 From Tampa, Florida, this band achieved great success with their mor country rock in the mid-late seventies. Their history however has its roots in the sixties garage scene, where they used to gig around Youth Centers, recreation halls and school gyms.
The band were formed in 1967 when Frank Guidry's Outlaws and Four Letter Words decided to combine forces as The Outlaws (line-up 'B'). After a few months, Frank O'Keefe was recruited from Those Five.
In 1967, they recorded an album in Epic Studios, in New York City, but this and a proposed 45 (Fate) was shelved. The following year, another album was recorded in Criteria Studios, Miami, but again it remained unreleased. Among it's cuts were two songs written by Dick Holler (who wrote Abraham, Martin And John) entitled The Miami New Rock Revival and The Cookie Man. Also recorded in this session were Outlaws titles The Rainbow Band (O'Keefe/Pino) and Kansas City Queen (O'Keefe/Pino-later copyrighted by Hughie Thomasson) and a cover of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl, a song The Outlaws were well known for in their local live performances.
In 1969 they got to open for Janis Joplin at Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa and in the early seventies were a regular attraction in clubs like the Back Door in Winter Park, Grant's Lounge in Macon GA, and Tampa's two great watering holes of the time, the Whippin' Post and the Depot.
Perseverance paid off for the band in the mid-seventies. But, their period of mega-success falls mostly outside of this books time-frame and musical remit. After 1976, early member David Dix rejoined the band but by the late eighties only Hughie and David Dix were left from the early members.
David Dix and Buzzy Meekins also played as session musicians on The Alan Franklin Explosion's second album; whilst Monte Yoho and Billy Jones had a spell with H.Y. Sledge; and Monte Yoho and Henry Paul also played with Sienna. Buzzy Meekins went on to play with Vasser Clements and The Danny Joe Brown Band and also did some work with Paul McCartney. Ronny Elliot, who played bass briefly with The Outlaws in 1969 and early Outlaw Bill Mann also played together in Noah's Ark. |
