Mike Waggoner & the Bops

Mike Waggoner and the Bops, ca. 1956-1958
Taken from the front cover of Norton LP ED-406

Mike Waggoner and the Bops

Kings of Minnesota Rock'n'Roll

Mike Waggoner and the Bops were a regional Minneapolis, Minnesota, rock'n'roll group. Norton Records once dubbed them "The Kings of Minnesota Rock'n'Roll" and although there were more successful groups from the Mid-North, there were few that had a more energetic sound than Waggoner and the Bops. Author Seth Bovey once called them "one of the earliest and most influential garage bands in Minneapolis".

The band's leader was born in 1940 and made his first experiences in the music business at the age of 10 years. Waggoner came from a musical family, most of his relatives played an instrument. Growing up on a farm in rural Pine County, East Minnesota, he was influenced by country music at an early age and began to perform with his father's country band. In 1953, Waggoner appeared on three different local TV talent shows: the Topy Prin Talent Show on WCCO, the Jimmy Valentine Talent Show and the David Stone Talent Show, both on KSTP.

In the fall of 1954, the family moved to Richland, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Waggoner began to listen to local DJ Carl Peterson on WLOL. He also tuned in to such powerful stations as WLS from Chicago, KHJ from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and KOMA from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and discovered rockabilly and rock'n'roll music. During 1955 and 1956, Waggoner became a fame of such artists as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Bill Haley and the Comets, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, and others. 

While in high school, Waggoner decided to put together a band for a one-off variety show, performing a couple of Elvis Presley songs. Overwhelmed by the screaming response of the young girls in the audience, he organized the band as a steady outfit with him on vocals and rhythm guitar, his brother Colin "Collie" Waggoner on lead guitar, Dick Benedict on rhythm guitar, Doug Barton on saxophone, Rusty Bates on string bass, and Lyle Gudmanson on drums. The group first performed at a record hop hosted by Carl Peterson at the St. Richard's Catholic Church in Richfield. The band was still nameless and asked by Peterson, Waggoner came up with "The Bops", inspired by Gene Vincent's minor hit "Dance to the Bop".

Seth Bovey tells a different story in his book "Five Years Ahead of My Time" how the band came along: One day in 1957, Gene Vincent drove up in his shiny Lincoln to a gas station owned by Waggoner's uncle, and Waggoner, who worked there at the time, serviced Vincent. Inspired by this incident, he decided to form a band. This story differs largely from Waggoner's own account, however.

During the next two years, the Bops played various venues in the area, mostly sock hops hosted by Carl Peterson, including such locations as the Ford Union Hall in St. Paul, the Laidlaw VFW in Minneapolis, the Bloomington Roller Rink, among others, as well as school events. At that time, none of the members were able to drive a car, therefore their parents stepped in to transport the band and its gear to the gigs. The year of 1958 brought some line-up changes, as the different members graduated from high school and some of them left for college. Bates and Gudmanson joined Sherwin Linton in the Rockateers for the 1958-1959 period. Waggoner and his brother continued as a four-piece band with Sheldon Hasse on bass and John Lentz on drums. Among their many performances was a steady job at the Crystal Coliseum.

During the years, the popularity of Waggoner and the Bops grew. They rose to one of Minnesota's most influential and most popular rock'n'roll groups, playing countless venues and spots in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin as well as their home base, the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Several artists listed them as an influence, including the Trashmen, a band that hit big later with "Surfin' Bird". "The king around here at the time was Mike Waggoner and the Bops", said Tony Andreason of the Trashmen. "He was absolutely our idol. And Colly Waggoner was very good, if not maybe the best picker around. Over time, when Colly couldn't play a job, then Mike would call me and I play", he is cited in "Everybody's Heard About the Bird" by Rick Shefchick. Butch Maness, who would later replace Sheldon Hasse on bass in the Bops, recalled in that same book about the band: "That was my idol. I thought that was the best band in the world. I saw them at the Crystal Coliseum. Wow. [...]"

Despite their popularity, the Bops didn't make any recordings until the early 1960s. On March 13, 1961, the band went to Kay Bank Studios to lay down a slew of recordings, most of them covers. During its lifetime, the band only had few original compositions in its repertoire and concentrated on cover versions of rock'n'roll hits of the day. While at Kay Bank, they browsed through their set list and cut such songs as "Good Rockin' Tonight" (Roy Brown/Elvis Presley), "Work with Me Annie" (the Royals), or "Bye Bye Johnny" (Chuck Berry).

