Category Archives: New Mexico

The Four Dimensions

Keith Hackney and Jack Starkey with Lucky the cat and the Four Dimensions’ Chrysler 300, April 1966

The surf craze of the early ’60s wasn’t limited to kids living by an ocean coastline – the Astronauts from Colorado and the Trashmen from Minneapolis are two of the most famous examples. The Four Dimensions of Las Cruces, New Mexico had their own take on surfing – riding plywood down sand dunes! More than just a laugh, their song “Sand Surfin'” will hook you, and it has some of the wildest screams ever waxed (hear it at at Lone Star Stomp, where I nabbed the label scan.) Prior to the Four Dimensions, Jack played with The Vibrations.

Jack Starkey of the Four Dimensions answered a batch of my questions about the group:

I was in the Four Dimensions. Members were: Keith Hackney, Phil Holmes, Jack Starkey, and Billy Conger. Keith Hackney and Phil Holmes started the group. They played in a local bar as a duo. Later they added a drummer and then asked me to join the group.This was in early 1965. The original drummer quit because he didn’t want a cut in pay when I joined, so we found Billy Conger to play drums. Billy and I were both from other towns and had come to Las Cruces to go to college.

I had met Keith in Los Alamos, NM through a mutual friend, Tommy Edwards. Tommy was a student at New Mexico State University and brought Keith home with him during a school break. They had a band called the Keymen.

The Four Dimensions played at several locations in the area and usually worked 6 nights per week. The clubs were: The Palms Motor Inn, The Cork and Bottle and a club in El Paso. The Cork and Bottle was our base. We eventually worked there 6 nights a week and in El Paso on Sundays.

There were many good bands and musicians in the Las Cruces and El Paso area back then. There was a band called the Outer Limits that did original music. They were in high school at the time and had some good songs.

We all used to hang out in Juarez at the Lobby bar. There was a blues guitar player that packed ’em in every weekend and most week nights. I was there watching him at every opportunity. His name was Long John [Hunter] and did mostly original material. He played guitar with one hand while hanging from the rafters with his other hand. I ran into him a few years back and he plays here in the Phoenix area on a regular basis. He has several CD’s out.

Gold Dust records was a local studio and Keith and Phil knew the owner. His name was Emmit [Brooks] and he played in a country music band. We had a great relationship with Emmit and he shared in the cost and profit of the record (I don’t think there was any profit). We backed other performers at the studio also.

The Four Dimensions, l-r: Phil Holmes, Billy Conger, Jack Starkey and Keith Hackney

We didn’t have many original songs. “Sand Surfin” was written by Keith and Phil as a novelty and “I Love You For What You Are” was written by Keith. We put our spin on most of the covers that we did. Sand Surfin proved popular locally, because many of the local kids sand surfed at the Whites Sands site.

In the fall of 1965, we won a battle of the bands in Las Cruces and then headed to California. We had an agent in Hollywood and played the club circuit in Southern California. We ended up in a Las Vegas Lounge and had to split up early in 1966 as we received draft notices. Billy left Vegas with another band and Keith, Phil and I returned to New Mexico. We played a few times in Las Cruces before we finally broke up. After, Phil and one of the Keymen started a group. I believe the guy’s first name was Stan but his last name escapes me.

Keith is the only one of the group that actually went to Viet Nam. He made it back safe. I never had any contact with Phil after that but I heard that he formed another band that included his wife and played the club circuit. During those times you could make money playing the clubs and Vegas. Billy and I had another band for a little while after he returned from California. He played organ after the 4 Dimensions broke up. He still plays I the Seattle area. He was by far the best musician in the group, followed by Keith and Phil.

I really never played in a group. The group Billy and I had broke up because I got another draft notice. I had received a deferment earlier. I still have guitars and amps, but rarely play.

My kids took my copies [of the 45] back in the 80’s. One of my kids’ friends had a punk a band and did a cover of “Sand Surfin”. I would like to get my hands on some of the tapes we made at Gold Dust records. Although I would probably be disappointed. Our memories have a way of making things better than they really were.

Jack Starkey

The Grass on Goldust Records

Stanley and the Grass at Las Cruces High School 1965, Lynn McIntyre, Dennis Finn, Stanley Stenner, James (Timmy) Schaefer, and JT Archer
Stanley and the Grass at Las Cruces High School cafeteria dance, Fall, 1965.
Left to right: Lynn McIntyre, Dennis Finn, Stanley Stenner, James (Timmy) Schaefer, and JT Archer.

The Grass came out of the Las Cruces, New Mexico scene that included bands like the Keymen, the Four Dimensions, the Morfomen and the Outer Limits.

In August 1966 they released their only 45. recorded at Emmit Brooks’ Goldust Recording Studio, “I’m Getting Tired” (written by Dennis Finn and Lynn McIntyre) backed with “Y’Love”.

