Big Dave & The 45s Release Some Hot Links And Cool Vibes Inspired By Yesteryear’s Sounds

We are five old guys (Bill Allen, Tom Allen, Dave Biddick, Ron Woodburn and Tom Grula – replacing older brother John Grula from the original group) from various towns in Oklahoma, who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Just like nearly everyone from our generation, our world changed forever on Feb 9, 1964 when The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Instantly, you wanted to be in a rock band, any band. You wanted to sing, to learn to play the guitar, or drums. Which, to various degrees, we all did, playing in a variety of garage bands that eventually would die a merciful death. For us, it all came together at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK. All Five of us were on the Varsity Swim Team, and realized that, between us, we had the components for a pretty good group. We started rehearsing and quickly got a paying (that was important!) gig at the local High School dance. The Hot Links were now a real band. From there, we continued to play local events, bars, dances, whatever we could. We were a standard early 1970’s cover band playing standard fare for the time – Beatles, Stones, Van Morrison, Neil Young, etc. We lasted until graduation, and then went our separate ways. Then, Life happens – marriage, kids, jobs, you name it. As individuals, we tried various ways to stay involved with the music that we loved, but it was hard, and kind of inconsistent. Tom Allen put out two great albums of his new material, Ron played in various combos near his new home in South Dakota (and still does), and Dave is always playing in at least one C&W band somewhere. Fast forward 30 years, and we are finally brought together again by swimming – this time at a reunion for the OSU teams. We realized it would be fun to play together again, and we did – at the reunion then a few other places. That’s when the idea for recording together hit us. Bill figured we ought to do something fun before we started dying off. So, we got together and started rehearsing new songs. We did it this way because, as fun as it is to play the oldies live in a club somewhere, why record those songs – who would care? The original versions were pretty dang good, so leave ‘em alone. So, we all brought in original songs that we had (in full or in part) and also put together some others on the spot and soon we had an album’s worth. It was tremendously fun to record them, and see “our” music come alive. We had some CD’s printed up, and got them out as best we could. But, it is hard to make a lot of progress on your own, plus most of us still had full time jobs, careers, families, etc. So, we brought in Laura Patterson and Star 1 records. Now, we are getting some air play on radio stations and getting our music out there. That’s the thrill. Nearly 55 years after The Beatles turned our world upside down, we are living out our musical dreams.

Sure – don’t do what we did! At some point, you have decide if you are serious about music as a vocation or career, or is it just a hobby. We more or less treated music as a hobby for the majority of our lives, and that was fine, we had many other things to do! But, if you are really committed to your music – go for it full time!

We make mistakes playing live all of the time! You just gotta plow through. That’s part of the fun and interest in playing live. When we perform these days, we play a mix of our original tunes and oldies. On our original tunes, it is usually not too obvious if there is a “mistake”. Maybe we wrote it like that! The reality is, most people listening do not really hear all of the “mistakes” that we make (at least that is what they tell me!).

We wish we could truly “tour”, and maybe someday we will. Right now, we live in four different states, and have full times jobs, etc. We are lucky to get to play live together a few times a year.

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We have not been wildly successful promoting our music, obviously. Right now, we are working with Star 1 records, trying to get some radio play. That’s the goal. Otherwise, we sell our CD’s when we do play live somewhere.

I would love to go into the studio with any (or all) Beatle(s), just to watch and see their process for creating and recording a song. Performing live with a Beatle would also be absolutely unbelievable. There are so many others we would love to play with – Neil Young is fantastic live, and every song with him would be an adventure. Of course, Chuck Berry was so great – who wouldn’t want to perform with him? How about The Doors? The list could go on and on – Hank Williams from the old days? BB King? Jerry Lee Lewis? The really high energy guys would be great fun!

Yes! We are trying to get together right now to record a second album. We have some exciting new songs, and many things that we want to try. We just gotta find the time to get together.

Well, basically what are doing now. Work, jobs and families come first, at least for now. We will likely all be retired one day, and would be able to devote a lot more time and energy to our music. We ain’t dead yet!

A CD full of new music, and hopefully more public appearances.

Thanks to Laura and Sherry at Star 1 Records!