Two Lane Blacktop drives home early rock classics

Sometimes guys just have to play that old rock 'n' roll music they grew up with and see if they can still pack a dance floor.

That's what happened with Wythe Walker, Ray Wittenberg and Bill McCumber, who are known to local music fans as three-fourths of The Smittle Band. As such, they back up singer-songwriter Stephanie Smittle, who's not a guy. They also at times serve as the band for another nonguy, Heather Smith. Smittle and Smith have several irons in the fire, so to speak, so the fellows in their bands have gotten restless to perform some of their favorite nonoriginals.

"The idea is to make people get up and start dancing," guitarist Walker says. "A couple of years ago, when we were playing with Heather, Ray and Bill and I got interested in playing early bass/drums/guitar rock in an all-guy band, which led us to work up some stuff.

"Ray, our drummer, has a good voice, going back to his days in Jump Street, a local band in the early 1980s. Bill on bass has been in bands for, like, forever. So we began working up songs from the early rock era, the '60s, '70s and '80s, including some classics, like 'Louie Louie,' 'Gloria' and 'Wooly Bully.'"

As Two Lane Blacktop, Wittenberg (who is also a visual artist and has a day job as publisher of the Oxford American) does the bulk of the singing and Walker (a late-blooming music student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock) sings on occasion, hoping to convince McCumber to unencumber his vocal cords occasionally. And then there's the "new" guy, guitarist John Gaiser (who, along with his wife, Emily, owns the Pennsylvania Trading Co., which conducts estate sales), another possible vocal recruit.

"We play parties and weddings and some bars," Walker says. "Both John and I play Stratocasters [electric guitars] and we're going for that raw, distorted, edgy, straight-ahead sound where we're pushing it. We're focused on the energy."

Wittenberg finds it interesting that the group has a show this weekend at the Town Pump, the scene of many of his Jump Street performances three decades ago.

"Wythe has really gotten serious with his music," Wittenberg says, "and I guess we're all people who keep coming back to music and we're just gonna play it, and sometimes it will be loud. We picked some songs I could sing, including The Doors' 'Break on Through (to the Other Side),' Chuck Berry's 'Memphis' and Chris Isaak's 'Wrong to Love You.' We even do an Omar & the Howlers song, 'Give Me a Chance.'"

McCumber, who has been playing bass in many a local band, recalls that his first paid gig in December 1963 got him a $12.50 paycheck.

"I went on to play in The Chaps, which evolved into the Sweet Magnolia Band, until about 1975," McCumber says. "I retired from a job as a database administrator in 2008, but music isn't something I've retired from.

"I don't sing that much, but got talked into singing with Ray or Wythe on 'The Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)' and 'Call Me the Breeze.'"

Gaiser, who joined the lineup about six months ago, disputes Walker's assertion that Gaiser might also sing.

"That's not my forte," Gaiser says. "No one will confuse me with the singer."

Gaiser is more apt to focus on the opportunity to face off with Walker on their electric guitars, along the lines of such famous scenarios as Duane Allman and Eric Clapton, or Allman and Dickie Betts.

"We enjoy playing opposite each other," Gaiser says. "That's one of the great things about rock 'n' roll. You gotta have that spirit."

Weekend on 12/11/2014