Spur welcomes the classic country sound of the Fabulous Sandbillies for a performance following the Big Dog BBQ Cook-off on Saturday night, June 26. The Texas foursome will kick off their show at 8 p.m. at Swenson Park. Admission is free for all ages, with reserved tickets available through the Spur Area Chamber of Commerce (spurchamber@gmail.com or on Facebook).
Familiar favorites by George Strait, George Jones, and Alan Jackson define the band’s style.
“It’s mainly older country dancing music. Our motto is if you can’t dance to it, we don’t play it,” said lead singer and rhythm guitarist Stephen Reynolds.
The cover band was initially called Wooley & The Sandbillies due to the band’s country flavor.
“It was a joke, just about being a country person or hillbilly,” bass player Kermit Wooley explained. The name was suggested by original member and professional bluegrass musician Jake Jenkins, who passed away in Dickens County in 2011 in a tragic crash with his parents while piloting his 1946 Stinson single-engine plane.
Jenkins was an accomplished pilot and a starring banjo player with the Karl Shiflett and Big Country Show, touring in the late 1990s until he joined the Lubbock fire department in order to be closer to his family. Jenkins also played in band called Hickory Hill before forming the Sandbillies with lead guitarist Gary Dunlap, a retired ag teacher in Paducah, and bassist Woolley, who was a retired ag teacher in Spur.
They first performed together for a Lions Club talent show in Paducah. Jenkins imagined the band wearing overalls with red ties—though the others didn’t share that vision.
Reynolds manages USDA offices in Spur and Jayton, though he was the serving in the same role in Paducah when he became involved with the band. Dunlap invited Reynolds over to hear him play in 2007. When Wooley heard him in a jam session the following day, Reynolds joked that they two made him audition twice before making him an official member of the band.
The trio worked together for about three years before the addition of drummer and background vocalist Jeremy Beck in the fall of 2010.
“He was the perfect fit,” said Reynolds, who explained that the group added “Fabulous” to their name after Beck came onboard. Reynolds described Beck’s harmonies as one of the best qualities he brings to the group.
“I would take the guitar or the banjo up there to the school, and Jeremy always loved the old music, so I knew he would fit right in. He knew every word to every song,” Dunlap said of his former student, Beck.
“He’s been drumming on furniture and everything else since he was born,” said Beck’s mother, Connie Beck, who added that he was recruited into the school band in seventh grade because he was so talented.
The four current members have now been playing dances, weddings, and other events together for eleven years. A wedding at Ransom Canyon, Valentine’s dances in Paducah, and Homecoming in Spur have featured performances by the band. They’ve played for the Elks Lodge in Childress and for the rodeo in Benjamin. Every August, they perform for Paducah teachers just before the beginning of the new school year. This was the very first gig the original Sandbillies played after their introduction to the public—a tradition that has continued for nearly twenty years now.
“We like to stay fairly local,” said Reynolds, though the Sandbillies have played for the national Future Farmers of American convention in Canyon, performed alongside Trent Willman at the Motley County 4-H fundraiser, and even opened for Shenandoah in Lubbock for an FFA fundraiser.
They typically perform six to eight dances per year, though 2020 was a bit different for most musicians who played for live audiences due to Covid-19.
The Fabulous Sandbillies recorded a demo with three songs in 2010, though they prefer live performances to recording. The band is currently rehearsing in Paducah in preparation for upcoming shows.
Songs like Bob Dylan’s “Wagon Wheel,” Brooks & Dunn’s “Neon Moon,” and Merle Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” are likely to draw audiences throughout the summer in Texas Spur Country and Caprock Country, as well.
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