TALLADEGA — Gerald Sanders hasn’t lived in Talladega since 1957, when he was 15 years old, but he still likes to visit whenever he has the opportunity. "Bill McGehee has been taking me around, showing me all the homes, and I’m having dinner tonight at Diamond Lil’s with Mary Charles Massey and other members of the Talladega High School Class of 1959. The people here really are different than in California. I’m still surprised there are places here where you don’t have to prepay for gas."
The Ritz Theater on the square holds particularly fond memories for him.
"I have all kinds of wonderful memories of that place as a kid. We would sing in the Kiddie Morning Matinee, which got us free admission. A ticket was only 15 cents back then, but my dad was working at the Wehadkee Yarn Mill and that was a lot of money for us."
Those performances were also broadcast on WHTB, which was both the continuation of a family tradition and a portent of things to come.
"My mom sang and played guitar with a group called the Flagpole Mountain Gang with her sisters, and my dad played the mandolin. Both my parents are Alabama natives, and we always had lots of music around."
In 1957, the Sanders family relocated to Redlands, Calif., between Palm Springs and Los Angeles. In the early 1960s, Sanders, his brother Norm "Roly" Sanders, and their cousin Jessie Sanders started going to dances where surf music godfather Dick Dale and his band the Deltones were playing.
"We started getting into Duane Eddy, Link Wray and the Fireballs, too, and after a while we started writing our own songs."
Sanders played bass and sang on the tracks that had vocals (early 1960s surf music was almost always instrumental), with Roly on lead guitar, Jessie on rhythm guitar and friend Leonard Delaney on drums. Sax man George White rounded out the original lineup.
Big break
In 1962, the band issued its first single, "Bustin’ Surfboards," which became the first nationwide instrumental surf hit.
According to the AllMusic Guide, "Although using an off-brand echo unit in place of the Fender Reverb Unit, which hadn’t been invented yet, the record had the prerequisite sound of this fledgling genre, utilizing a solid surfer’s stomp drum beat and crashing wave sound effects throughout."
An album named for the hit was released two years later and became an essential component of any surf aficionado’s collection.
The AllMsic Guide characterized the group’s lone LP as an "excellent album that stands as one of the earliest and best examples of the genre." More to the point, the record collector’s magazine Goldmine called it "the rarest of holy grails for hodaddies and surf bunnies alike … surf music at its earliest and coolest."
Although "Bustin’ Surf Boards" remains the group’s biggest and best known hit, there were several other songs, including "The Gremmie," "Moon Dawg" and "Shooting Beavers," the last of which became a major regional hit until parents concerned about the title had it banned.
"We reissued it under a different name, but by then it was too late," Sanders said.
Working with Zappa
For the sessions that resulted in several of these sides, the band’s label sent them to Cucamonga and paired them with an engineer, "this really young kid that nobody had ever heard of," Sanders said. "We were really kind of afraid that he wouldn’t know what he was doing, but it turned out all right. He really did know what he was doing."
That kid was Frank Zappa, who would debut as the leader of the Mothers of Invention two years later.
"Zappa engineered ‘Moon Dawg’ for us," Sanders continued. "I remember we wanted the record to start off with barking dogs. We decided we were going to do the barking ourselves, but Zappa said it didn’t quite sound right. So he had us get down on the floor on all fours and recorded us through a boom mic. That’s the one that ended up on the record."
At the time, the Tornadoes shared the same agent as Jan and Dean, and became particularly close to them.
"We played with the Beach Boys several times, too, and with lots of other people, The Righteous Brothers, The Kingsmen, and the Shantays
They have also shared the stage with the Drifters, the Coasters, Nino Tempo, Dobie Gray, and, on numerous occasions, Dick Dale, their original inspiration. They recently performed with punk/surf band Agent Orange at the Gene Autrey Museum.
By the latter half of the 1960s the band members were all pursuing other endeavors, and they quietly disbanded.
Renewed fame
The band got an unexpected new lease on life in 1993, when Quentin Tarrantino selected "Bustin’ Surfboards" for the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. In the movie, it plays behind the drug scene with John Travolta and Eric Stoltz.
Sundazed Records reissued the group’s album on CD with bonus tracks the same year.
An album of new material, "Bustin’ Surfboards ’98", was recorded in 1998, and in 1999, saxophone player Joel Willenbring joined the original four members.
Willenbring had previously played in The Lively Ones, another instrumental surf combo featured on the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack.
The Tornadoes have been touring regularly since the early 1990s.
"We’re still playing, still enjoying ourselves," Sanders said.
In July, the band went to Dobaran, Germany, to perform at Zappanale, a four-day festival honoring their late engineer, who died in 1993. The band’s performance is available on a three-CD set of highlights, as well as a DVD of the event.
"We’re hoping to play in Italy next," Sanders said.
Coming home?
Even closer to Sanders’ heart, however, is the possibility of returning to play at the Ritz Theater during the next spring season.
"We really wanted to play when they reopened, but my brother had just taken a position as a private pilot, and he didn’t want to ask for the time off right after he took the job.
"But we’re hoping we can make all the pieces fit next year. That would really bring us full circle."
