David Fuller
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love “Soul Music”. My parents did not approve of the race records of the 1950’s (too much sex and drinking). That’s why I couldn’t get enough of them. It sounded like people were having fun!
So I made a deal with them: if I didn’t complain about going to church on Sunday, I could listen to any station I wanted to in the car ride going home. I immediately turned on WPAL and turned on! It was heaven. I knew that I had to start performing the music I loved.
I began playing in a band almost the same day as I began to play. I started out, just like everybody else, playing in my parent’s garage for the neighborhood kids and then quickly moved on to teen dances like Daniel’s Den at Alhambra Hall in Mt. Pleasant and church socials. When I was sixteen, I began to play in the downtown nightclubs. I told my Mother that I was going to a friend’s to study. That ended my church going days. That was around 1965-66, and, back then, you were taking your life in your hands to be down on Market Street after dark.
I wrote my first song at that time. It was an instrumental called “The Blues Cocktail”. I remember the thrill of seeing people dance to my song.
At College, I played in a band called “Lion”. Woody Windham, the top Columbia DJ at the time, was our manager and helped us sign a record deal with Mainstream Records in 1970 and we recorded down at Criteria Studios in Miami, Fla. Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin and the Amboy Dukes with Ted Nugent were, both, on that label at that time. We had a small regional hit “In My Youth” which got some airplay in the Carolinas. Beach Club promotions was in its infancy and again with Woody’s help, we signed with Cecil Corbett and played a number of big concerts with top national acts.
That band finally broke up and I moved to Atlanta, GA in the mid-1970’s. There I was able to play with some outstanding musicians from all other the South and learned a great deal about music and studio work. I returned to Columbia near the end of that decade and played with another terrific group of musicians: Frank Smoak, Tommy “T-bird” Toglio, and Warren Moise, who later wrote the beach music classic, “Ocean Boulevard” for the Band of Oz. Warren would later play keyboards with The Chairman of the Board (that’s his piano lick on “Carolina Girls”) while attending Law School. Through the years, I have found it to very convenient to have a best friend who is also a lawyer.
After giving my career one more try in Atlanta, it became clear that musical success was not going to happen for me. So I moved back to Charleston and got a real job in the Broadcast business where I continue to work. I have been employed at WCIV-TV 4 in Charleston for the past 23 years.
In 1988, I joined “The Rivieras”, who had been the top band in Charleston since the early 1960’s. That band became “The East Coast Party Band” which I am very proud to say just celebrated our 17th anniversary with five of the original eight members still playing in the band.
I love playing with the “Party Band” and I must admit that after performing for 34 years, I still get just as big a kick out of playing as I did way back in the day playing in my parent’s garage.
David Fuller
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