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Good Times in Bygone Days


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Ran across this photo and wanted to share for those who remember. Ron Baker, Jerry Mayfield and Jay Shuffle (RIP Jay).

My wife Jean who got Ron to do "Over the Rainbow" for her and she always left the boys a nice tip for that.

DSC02452.JPG

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We just moved from Jerry Mayfields ex- house in Chapala Haciendas. A beautiful home, built for entertaining. Now falling to pieces, all the window and door frames are rusting into dust. A long time neighbor, now living in New Brunswick with her son, recalls visiting him and being told that he couldn't see her at this time because he had a v.i.p. visitor - Willie Nelson. This would have been early 1980's, Willie also liked to hangout at Donas Donuts at the time. This was when Willie was collaborating with Waylon Jennings, who could not reliably travel to Mexico at that time because of his cocaine addiction (he eventually kicked it) This is not about the Willie impersonator that someone imported in the 1990's. I don't like that tale.

Lakeside  oozes history in every crack.

 

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20 hours ago, CHILLIN said:

We just moved from Jerry Mayfields ex- house in Chapala Haciendas. A beautiful home, built for entertaining. Now falling to pieces, all the window and door frames are rusting into dust. A long time neighbor, now living in New Brunswick with her son, recalls visiting him and being told that he couldn't see her at this time because he had a v.i.p. visitor - Willie Nelson. This would have been early 1980's, Willie also liked to hangout at Donas Donuts at the time. This was when Willie was collaborating with Waylon Jennings, who could not reliably travel to Mexico at that time because of his cocaine addiction (he eventually kicked it) This is not about the Willie impersonator that someone imported in the 1990's. I don't like that tale.

Lakeside  oozes history in every crack.

 

I remember that Jerry and his wife Sally lived in Brisas. Did they move at one point to Chapala Haciendas? or vice-versa?

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The last time we saw Jerry perform, he was in Chapala roughly across the street from City Hall, can't remember the name. It was a couple of years ago and Carol Bedford was with him. As almost always, he closed with "Unchained Melody" that he always dedicated to his wife who was almost always there to hear him. He has quite a life story to tell, including that he started out as an architect. He designed the Blue Spruce hotel in Colorado. He was also a DJ in the Dallas area and has written many of his own songs. Last time we heard, Ron was in Port Aransas, Texas. Ron played lead guitar for Charley Pride for 13 years. Jay's lifetime passion was to play with Willie but with Mickey Raphael on the harmonica he knew it wasn't gonna happen. He said he did sub once for Mickey when he was sick. Not in that picture but an earlier huge part of that sound in Lakeside was Dwayne Blackwell. Author of "Friends in Low Places" and several other country classics.

 

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Maybe I am wrong about the name, it was at a busy potluck party. Ellie is not the type to tell tall tales. She said he was a country and western singer who had a few big hits in the 1970's. She did mention a name, but it didn't mean a thing to me. I assumed it was Jerry Mayfield, but there are many retired professional musicians in this area. This a big house for two people (plus separate maid quarters) it is all soaring high glass windows and very high ceilings - impossible to heat in the cool months. Maybe they only lived there a short time.

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No Donas Donuts existed in the 80s. No one has ever heard of Willie hanging out here. Dewayne Blackwell was a super-nice guy, wrote a tonne of hits, and could be found most often at the bar/dancefloor he owned called Club Hidalgo or 8 Ball or something, on... guess where... Hidalgo in Ajijic. His records adorned the walls, and he had some great stories, but he was not an egotistical man.

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After Club Hidalgo Dewayne, Ron Baker, Alan Bedford (sometimes Carol) and Rick Ungar on harmonica performed Tuesdays at La Bodega. It was great fun but broke up after Dewayne got some royalties from a Garth Brooks songwriter CD Walmart sold. The story was he went to the coast so he wouldn't lose this windfall to one or all of his ex-wives.

Dewayne's brother Ronald wrote Li'l Red Riding Hood performed by Sam the Sham in the 60's. Dewayne played that, Mr. Blue and Friends in Low Places every week. Ron Baker was the real talent in that group. Never sang but the way he could play that guitar...

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16 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

No Donas Donuts existed in the 80s. No one has ever heard of Willie hanging out here. Dewayne Blackwell was a super-nice guy, wrote a tonne of hits, and could be found most often at the bar/dancefloor he owned called Club Hidalgo or 8 Ball or something, on... guess where... Hidalgo in Ajijic. His records adorned the walls, and he had some great stories, but he was not an egotistical man.

Good memory.  It was in fact Club Hidalgo and had an 8 Ball as a logo out front. The owners there were Bob and Ernie.   As John said they all had a great run at La Bodega and Jerry and Ron predicted Dewayne would boogey with the cash and sure enough he did and took his maid with him. The story was that the windfall was much less than Dewayne thought it would be, something like a one cent royalty payment on the Garth compilation CD. Jerry stayed in somewhat regular contact with him and would give "updates" if you asked him.

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13 minutes ago, John Shrall said:

After Club Hidalgo Dewayne, Ron Baker, Alan Bedford (sometimes Carol) and Rick Ungar on harmonica performed Tuesdays at La Bodega. It was great fun but broke up after Dewayne got some royalties from a Garth Brooks songwriter CD Walmart sold. The story was he went to the coast so he wouldn't lose this windfall to one or all of his ex-wives.

Rick was hugely successful with Marvel, much less so on the harmonica. The answer to a trivia question of where Spiderman, the movie, was first shown is Ajijic. Rick brought an original copy down and had it screened in the theatre next to El Torito for his close friends from Guad and Hollywood that were in town. We were close by neighbors but didn't get an invite, LOL.

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10 minutes ago, pappysmarket said:

Rick was hugely successful with Marvel, much less so on the harmonica. 

That was the funny part. Movie producer, Hollywood attorney among other interests and here he is channeling Bob Dylan on the harmonica in a little restaurant in Mexico.

He ended up moving to Manhattan, wrote a column for Forbes as their resident liberal. At the same time he was also a good friend of and appeared often on Sean Hannity's show on Fox. For the last several years he's been doing a lot of different podcasts. 

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Didn't realize he had moved to Manhattan but did see him several times on Hannity as the resident liberal. He and his wife Cathy were very nice people. He invited me over to the McMansion one time to show me how he kept a Hollywood phone number, the new kid on the block, Vonage. We both were getting our internet via Rod's beaming antenna and it had just about enough bandwidth to make it work. I picked one up on my next trip back to the States and soon after lots of people jumped on. Magic Jack was not yet on the scene if I remember. He had cardiac issues and that was a prime reason he started the drive for the ambulance. Thanks for the update.

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Dewayne played for me in Club Hidalgo and for a year or so it was the best place to go. Dewayne was a very interesting character and wrote many songs including Honkytonk Man for the Eastwood movie of the same name. It was recorded by Marty Robbins who sang it in the movie as did Eastwood himself. His first million record song written when he was 17 was Call Me Mr. Blue recorded by the Fleetwoods in 1959 and later by Bobby Vinton and Bobby Vee. All his songs had stories to go with them. There were some really good songs that never got recorded. Correction on one account Dewayne and I did not finance Señor Azul. But that’s a hole other story. Jerry Mayfield and his band joined us there on Thursday nights’. 

Dewayne’s health is not good and I speak to Jerry every so often in the Plaza. Jerry has probably been Dewayne’s closest contact in recent years. Sure brings back some great memories.........

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