MK, i enjoyed your post; some replies to some of your comments are below:
Dude, if you have that 1960 air photo of Westbury digitized, I would LOVE a copy. I'm an aficionado of the old neighborhood, big time..I have very few pics..
Yep, since you were born in 56, I am three years older than you. You were going into Johnston Jr. High as I was going into Westbury High. Too, I spent 9th grade at fondren, so I started meeting more Braeburn Valley people at that point, and didn't hang at Westbury quite so much. I started playing gigs in 9th grade, and pretty much roamed Houston at large after that. The band director at Fondren was a lady named Ms. White, and Randy May was the well known drummer there, so much so that they once had a drum contest in his honor, while he was still a student. He went on to invent an internal miking system and some other innovative marching band equipment that has sold very well for Pearl. A student of Joe Raynor, he played his butt off. (probably still does.) Lives in Huntington Beach.
So MK: you were a drummer at Johnston? Was a guy named Perkins was still the band director? From what I have heard, he is still alive, and still playing.. I was in band at Johnston with at least 10 drummers, but I can't remember many of them. Mark Keener was one of the better ones..I remember Marty Knoll now too, now that you mentioned him, and there was a guy behind me, on Belrose maybe, named Doug Landry, whose dad also played professionally..they had a blue sparkle Slingerland kit that I still remember watching them take apart and clean one day.
You are right. There were a lot of musicians in the Southwest part of town back then. Quite a few kept playing. Houston was a great place to grow up a musician in the 60's and early 70's. Gigs and bands everywhere in those days.
I'm still friends with my Sharpstown friend, Tony Taboada, who still gigs down there, and you can usually catch him at Sullivan's on Westheimer on Wednesdays. More about him , including a sound file, at his rhythmweb page, at http://rhythmweb.com/taboada . First saw him play at a Godwin Park teen dance in about 1967. There's an old picture of Love Street up on that page too. His band website is at http://commercialartband.com .
I studied with Jack Dudney back then, a big band drummer who played with the Ed Gerlach orchestra, and then after 3 or 4 years, with Hap Fulghum, who lived in Bellaire and played with the Houston Symphony. (his son, Joel Fulghum, apparently is a top drummer down there nowadays. Haven't met him.) At one point Jack and Hap had a drum teaching studio together, right across West Bellfort from Westbury Square.
Two more points. As for Dan Mitchell, the owner of Mr. Fantasy, I heard from Pierce he married a girl named DeeDee George from Braeburn Valley, and that he is living happily ever after somewhere in the Houston area. And as for Trudy Hilton, i never saw her after 6th grade, so I don't know whether she was the girl that lived at Westbury Square, but in 6th grade, she was indeed pretty, with wavy blonde hair..I don't remember her too well, other than that. TRUDY? YOU OUT THERE? Write us..[God, I love the Web]Was it you?
And old Westbury Square homies: sign in please..more images of the square would be great.
Westbury Square History
in Historic Houston
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