‘Doctors’ will be in the house
SALEM – The doctors will be in the house – The Rhythm Doctors, that is.
Members of the 1970s Salem rock-and-roll band which usually gets back together only one time a year will play a benefit dance on Saturday, April 9.
So why now? “I feel strongly about Apple Ridge Farm,” said lead singer Joe Yates, retired planning director for the City of Salem. “We enjoy playing.”
The Rhythm Doctors will play Saturday to raise money for Apple Ridge Farm . From left, they are Jim Carroll, Joe Yates, Chuck Rowell, Mike Reynolds and drummer Ray Mitchell.
Saturday night’s benefit in the Jefferson Center’s Fitzpatrick Hall in downtown Roanoke will be to raise money for Apple Ridge Farm’s summer camp scholarships for underprivileged kids.
Yates and his buddies started playing in the 1970s. This incarnation of The Rhythm Doctors is made up of Jim Carroll on electric bass, Chuck Rowell on trumpet, Mike Reynolds on sax, drummer Ray Mitchell and Yates.
“Leftovers” from the group who will open the evening, playing as The Leftovers,” are Carroll , Beau Hooker, Steve Finch on keyboard, Hough on lead guitar and Rick Mylin on guitar.
Mitchell, the group’s original drummer, came in from Charlotte, N.C., to play for the reunions at Thanksgiving. Now he’s moved back.
The Rhythm Doctors in 1982 were, from left, George Rutrough, Jim Carroll, Yates, drummer Ray Mitchell and Andy Hough.
Hough has personal ties to kids who need a little extra attention. He’s a Big Brother to Dominique, who has been a camper at Apple Ridge’s summer program.
In addition to The Leftovers, other reshuffling of members of The Rhythm Doctors will play Saturday night as another favorite, long-time Roanoke Valley band, Dominoe.
“There will be somebody from each group in each group,” Yates added.
The Rhythm Doctors have a loyal following that dates back to their first days in the early ’70s.
They didn’t have “a look” then nor now.
“I used to wear blue jeans and a sport coat and tennis shoes. It was just me. the rest of the band wore whatever they wanted,” he said.
They cut a CD a few years ago, before the group started playing at the Hotel Roanoke. “Joey Hopkins in Daleville did it for us in a studio in his house, Yates said.
The title of the CD is “Scripts,” as in “prescriptions.” The band sells it at their appearances. There are seven of their songs on it.
“I had written so many songs,” Yates added. “Some day, I’m going to upload them to uTube.”
Yates is the lead singer who “was a drummer for a hundred years.” At Andrew Lewis High School, he and others formed a group known as The Nobles. “It was half Andrew Lewis students and half Cave Spring,” he remembered.
Not long ago at a Scouting banquet, Yates said he ran into a guy from the band, “Warren Grasty of Herndon, who graduated a year ahead of me from Cave Spring and went to Virginia Military Institute. I hadn’t seen him since the 1970s.”
The Rhythm Doctors got together under that name at the end of 1978, Yates recalled, “in a basement on Red Lane to play for a Halloween party. Carol Fleshman was renting that house.”
Yates has been in a band since he was 15, he said. “You’d think I would grow up by now. I refuse.”
Tickets for Saturday night’s fundraiser for Apple Ridge Farm are $18 in advance and $20 at the door. To order, go to www.appleridge.org. The evening starts at 8 p.m. and goes until midnight.
