McKinney High School students, Danny Goode (lead vocals, bass), Roger Bennett (lead guitar) and Gib Harris (drums) along with Danny's older brother James (rhythm guitar), a student at North Texas State, formed THE EXCELS in 1963. The boys recorded the frantic, frat house swinger "Let's Dance" after being wrangled by Sam Turner, an assistant manager for the Gibson Discount Centers chain caught them in action at a company holiday party. The band wrote the barn burner right there on stage one night while checkout clerks and bag boys gobbled down their turkey dinner. Sam rushed them into the Clifford Herring Studio in Ft. Worth over Christmas break and for $80 the band got four hours of 4-track studio time with the bonus of reverb thrown in for kicks.
"Let's Dance" and the mid-tempo rock-n-roll makeover of Rufus Thomas' "Walking The Dog", (with a fine bit of Chuck Berry styled string bending from Roger Bennett), were released on the conveniently hatched in-house Gibson label in 1965. 1,000 copies were sold exclusively at Gibson stores. The boys were whisked away on a promotional tour, playing at Gibson's Record Jamborees across Texas and Oklahoma. Kids would rock and stomp wildly in the parking lot of their local outlet while mom and dad were inside shopping for housewares and gardening supplies.
BORN OUTTA TIME
Info sourced from Kicks #6 and gripsweat.com
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