In the lyrics of “I’m Getting Tired” the singer is having trouble finding a girl worthy of his continued attention:

There’s just one reason why the girls never hit me with a put down,
I’m cool enough to know just when to put my foot down.
They offer me their love – what can I do then but take it?
Offer me their heart – what can I do then but break it?

JT (Tim) Archer sent in the photo at top, adding “here is a pic of Stanley and the Grass before the Goldust recordings with The Grass w/ Larry Lucero. Notice two of the guys are wearing ‘belt-straps’ instead of regular guitar straps. Except me, I left mine at home.”

JT wrote more about the band in comments below:

I was the lead guitar player for The Grass. The band included myself and Lynn McIntyre (formerly of the Checkmates and The Hustlers), Dennis Finn, and Tim (James) Schaefer. We first formed with Stanley Stenner as our lead singer and thus Stanley and The Grass was born circa 1965-1966. When Stanley left, we added Larry Lucero and he was the lead singer on our Gold Dust sessions.

I played a Fender Jazzmaster; Tim Schaefer played a Strat; Lynn played a Precision Bass. We refinished them all white and used belt straps instead of regular guitar straps… How cool is that?

I grew up on the Ventures and even during The Grass days we played a few instrumentals including “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”. The band broke up and I went to Hollywood and tried to make it with Stanley, Lynn, Dennis and other friends from LC. Great experience -tough business! After Hollywood, I still pursued music and toured in lounge bands and even worked with Link Wray in Tucson.

I recorded two solo albums: Canyon (Gold Dust 1974) and Who’s Watching (my label – see CD Baby). I am now into Jazz and R&B. I hope to someday release another album under my jazz persona – Joey Primo. I have quite a guitar collection including a Mosrite which Semi Mosely custom made for me. It’s a keeper!

I have a picture of Stanley and The Grass at a Las Cruces High Dance. I also have a few pictures of me in the Shandels at Skylanes Bowing alley in El Paso when I filled in for Bob Allinder when he was on vacation one summer. I also have a picture of The Hustlers that pre-dates the Grass.

Stanley Stenner had a 45 on the Dynasty label from the early ’60s, “Teri” b/w “Angel of Mine”, written by Stenner, Charles and Richards for Borgelin-Melissa Music, BMI, orchestra conducted by Gene Garf. It’s a pop vocal style record.

Dennis Finn added:

Stan was one of the elves [Curly, one of the Lost Boys] in Peter Pan. He was from Hollywood. His dad was the great grampa on the Munsters. He also performed in Vegas with Sammy Davis, Jr., a great singer. He went back to Hollywood, and we got Larry Lucero to be the lead singer. I wrote “Y’Love”, and Lynn and I wrote “I’m Getting Tired”. We recorded them at Emmit Smith’s Gold Dust records.

Later, Pete Hecker and John Leduc (from the Outer Limits) and Dennis Lucero (from the Shandells) and Tim Archer and me (Dennis) went to Hollywood, and played at Ciro’s for 16 weeks in the summer of ’69. It was wild and crazy, and we had long hair, but were mainly hicks from New Mexico. In 1970 we came back to New Mexico, either to go back to college, or whatever.

Goldust is still in business: for more information see their website www.goldustudios.com

If anyone has photos of other Las Cruces groups of the time, please contact me.

The Beckett Quintet “No Correspondence” on Gemcor and A&M

The Beckett Quintet photo
The Beckett Quintet, featured in KRLA Beat, October 16, 1965. L-R: Steve Nagle, Tommy Muncrief, Norm Reccius, Tim Taylor and Barry Dunkeson

A great 45 by the Beckett Quintet; the producers must have had high expectations, as hundreds of copies exist on the original Gemcor label and this was also picked up by A&M for wider release.

“No Correspondence” has been featured on plenty of compilations since its original release, but there was very little information out there on the Beckett Quintet.

Freddy Fortune sent me these clips from the amazing KRLA Beat newspaper site – a full page article on the guys! Now we know, the band consisted of:

Tommy Muncrief, vocals
Tim Taylor, guitar
Barry Dunkeson, guitar
Norm Reccius, bass guitar
Steve Nagle, drums

They were actually students at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, by the Texas border. Over a hundred miles northwest of Lubbock, it’s even further from Amarillo, Albuquerque or Santa Fe, but only fifteen minutes away from Clovis, where Norman Petty ran his studio. I wonder if they ever stepped foot in there.

Most of the article is about how the band saved to move to Hollywood, but, having been ripped off by a manager, they made the journey on a shoestring and half-starved while looking for a break. The subtitle is Cinderella Story, but the band disappeared soon after. What happened to them? What about the stacks of original material that the article talks about – any demos out there?

“No Correspondence” was written by Tim Taylor. The flip is a decent version of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. Production was supervised by Nick Venet, a veteran producer with Capitol and Mira who worked with the Leaves, Lothar and the Hand People, and Mad River among others. This was the third and last release on Gemcor.

