

“Yes. I need to give you guys a month’s notice,” I said.

Ronnie said, “Good luck and keep playing your drums.”

I’m glad I gambled and took a chance coming to the Eel River Valley from San Francisco to play country music for a year. I fell in love with the music and Humboldt County.  I’ve made this place my home for 50 years and counting.

(I will publish a follow-up story on the Humboldt country music scene in the 1970s. Thank you to my editor Pam Long and to Julian DeMark for scanning the Sons of Redwood album cover.)

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This one is Paul DeMark. He is a writer and musician.