Old Door County Rockers just Keep Rollin'

Ed Huyck

For Mike Raye, it all started with the Beatles.

“I remember when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. Nothing could ever recreate the anticipation. We saw them one Sunday, and then had to wait a whole week to see them again.”

In those pre iTunes, satellite radio, even FM days, rock ‘n’ roll could be a tough commodity to hear in Door County, so it’s no surprise that the Beatles made such an impression on Raye. And like so many other teenagers in the 1960s, Raye quickly turned to music, starting junior and high school bands and having a grand time playing the songs of the era.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Raye never stopped.

You can see him and other longtime rockers on stages throughout the county every weekend, keeping their music dreams alive.

“When things sound right and I see the great response from the people, for me that’s what it is all about,” Raye said.

Raye played in his first band while in eighth grade at Corpus Christi. “None of us could actually play our instruments, but we had a great time,” he said. From there, came more serious combos in high school. Their passion was fueled by the bands that came through for the school’s weekly dances – from the Byrds to the Turtles to the Spencer Davis Group.

“We saw some awfully good groups – and the bands we were in were sometimes part of the bill,” Raye remembers.

During the time, Raye and future Sturgeon Bay mayor, Bob Starr played in competing bands. Starr’s passions were fueled in a similar way to Raye’s, though Starr got even a closer look at some of the acts.

“The Turtles came and stayed at my house,” said Starr. “They all wrote their names on the shelving of one of our kitchen cabinets. I begged my mother not to remove them, but she did.”

After high school, Raye and Starr played together in Clockwork, which made a play for a bigger stage by heading down to Florida. “We packed up everything – we had wives, dogs, maybe a cat – into the band’s hearse and towed a trailer down to Florida. We lived there for two years and did a lot of professional work. We were getting somewhere when the disco craze hit and we were anything but a disco act. At that point, it became difficult to gain ground.”

So the group returned to Door County. Raye and Starr continued to perform together in various groups. One of the players they picked up along the way was Ben Larsen.
“I was excited when Mike picked me right after I graduated,” said Larsen. “We played in a band called Fresco. It was great – we were getting paid and having a lot of fun.”

Larsen was also involved with the Heritage Ensemble – where he learned to play guitar – and later gigged with the Johnsons, along with Raye and Starr. “We played for eight years and every year on New Year’s Eve we’d have our ‘final’ performance, so it would be something like our ‘fifth annual final appearance.’”

Starr continued to gig until the 1990s, when he decided to hang up his guitar for good − until his son Mike, who had followed in his father’s footsteps as a musician, needed some help. “He was playing as an acoustic duo with a buddy and one night the buddy couldn’t make it, so he asked me if I would sit in. It’s pretty hard to say ‘no’ to your son.” That one-off show has turned into a continuing gig for the two.

Big Mouth and the Power Tool Horns may not stretch back to the 1960s, but the Door County version of the group has been up and running for two decades, and their popularity only continues to grow.

For Big Mouth, every gig is not just a chance to play and earn a check – it’s a way to further the band’s reputation. “Over the weekend (the fourth of July) three or four people approached us to do weddings and private parties,” said bassist Paul Sowinski. “One hand feeds the other and that’s always been the basis of the band’s momentum.”

The group evolved from a band called the Amnesias, who featured Jay Whitney, Paul Sowinski, Pat Judy and the late John Redmann. The group enlisted Woody Mankowski and revised a group that Whitney had first formed in Flint, Mich. in 1980.

“We started rehearsing in my basement and playing one gig a week,” Sowinski remembers.

“It was almost magical,” Whitney added. “Even in rehearsals, everything just clicked. There is a chemistry you notice when you are with certain people. Audiences just loved it. They couldn’t get enough of it.”

“It was supposed to be a one-night thing – a St. Patrick’s Day show at the Nautical Inn, and that was 19 years ago,” Judy said. “The chemistry was there. It just clicked.”
After performing as a four-piece, it was decided to expand the sound with a horn section. “It added a whole new dimension to the sound,” Whitney said. “And horn bands were rare – it’s hard enough getting work for four guys, let alone adding four more – but there definitely was a market for it. People liked it and wanted to hear it.”

With two decades of playing together, Big Mouth is as much a family as a band. “We’ve gone through marriages, births, deaths, cancer, good times and bad times; all the things that a family endures,” Sowinski said.

The diversity also helps the music.

“Each different person who was part of the band has brought a whole different flavor,” Sowinski said. “The stuff we do now with the people now is not the same we did 15 or so years ago. Our repertoire book has over 200 songs in it.”

Though no longer a full-time member of the band, Judy still gigs with the group. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have done many things, but music is my first love. The money I make doing the shows is ‘roadie money’ – the money pays for travel, setting up and tearing down – the playing is just icing on the cake.”

And even those who left it behind like Starr and Larsen cannot stay away from the stage for long.

“Music is one of those things that once you learn to play an instrument and get together with a group of buddies, if you think you sound any good at all you will keep doing it,” Starr said. “It’s a rush when you have things clicking and not many people get to experience that. And if there’s a paycheck with the fun, then that’s even better.”

“I took a hiatus for a little while, but I could not, not do it,” Larsen said. “I had to perform. That’s where my zone was. I need to be in front of people.”