As a footnote, the article gives the band’s name spelled Becket 5 or Becket Quintet, but the record lists them as Beckett Quintet. It also spells the singer name as Tommy Munirief (I also had it as Tom Munifief) but I believe it should be Tommy Muncrief.

Beckett Quintet articleSteve Nagle wrote to me in November 2009:

I am Steve Nagle and played drums for the Becketts (formerly the Epics out of New Mexico).

The band originally came together as the Epics when we were all students at Eastern New Mexico University starting out playing fraternity and homecoming dances. Tim was a fantastic guitar player and we decided to start a band so I asked my Mom to send out my drums from Missouri – she sent the drum cases on the Santa Fe railroad and they arrived in Clovis, New Mexico at the start of my sophomore year. I had played professionally since I was 12 years old in my hometown of St. Joe with a rock and roll band called the Teen Kings and also worked in little jazz combos and Bill Geha’s Big Swing Band.

I read your remarks about Clovis and yes we got to be friends with the one and only Norman Petty and were in awe of his connections with Buddy Holly, the Fireballs and others. He took our band to lunch once after he had just returned from London and meeting the Beatles. We recorded in his studio and he helped us prepare some demos to take to California. Our other musical mentors were Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs. They told us we were the next big group out of the Southwest. That’s when we began to lag in our college work and took the band seriously and began getting calls to play all over New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle.

The most fun and spiritual times were playing the Indian proms and homecoming dances at various pueblos and little towns in New Mexico. We would drive around to band gigs in Barry’s Chevy Nova with a rickety trailer in tow. One night after playing the Zuni Indian Homecoming we stopped and got out of the Nova to admire the clear starry night and were enchanted by a very bright shooting star flashing a long trail cross the western sky. That moment was when we made a vow to go to California right after Spring semester and make our way in the music scene which as you know was at its zenith in those days.

Beckett Quintet Promotional Card
Promotional card sent with some copies of their Gemcor single, very rare now

We were working on a major album with A&M Records with Herb Alpert and Tommy LiPuma (following our Gemcor contract with Nick Venet) when I got my draft notice. I have some old masters.

We worked all around Southern CA but mainly the Sunset Strip and even fronted once for Dylan at a place called The Trip. We did see Bobby Fuller in California, shortly before he was murdered. We were invited to a Halloween party and Frank Zappa’s house. We saw the Lovin’ Spoonful, we played for Dick Clark, saw Big Brother and the Holding Company, Sonny and Cher, the Grassroots, et. al.

We even had a groupie who we were proud of, he had just spent time in New Mexico and returned wearing knee high moccasins, silver and turquoise jewelry, he wore a concho belt and sported long grey hair – his name was John Barrymore Jr. and he would come to our manager’s house often to listen and a few of our gigs then one day just disappeared.

After my draft notice from the Army in the Spring of ’65 the band got nervous and basically began to disperse and ended up traveling down separate roads.

After several years in government after my discharge from the Army, I went back to Hollywood and worked in a few films and TV shows and ran into Norm who was a practicing clinical psychologist, but we lost contact.

I have an occasional day dream about rounding up Tim, Barry, Norm and Tommy for a reunion and recording but they have all left only faint trails and I have not been able to make contact. I now play a lot of folk music with my Martin guitars and trying to learn the fiddle. I produced an album just last year featuring some of my original tunes, River Voices and Songs – it was a fund raiser for a local conservation organization. My drums are being used by a PhD student from Ghana at a Methodist church here in St. Louis.

The reason I’ll never forget our good year in Southern California is because we were such a close brotherhood and with that mix of Texas and New Mexican guitar work and vocals – we were unique and when we played we got goose bumps and felt deeply we had something special – if only for a brief shining moment.

Oh yes, by the way we were truly a garage band – our manager’s two car garage in Encino was where we rehearsed almost everyday.

Thanks to Steve for the information.

After the Beckett Quintet split, Tommy Muncrief wrote and sang the title song for the feature movie “Didn’t You Hear”.

Unreleased songs

I have a CD with a number of unreleased songs by the group, some taken from acetates. I believe this CD was sent to me by Steve Nagle.

1. “Tomorrow Is Going to Be Another Day” – good punky garage with harmonies
2. “Little Flower” – gentle ballad
3. “(It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue” – dub from the 45
4. “No Correspondence” – dub from the 45
5. “For You” – medium tempo pop ballad
6. “Meant to Be” – excellent garage-folk
7. “Clovis 1” – early instrumental, presumably recorded at Petty’s studio
8. “Clovis 2” – surf instrumental, again probably cut at Petty’s studio
9. “Dancing Stream” – slack key guitar solo by Shiloh Orion (later recording)

Update: I’m very sorry to report that Steve Nagle passed away on March 23rd 2022, according to a comment from his daughter, below. Steve was very helpful in filling out the story of the Beckett Quintet, I’ll miss corresponding with him.