Crockett

Local rock band with one song on the Gathering at the Depot album from 1970

Contents:

 

History

CROCKETT

Early 1970: Larry Hofmann and Dan Burniece were working in construction, part of a crew employed to revamp the former Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Minneapolis into a new nightclub to be called The Depot. Larry played bass guitar and Dan Burniece played drums.

April 3, 1970: The Depot opened featuring Joe Cocker, who was on his “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour. The new venue featured local bands as well as regional/national/ international acts. Typically, a local band was hired to open up shows for the big name acts.

Just a few weeks after the club opened, Poco was booked at The Depot, along with an opening band. However, the opening band did not show up and the staff at The Depot knew that Larry Hofmann and Dan Bernice were both musicians and asked them if they wanted to fill in for the opening band. By chance, Tom Husting, a guitar player was at the show and became aware of the situation. He offered to join Larry and Dan onstage for the improvised set.

The three musician s hit the stage and basically jammed as the opening act for about twenty minutes, with no vocals. They had never practiced before and had no song list. The management at The Depot was pleased enough with their performance that they offered the group a house gig if they could put a full band together.

Within a few weeks, the three musicians contacted a musician friend of theirs, George Miller, to see if he might be willing to join them in a new band and the four decided to get together. This occurred in the basement of George’s house on Aldrich Avenue South in Minneapolis. On the first song, George played organ and sang “Darlin’Be Home Soon” by The Lovin’ Spoonful.” Everything clicked according to Larry and Tom and the group became a four-piece with George on the Hammond B3 organ and rhythm guitar. George, Larry and Dan all did lead vocals.

The band did not have an official name and were sometimes booked as “The Band Without A Name.” Finally, after playing at The Depot for around six months, Larry came up with name for the band: Crockett. The band played music that consisted of more of the obscure album cuts by progressive/psychedelic bands including: Derek and the Domino’s; Rhinoceros; Humble Pie; Procol Harum; Cream; the Nazz; and Spooky Tooth.

At that time period, all of the band members were all fond of the music by Little Feat and the Band, although they did not cover any of their songs.

At the Depot, the band went on to headlining shows on the weekdays and open shows for more major acts including the James Gang, Frank Zappa, the Kinks, Richie Havens, and BB King. At the BB King concert, BB King handed Tom his guitar (known as Lucille) and asked Tom, “Do you want to play Lucille?” Tom took him up on the offer and for a few minutes played on BB King’s guitar.

Fall, 1970: Alpha Productions recorded number of local bands playing live at The Depot, for a promotional album to be released early in 1971. One of the bands was Crockett, who played “Dear Landlord,” a Bob Dylan song that the group had heard by Joe Cocker. Following the recording of the live version of the song, George decided to re-do the vocal track at Sound 80, located in Edina. A number of other bands on the album also did studio over-dubs at Sound 80.

1971: The band starts playing a new venue,  the Home Bar in Minneapolis, on a regular basis. They did play some one-off jobs, including a prom dance in Waseca ( located south of  the Twin Cities metro area.

Fall, 1972: Crockett played their final job at the Home Bar. They were booked for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the club. For the last show, Tom brought along a Sony cassette tape recorder with a Radio Shack cassette tape and set it up on one of the tables and recorded the entire show. Following the show, the band and their friends, gathered at George’s place to celebrate the final job and someone walked off with the cassette tape of their last show.

Update:

In early, 1973, Crockett played once again at the Home Bar, this time for a memorial concert for two North Dakota musicians who died in a tragic car accident while driving in a snow storm.

In 1988, sixteen years after the cassette tape of the band’s last show went missing, the person who took the cassette tape, returned it to Larry who was working in a local studio at the time and was able to play the tape and transfer it to a reel to reel tape and then to a cassette and eventually over time, edited the tape and transferred it to a CD.

Tom Campbell

April 13, 2020

Copyright by Thomas R. Campbell – 2020

 

Photos  (Click a photo to see it full-screen, then click the arrows to see the next one.)

Crockett at Home Bar, Minneapolis –  1971

(L to R): George Miller, Larry Hofmann, Dan Burniece, Tom Husting

Photo by Mike Barich

 

Recordings

 

Bandtree

 

Larry Hofmann   Bass guitar and vocals  1970  –  1972

Thunderbeats

Group DeVille

Prince and the Paupers

Mike Glieden and the Rhythm Kings

Only Ones

Best Things

USA’s

Madhatters

Happy Dayz

Skin Trade

Crockett

Chicken Lips

Passage

Hoot

Fat Chants (WI)

 

TOM HUSTING    Guitar    1970 – 1972

Dudley and the Doo Rytes

Castaways

Blackwood Apology

Sparklers – Underbeats – Accents – Trivia – Avantis

Last Chance

City Mouse

Crockett

Trvia

Underbeats

City Mouse

Prichard and Denim

Truck Stop (TN)

Various Bands (Red Wing, MN)

Various Bands (San Diego, CA)

City Mouse – Bad Liquor Management

Nazmo King

 

George Miller    Organ, guitar and vocals    1970 – 1972

Choir Crystal

Crockett

Straight Up

 

Dan Burniece    Drums and vocals    1970 – 1972

Cisco Grove

Sparklers

Crockett

Hoot

Band at Calhoun Beach Hotel

 

 

Where are they now?

Larry Hofmann: Living in Minnesota, playing bass guitar in Nazmo King.

Tom Husting: Living in Wisconsin, works in guitar manufacturing, playing in bands.

George Miller: Living in Minnesota, no longer playing music.

Dan Burniece: Living in Minnesota, no longer playing music.

 

Interview

picture

Interview PART ONE

audio