Don Ashford ~ Vocals
Tom Baca ~ Drums
Tom McNaughton ~ Bass
Bill Ritter ~ Organ
Scott Robar ~ Guitar
Doug Wise ~ Guitar
Bill Ritter, Tom Baca, Don
Ashford, Scott Robar and Doug Wise (Tom McNaughton is out of the
picture
to the left)
The Rochambeaus were a North Spokane band active in 1966 and 1967. It's members attended North Central HS, Shadle Park High School and Salk Jr. High.We played a number of CYO dances at St. Aloysius Gonzaga School in Spokane. One was set up as a Battle of the Bands. The other band was way beyond us in ability and stagecraft. Their name was something like "Sir Charles and His Knights". Our first road gig was a Sadie Hawkins Day dance in Fairfield or Garfield (one of the small towns between Spokane and Pullman). The two photographs I have included were from a performance at Camp Spaulding, Davis Lake, WA. Notes on the back of the photos indicate that we were playing the Rolling Stones "The Last Time" and the Sonics version of " Have Love, Will Travel".
Bill Ritter's parents owned Ritter's Nursery on North Division Street and we used the nurseries well-used Ford Econoline 'cabover' pickup to haul our gear.
Our signature song might have been "Gloria". We jammed it out much longer than the AM radio version by Them and Don Ashford ad-libbed all kinds of crazy lyrics.
I played lead guitar and was frustrated that I could never quite duplicate the guitar riff from the Kinsmen's version of "Louie, Louie"!
Doug Wise, April 2015