Rich Howard -- Banjo and Vocals -- Banjos, Buckets and Brass and
The Shingle Shakers
Born and raised in the small northwest Missouri town of Plattsburg, I graduated high school in 1966 then attended the University of Colorado and Missouri Western College. While waiting to take my draft physical (I flunked thanks to a football damaged knee) I worked in Kansas City for the Robinson Shoe Company.
I came to Columbia to attend summer school in 1969 and started going to the Village Inn Pizza Parlor to listen to the Dixieland Rascals that fall. Sometime late that fall Bob Streibel was at a party where I was playing the guitar and singing folk songs. Bob invited me to start playing and singing during the breaks at the VI and so I met the members of the Rascals. At the time I started hanging out with the group it included Streibel, George Gilmore, Jeff England, Jim Roller and Larry Graebner. That spring, Bob told me that George was leaving at the end of the summer (1970) to attend law school in Oklahoma and would I be interested in taking his place on the banjo. During that summer, George graciously taught me the specialty banjo tunes and the chords to most of the other numbers and even loaned me a banjo to use until I could buy one of my own. During that same summer Bob Streibel and a couple of partners, Jeff Kean and Bill Henley purchased an old burnt out bakery on Business Loop 70, restored it (I use the term loosely) and that fall opened the 18th Amendment. Over the summer George left and we gained a drummer named Mike Beatty.
Prior to that, The Shingle Shakers had formed at Shakey's Pizza Parlor and included Dan Kelley, Mark Hulse, Pete Kersten, Miles Brown on washtub bass, Chuck Harrington on washboard, Doug Chronister on drums and a bunch of other guys who sat in occasionally -- Dud Payne on trombone, Ken Vale on tuba and Bus Entsminger on baritone. Sometime that Fall, I think, the Shakers moved to the VI and picked up a clarinet player named Larry Garrett.
One Saturday night as the Rascals were playing at the 18th, the Shakers showed up en masse and started playing with us. Streibel immediately hired Larry away from the Shakers which wasn't too difficult since they weren't paying him anything and Larry became part of the Rascals.
Because of that evening, I got to know Dan, Mark, Pete, et al and started spending some time with them. Eventually I decided that I would rather play with the Shakers so that summer ('71), I left the Rascals and joined the Shakers at the VI. I don't remember the exact sequence of events but for some reason, no one wanted to be the main contact person with the VI management so I agreed to do it. I continued in that capacity until the VI decided to do away with the big band and hired Pete Kersten to do a solo act starting in the winter of '73.
Since that time I worked for the Frito-Lay Corporation for 5 years then joined MBS Textbook Exchange, Inc. in January 1978 as a Territory Manager and have been with them to date. I am married and have one son who is a security Staff Sergeant in the Air Force.