Family affair

The Stone Coyotes were Born to Howl

by Mal Thursday

One fateful night a few years back, best-selling author Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Mr. Majestyk, etc.) walked into LA's famed Troubador nightclub to find a hard-rock-

ing trio on stage. The Stone Coyotes, who make their first Worcester appearance at Ralph's this Saturday in support of their new disc Born to Howl, immediately caught the hardboiled novelist's fancy, and became the inspiration for Be Cool, the sequel to Get Shorty. Leonard dedicated the book to the band, and incorporated singer-songwriter Barbara Keith's lyrics throughout the narrative.

Upon publication of the novel, Elmore and the Coyotes made a series of appearances around the country to promote both the book and the band. Be Cool, as they say in Hollywood, is soon to be a major motion picture, with the porcine John Travolta reprising his portrayal of Chili Palmer, and the songs of the Stone Coyotes on the soundtrack.

Although the band provided inspiration for the novel, the plot and characters were entirely Leonard's creation, and not based on the Coyotes' story. That's too bad, because theirs is quite an intriguing tale. For one thing, they're a family unit: the group consists of Keith on guitar and vocals, her husband Doug Tibbles on drums, and his son John (her stepson) on bass. However, unlike, say, Hanson, the Osmonds, or the Cowsills, this band rocks, churning out a sound that's best described as AC/DC fronted by a female Dylan. Barbara's buzz-saw guitar is part Keith Richards, part Johnny Thunders, and 100 percent rocking. The Tibbles' rhythm section is no-frills, straight-ahead and Stone-solid, providing the foundation for the band's tales of rock and roll redemption.

Their story begins back in the '60s, when Barbara was a Greenwich village folkie playing regularly at the legendary Café Wha?, which played host to, among others, Lenny Bruce, the Fugs, and a young Jimi Hendrix. "It was actually a total dive," she admits, "but it was a famous dive."

In 1970, after being scouted by Columbia Records exec Clive Davis, she was invited to come out to the West Coast to audition for Warner Brothers mogul Mo Ostin. At that point, two major events occurred: she was signed to Warners, for whom she recorded an album, and she met Doug. "The album came out, but was pulled off the shelves when I ended up giving back my advance and going underground." Although the record was dead in the water, the songs themselves garnered insider buzz, and were subsequently covered by artists ranging from rock acts like Delaney & Bonnie and Little Feat's Lowell George, to country artists like Tanya Tucker and Hank Snow, to Barbra Streisand.

Meanwhile, Doug was working as a television writer on such shows as The Munsters, My Three Sons, and Love, American Style. "My dad [George Tibbles] was a TV writer, and he taught me how to write, but I had to go out on my own to prove he wasn't writing my scripts. Nobody in Hollywood trusts anybody."

Eventually, Doug got fed up with the business. "I'd done Bewitched and Family Affair and Andy Griffith and all that, and I finally quit after working on Happy Days for five hours. I came in at 9:30 in the morning and Garry Marshall said, `There's a writer's meeting at 10:30,' but he meant 10:30 at night. I decided that it was too much time, no matter what they paid you, to give away to someone else's idea of what's funny. It got to be like geometry, you just didn't want to do it."

At age 37, he took up the drums. "I always wanted to be a drummer ever since I was a little kid. I actually had a kit when I was five, but I got frustrated because I couldn't play like Gene Krupa and I got so mad I kicked a whole in the bass drum," he laughs. "I didn't play again for another 32 years."

With Doug out of the TV game, and Barbara estranged from the music business, the couple began to collaborate at a quintessential California locale: the beach. "We got an old van, and we'd park on a little cliff overlooking the ocean. Barb would play guitar, and I'd bang out sixteenth-notes on the drums," Doug recalls. "I didn't know how to play, but I had good time. We did this for like five years."

Eventually, the couple relocated to Barbara's hometown of Greenfield, Mass., along with John, who had taken up the bass guitar. Before long, the band, dubbed the Stone Coyotes, had developed a local following, playing many memorable shows at such clubs as Northampton's Bay State Hotel and Iron Horse Music Hall. Working with studio whiz Mark Alan Miller, they produced a series of fine, honed-to-the-bone full-lengths.

On their latest, Keith sings, in her deadpan style, a semi-autobiographical epiphany: "Let me tell you the story of a girl/All she ever wanted was to rock the world. . ./Mommy said to Daddy, `Did you hear what she said?'/She said `I like Black Sabbath and Motorhead'. . . /Sorry, Mom and Dad -- this might come as a shock/I just want to be the First Lady of Rock."

Born to Howl is both true to the group's stripped-down aesthetic and a refinement of their sound. "The albums are bit like having children," Barbara says. "Once born, they have their own identity. Church of the Falling Rain was a girl and Situation Out of Control was a boy. I'm not sure what the new one is. It's still a Coyote, that much we know."

The Stone Coyotes join the Unband, the Probates, and the Tims at Ralph's, 95 Prescott Street, Worcester, on Saturday, April 28. Call (508) 753-9543.

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