Recommended if you like: The Sonics, The Wailers, The Kingsmen.

Why you should care: Driving, unhinged tremolo guitars at every break. Surf at your own risk.
______________________________________________________________

It might be said that The Gems of Walla Walla, Washington owe it all to donuts. The group formed in 1958 as a high school band around Paul Wheeler on guitar and vocals and Ron Overman on bass and vocals. Overton’s uncle owned the Spudnut Shop in nearby Richland (still in business today). The shop sponsored the Spudnut Show on KTL, and booked the band to fill time.

Guitarist Jim Reid moved back from a year away at Columbia Basin College in Pasco and heard his younger friends on the radio, which promptly led to him joining the band. Drummer Larry Loney completed the lineup in 1960. “We played live music on the radio,” said Reid, “I think it was once a week... but it gave us a reason to work hard at it right away. We got real serious, we were practicing every day.”

From their perch on the local airwaves, The Gems quickly booked gigs at school dances and local venues. They played the Natatorium in Walla Walla, the Cascade Club in Springfield, and the Division Street Corral in Portland, playing mostly covers of rock tunes, with an affinity for instrumental tunes. But The Gems also had a rare taste for the exotic, performing “Hernando’s Hideaway,” from the musical The Pajama Game, and Santo & Johnny’s “Slave Girl,” mimicking the steel guitar parts on a regular electric.

They’d bought their instruments from Vincent Rizzuti at Uptown Music, and in 1961 Rizzuti brought them into his studio to record. Rizzuti’s Uptown Records pressed up 500 copies of “Hernando’s Hideaway” b/w “Slave Girl”. The session also resulted in two unissued recordings, a cover of the Ventures’ version of Bill Doggett’s “Ram-Bunk-Shush” and an original tune, “War Party.” Their next recording came in 1961 with Joe Boles, who had produced the Ventures hit debut LP Walk Don’t Run in his basement studio. They recorded two originals, “Punchappy” b/w “Bread ‘n’ Butter Twist,” released on Boles’ Virgelle Records in 1961.

Overton, Wheeler, and Loney graduated high school in 1962, and The Gems promptly caught the attention of Pat Mason, who booked acts around the northwest. “He had us lined up, the first ones we played with—the Ventures. We couldn’t believe it,” said Reid. It turned out their heroes were down to a two-man operation, Nokie Edwards on lead guitar and Don Wilson on rhythm. “We knew their songs very well, so they were surprised at that. They used our drummer and bass player. We went on these bookings that whole summer with them, up into Canada, Washington, Oregon.”

Their partnership also produced an unreleased demo disc, when Edwards and Wilson took The Gems to a Seattle studio in 1963 to record “Sub Rosa” and “La Raspa” in a failed attempt to get the band signed to Liberty Records. “We sounded too much like the Ventures, that was the problem,” said Reid. Mason arranged a final session for the Gems at his own Cascade Club in 1963, cutting a cover of “Shout” and an original, “Talk About Your Woman,” written and sung by their new keyboard player, Duane Gusse. This last 45 was issued on Mason’s own Lavender Records in 1964.

By 1965, with two members now married, the band grew weary of the touring life, moving to Portland, Oregon to book a year-and-a-half-long residency at the Wormhole club inside the Big Apple Restaurant. “Once we got into a club atmosphere and not going for the big record stardom or whatever, it became work,” said Reid. “We just decided to get on with our lives . . . kind of got realistic.”

Ron Overton went to play in Don & the Goodtimes, founded by local legend Don Gallucci, something of a secret rock hero. Gallucci was pivotal in two events that shaped the sound of all subsequent rock ‘n’ roll—he was the teenage keyboardist who played the sizzling organ riff on the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie,” and he would produce Fun House by the Stooges in 1970. Don & the Goodtimes earned two hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967 and weekly performances on Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is.

Forty-two years later, in 2007, the guys reunited to talk and reminisce—and decided to bring their instruments the following year to play for friends and family. Instead the band found themselves booked at local venues, and in spite of living in four different states, The Gems have reunited every year since. “It’s always been fun because it’s like nothing’s changed,” said Reid, “like we’re young again.”