Gary Dale Tollett (born December 13, 1932 in Amherst, TX)
Ramona (born December 19, 1936 in Merced, CA)
Gary grew up near Amherst, TX with musical influences from his father, who played guitar & sang for country dances. In 1953 Gary was stationed with the air force in Merced, California where he met Ramona while both attending the same church. They dated for a year and a half & were married in January of 1955.
They soon moved to Lubbock where Gary & Ramona sang together on local TV and were invited for appearances around the High Plains area with The Serenaders, a popular local quartet with a daily TV show. Gary’s cousin June Clark was working at a drugstore when Gary stopped in for a visit. Buddy walked in and the three wound up discussing music, particularily Gary’s plans to cut some demos, get them promoted & released. June & her husband Nig loved music and told them that their home was open for any rehearsals they wanted to have.
They rehearsed with Buddy and the others two or three times a week at the Clark’s. Buddy was making trips to Clovis, NM and coaxed Gary into doing some demos at Petty Studios too. Buddy would appear on Gary’s songs, and when Buddy went in to record his newest song “That’ll Be The Day”, he asked Gary & Ramona if they would help out by doing some backup vocals.
“No money was involved, we were all broke & having fun, with hopes of getting our songs out. We needed to help each other out as much as we could. We worked on “That’ll Be The Day” at Nig & June’s several times, then rehearsed at the Petty studio before we got what we felt was the right rendition. The rest is more less history”.
“We started recording around 9 pm as I recall, we worked on “Looking For Someone To Love” until midnight. For some reason most of us thought that it would be the A-side and we worked on that real hard. We did two or three takes on “That’ll Be The Day” and were done because it was 3 in the morning and we had school or work the next morning. It was just supposed to be a demonstration record, now we’re just glad to be part of music history!”
In March of 1957, Gary recorded some demos as “Gary Dale” on which Buddy played. These included “Go Boy Go”, “Gone”, “The Golden Rocket” and “I Overlooked An Orchid” which were taken to a New York record company where he was given a contract with Gone Records and had one release (Gone 5007) “Pretty Baby/Love Is Dynamite”. Gary returned to Clovis where in July of 1957 he cut “Honey Honey” and a Niki Sullivan song, “Look To The Future”. An interesting note about “Look To The Future” is that Buddy hooked his Stratocaster through Petty’s Hammond Organ Amplifier which made for a unique sound. All Clovis recorded songs went unreleased until a U.K. release in 1998.
Don Lanier of “Buddy Knox & The Rhythm Orchids” is Gary’s cousin. Later in 1957 they returned to New York where Gary recorded “Don’t Make Me Cry” which also went unreleased. Gary opted to complete his college education rather than pursue a music career and after graduating from Lubbock Tech in 1959, they moved to Arizona where he became manager for a cotton seed business and Ramona became office mgr. for the Arizona Sanitization District.
They reside in Arizona where they continue singing together in church all these years, and keep very active with church functions, plus regularly take part in the Lubbock and Clovis festivities.
“We love meeting new friends at the various music events, it boggles my mind when they come up to us and start treating us like royalty, it feels strange. We thought of ourselves as just backup singers, now we see it was in God’s hands. But if you talk to a stranger and say that we helped make “That’ll Be The Day”, they’ll usually just look at you and say “ahhh”in disbelief...”
Gary & Ramona Tollett - June 1999You can write Gary & Ramona at:
P.O. Box 231
Arizona City, AZ
85223
