| During
this same time, Buzz Busby, Curley
Irvin, and Pete took a job at a place called The
Pine Tavern in DC. They had played The Pine Tavern for
about two months when WRC TV Channel 4,
in Washington DC, called them to play a five-day-a week television
show and wanted to come down to The
Pine Tavern
to check them out. Buzz and Pete put their heads together and
decided they needed a couple more members and
a band name
before they
came down to hear them. |
|
Lee
Cole had taken
Curley's place on the bass because his son, Smitty had returned
from service and he had gone back to North Carolina to play
with him. Pete got on the phone and hired Donnie
Bryant on the five-string banjo and Johnny
Hall on the fiddle.
|
|
Neither
Pete nor Buzz had a full band before this time so they came
up with the band name of Pete Pike and
Buzz Busby and the Bayou Boys and then made an appointment
for the TV guys to come down to view their show on a Friday
night two weeks later.
|
|
There
was a big music contest in Warrenton, Virginia on the weekend
before that appointment and since
Pete already had a hit record
on the charts, he and Buzz wanted to enter it. They got matching
uniforms and entered in the contest down in Warrenton.
Somehow the word got out that they were going to be there and
twelve thousand screaming fans turned out for the show. When
they walked out on that stage you
could not hear one thing they said or played.
|
They
had entered each category and won every event. The judges
got with them after the show and asked if we would be willing
to share some of the prizes with other groups, which they
agreed to do.
Pete
took first place for the vocal category and gave up the award
for the guitar competition. Buzz Busby
took second place for vocals and gave up the award for mandolin.
Donnie Bryant took first place
in the banjo and Johnny Hall
took first place in the fiddle categories.
The
greatest part of that weekend for them was the next Monday
morning when the Washington Post
and Times Herald did a
full-page layout on Pete and the band.
|
|
|
Johnny
Hall, Don Stover, Lee Cole, & Pete
Pine
Tavern, Washington DC
1954
|
