Ozark Mountain Daredevils - 80's

80's

By 1979 the group had moved over to Columbia Records and put out the self-titled Ozark Mountain Daredevils in May 1980. This album was produced by famed country rock pioneer producer John Boylan and did not feature Chappell or Canaday, and Walle only appeared on two songs, since Boylan insisted on bringing in session players for a more typical "California country-rock laid-back sound", which was popular at the time. But the country rock sound's popularity seemed to be on the wane at the dawn of the 1980s as groups such as the Ozarks, Poco, Firefall, etc. saw their sales begin to slip away. Columbia dropped the group after only one record.

In 1980 Walle left the Daredevils to be replaced by Springfield guitarist Terry Wilson.

In December 1980 Brayfield, Chowning, Jones and Walle reunited with the band for two shows, one in Springfield and one in Kansas City. The first was at Hammons Student Center on December 6 and the second, on December 31, occurred at the Uptown Theater in K.C. The latter show was later put out (in 2006) on CD and DVD as 1980 Reunion Concert: Rhythm & Joy.

Larry Lee left the band and relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a solo career in 1982. He also worked as a songwriter and country producer (for Alabama, Juice Newton and others) and would still play drums on occasion with other acts. In the mid-'80s he even did a stint with Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band. Chappell also split in 1982.

Later the same year, there was another major upheaval as Dillon and Cash decided that they'd had enough as well. After some consideration, it was decided that the group would continue with Granda and the returning Randle Chowning leading a new lineup that included Bobby Lloyd Hicks (vocals, drums, percussion, ex-Steve Forbert), Joe Terry (vocals, keyboards, from the St. Louis group The Couch Dancers) and Tulsa guitarist Gary Smith. Canaday stayed on and once again became the band's road manager.

This new grouping was short-lived. Hicks took a job with Kerry Cole & the Lefty Brothers, Joe Terry joined a new band, The Morells, and Gary Smith relocated to Branson, Missouri in 1984. At this point, Dillon and Cash agreed to rejoin and the 1984 Ozarks lineup was: John Dillon, Steve Cash, 'Supe' Granda, Steve Canaday and Jason LeMasters (guitar), the latter soon replaced by Chowning, back for his third stint with the Daredevils.

In 1985 the band followed their erstwhile singer/drummer, Larry Lee, to Nashville to record a new album produced by Wendy Waldman. Lee briefly rejoined for this project. There was no interest at all from any of the labels in Nashville in this project. A small French company, Dixie Frog Records, eventually picked up the record and it was released in France as Heart of the Country in 1987. Many of the same songs were released in England in 1989 as Modern History on the Conifer label.

In the meantime, the Daredevils continued on with Morells guitarist Don Clinton Thompson joining after Chowning left again. A group of mostly unreleased tracks (the demos that they used to send around to the record companies) from 1972 was released on Varèse Sarabande Records in 1985 as The Lost Cabin Sessions.

There were more personnel changes as Canaday left to move to Nashville in 1988 (Sadly, he was killed on September 25, 1999, when the small plane he was traveling in crashed in Nashville, Tenn., while he was working as an aerial photographer) and was briefly succeeded on drums by the band's roadie, Rick 'Lumpy' Davidson, who previously had sometimes joined the group onstage playing washboard.

At the end of 1989 Thompson quit to reform his old band, The Skeletons, and Davidson moved to Branson to take a job as sound mixer at Ray Stevens' theater. In 1990 guitarist Bill Brown (from Supe's side band Supe & the Sandwiches) and Morells drummer Ron Gremp came aboard. The band continued their now-limited touring.