The session was produced by Bing Bengtsson, who also managed successful artist Bobby Vee. Bengtsson took two of the Bops' recordings, the Dale Hawkins cover "Baby, Baby" plus a band's original instrumental composed by Collie Waggoner entitled "Basher #5", and released them on his own Vee label (#7002) in April 1961. Although "Basher #5" was the designated A side, their cover of "Baby, Baby" started getting airplay from such jockeys as Bill Diehl at WDGY or Sam Sherwood at KDWB. With approximately 1,500 to 2,000 copies pressed, the disc remained a local hit, though.

In the years to come, Waggoner and the Bops continued to play very successful in Minnesota and surrounding states. In June 1964, club owner Ray "Big Reggie" Coulihan called the band to perform at his Danceland club in Excelsior. The Bops were the opening act for another band, the still unknown Rolling Stones from Great Britain, who were set to perform there on June 12, 1964. Different factors led to a gig that went not as well as expected: little advertisement, high admission, plus the fact that the Stones were still unknowns in the US at that time. Only 200-300 people attended the show, many of them came rather to see the Bops than the Stones, and the audience received the Stones polite but reserved.

Waggoner and the Bops tried their hand at recording one more time in late December 1964 at Dove Recording Studio in St. Louis Park (another suburb of Minneapolis). That day, the line-up consisted of Waggoner, Dave Clausen on lead guitar (replacing Colin Waggoner who was in the service), Butch Machess on bass, and Lentz. Another session at the same location took place in March 1965 (with Colin Waggoner back on guitar). From those two sessions, the two originals "Blue Days Black Nights" (which was not only similar in title to the Buddy Holly song but also in style) and "Where and When" were released on the short-lived studio in-house Dove record label the same year. This disc enjoyed some airplay on WCCO.

In the fall of 1965, Waggoner and the Bops were offered a place on a tour through Australia and New Zealand, where American rock'n'roll (and at that time evolving rock music) was still very popular. Waggoner, married and father of two young children, declined, however, and decided to take his life into another direction. The Bops disbanded in 1965, playing their last performance at the Woodley's Country Dam near Amery, Wisconsin.

Waggoner pursued another career in radio as a DJ as well as music and program director. From 1965 until 1976, he could be heard on WEAQ in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on WEBC in Duluth, Minnesota, and on WDGY in Bloomington, Minnesota. He then moved into the sales department of WCCO until 1981 and finally became station manager of radio KJJO. Later in the 1980s, he also worked in sales for KMSP-TV and KSTP-TV. Since the 1970s, Waggoner had resumed playing with bands. Since 1974, he had performed with a group called "The Music Machine" and, since 1981, performed with the Bops on special occasions.

In 2005, he founded the "Old School Rockers" and another five years later, established the band "Memphis Trax", playing a mixture of rock'n'roll, boogie, and rhythm and blues. With this outfit, he also recorded an album. Since 2013, he also performs with a band called "Roadhouse". A 2010 interview with Tom Campbell from minniepaulmusic.com led to Waggoner's first appearance in Europe at the Ubangi Stomp Festival in Spain. Several appearances at both American and European festivals followed, including Hemsby, the Pondarosa Stomp, and the Good Rockin' Tonight Festival in France.

Mike Waggoner and the Bops were inducted into the Midwest Music Hall of Fame in 2008. They performed during the celebration at the Medina Ballroom.

Much of the band's recordings were issued in 1983 on the White Label LP "Minnesota Rock-a-Billy-Rock, Volume 4". Since then, their recordings have been featured on several reissue LPs and CDs. The most complete overview of the Bops' work gives the 2015 released Norton Records LP "The Kings of Minnesota Rock'n'Roll", which misses their Dove single, however, and is already out of print.


Mike Waggoner appearing at Hembsy 53 in October 2014, performing "Hey Mama" and "Guitar Man" with the Hemsby House Band


Mike Waggoner and the Roadhouse band perform "Good Rockin' Tonight" in December 2012

Recommended reading
• Memphis Trax
• Concert chronology

Sources
• Thanks to Mike Waggoner for sharing his memories with me.
• Mike Waggoner official website
• Mike Waggoner and the Bops on bearfamily.de
• Discogs
• Mike Waggoner and the Bops Timeline on minniepaulmusic.com
• SecondHandSongs
• Rockin' Country Style entry
• 45cat entry
• Twin Cities Music Highlights: The Rolling Stones at Danceland
• Rick Shefchick: "Everybody's Heard About the Bird: The True Story of 1960s Minnesota Rock'n'Roll" (University of Minnesota Press), 2015
• Seth Bovey: "Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present" (Reverb), 2019