Steve Weichert & the Five Dollar Band, Self-Titled
The story of an Oklahoma Bossa Nova cult classic, just reissued digitally through Frederiksberg Records
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.
Steve Weichert is the self-titled debut album from the late American singer-songwriter Steve Weichert and the Five Dollar Band. Over twelve poetically poised songs, Steve’s voice, with its deep sense of yearning, intertwines with sunkissed guitar figures, sometimes accompanied by cello, harp, harmonica, electric piano and shakers, sometimes stripped bare, but always arranged in service of the spirit of the song. Rendered in a style equal parts folk, soul, country, jazz, psych, and lounge, which Steve described as “Oklahoma Bossa Nova”, the album unfolds like a series of summertime daydreams about young love, loss, reflection, and the land.
The youngest of three brothers, Steve was born on Christmas Day, 1947, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Raised on old-time gospel, vocal jazz, show tunes, musicals, and the singer’s singer, Johnny Mathis, he found his voice through folk music in the early sixties. At the end of his junior high school year, his parents placed a Gibson acoustic guitar under the Christmas tree for him. After reading a Mel Bay chord book and discovering Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, John Denver and Pete Seeger through Peter, Paul and Mary, Steve blown away. Within a year, he had written his first song on guitar. However, at that point in his life, music played second fiddle to his passion for sports: pole vault, cross-country running, wrestling, golf and tennis.
In 1966, Steve graduated from Edison High School in Tulsa and headed to Norman, Oklahoma. Over the next four years, he completed a degree in Public Relations at The University of Oklahoma’s journalism school. He took part in university variety show competitions and often sang and played the guitar at his fraternity house, Phi Delta Theta. During his junior year, Steve and his housemates, J Mack Slaughter Sr. and Lambert Phillips, formed a Crosby, Stills & Nash style folk trio, The Lid. All of them were completely oblivious that the term “lid” was slang for an ounce of marijuana. As the anti-Vietnam War movement built strength on campus, Steve lost that naivete.
In his senior year, Steve, Lambert, and Jay Gabbard, a hot-shot guitarist from Ardmore, Oklahoma, formed Alsace Lorraine, a rock band influenced by Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Cream, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles. After they graduated from university in 1970, Alsace Lorraine disbanded, only to reunite eighteen months later in Tulsa as The Great Potemkin. During these years, Steve’s long songwriting journey began to bear fruit. Taking influence from Jay’s guitar technique, he wove jazz-rock and romantic ballads together with a folk fingerpicking style, laying the foundations for the rest of his musical journey.
In 1973, Steve moved to Austin, Texas, with his first wife Becky and began playing a mixture of originals and covers at local folk clubs and venues. There, he reconnected with Jay and Lambert, laying the foundations for his new group, Steve Weichert & The Five Dollar Band, after receiving a grand total of $5 for a gig at Toad Hall.
The following year, Steve and The Five Dollar Band headed into Odyssey Sound Ltd. in Austin and Nightfire, Inc. in Norman to record Steve’s self-titled debut album, released in 1975 through Barky Records. The heart of those sessions was the interplay between Steve’s intuitive talent for songwriting and Jay’s virtuosic abilities as an instrumentalist, as heard best through the intimate brilliance of 'Stranded' and 'Spinnin' Round'. Fittingly, given their history as friends and collaborators, Jay penned two songs on the album ‘Blue Bandana’ and ‘Wellin’ Time’ (co-written with his wife, Susan).
By the end of 1974, The Five Dollar Band had two new members, a drummer/vibes player Pogo Pine, and on harmonica and congo drums, David Teaff. After releasing the album, they joined Jack Long’s Sum of Us booking agency and toured throughout Oklahoma, Colorado, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, and Arizona, before relocating to Norman, Oklahoma. By the end of 1976, The Five Dollar Band had broken up, Steve and Becky were separated, and Steve had returned to Norman, Oklahoma.
In 1979, Steve, Jay and friends headed into No Sweat Studios to record Steve’s second album Oklahoma Bossa Nova for Desire Records. In the wake of its release, Steve shared the stage with country, folk and rhythm & blues legends like John Prine, Bonnie Bramlett and Delbert McClinton.
Over the next four decades, Steve lived a full life. He played in a Norman dance band, The Sensational Shoes, and moved to Oklahoma City to co-own and manage a Mexican Restaurant, The Santa Fe Crossing. In OKC, Steve met his second wife, Judy, who was tragically murdered in 1984. Heartbroken, he moved back to Austin, where he worked as a remodelling contractor, qualified as a master carpenter, and retrained as a registered massage therapist. Along the way, he recorded four more albums, If You’ve Ever Been In Love (1984), Abide By The Light (1994), Between The Lines (2003) and As Always In Love (2011).
In 1999, Steve met the love of his life, his third wife, Andrea Turner. Over the previous fifteen years, he’d only performed in public a handful of times. Once Andrea entered his life, all of that changed. During the final decade of his life, Steve performed regularly at intimate house parties and backyard concerts across Austin, sometimes heading out of town to play at The Depot and The Chouse in Norman, Oklahoma, and The Blue Door, a storied live venue in Oklahoma City. Outside of music, he pursued loves of golf, gardening and cooking and used his carpentry skills to build a beautiful home for Andrea and himself in the countryside outside of Austin.
In 2013, Steve passed away, surrounded by his close friends and family, aged 65. Just shy of a decade on, Frederiksberg Records is proud to present the first official reissue of Steve’s self-titled debut masterpiece. Over the last 47 years, his album, the work of a profound songwriter with a golden voice, has aged like a fine wine. We invite you to spend some time with the music, a set of exquisite songs where every listen reveals new layers of depth and meaning.
Steve Weichert is out now through Frederiksberg Records (buy here)