Rock of ages -- Dusti and her Groovin' Grannies are oldest band invited to compete in reality show

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, January 19, 2008 8:28 PM PST ∞

It would be tempting to dismiss Dusti and her Groovin' Grannies as a novelty act. But then comes the drum solo to "Caravan." Pounding out an intricate rhythm with the finesse if not the volume of Gene Krupa, Dusti Dryer handily proves she is no novice behind the kit. As her three-piece band hit the crescendo to the Duke Ellington classic and Dryer jokingly twirled her drumsticks, she and her cohorts wrapped up their Dec. 19 concert before a very appreciative afternoon crowd.
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The combo's audience on this day is a couple of hundred residents of the Rancho Carlsbad Retirement Community, but the number of people they individually have played before during the past 60 years is anyone's guess.

After playing countless gigs ranging from Alaskan honky-tonks to USO stages in the Pacific, the three women recently flirted with the biggest audience of their careers when they were invited to perform before judges of the Fox reality TV show "The Next Great American Band," which concluded in December.

In a coincidence that itself seemed scripted for television, the North County senior citizens were the oldest group in the running while another North County band, Light of Doom, was the youngest.

Light of Doom, which was chosen to compete, had five members from 12 to 15. The band made it to the final four before being eliminated.

"I don't know how we got in there," Dryer said. "It was for the kids."

Women of note
Dryer, 80, is an Oceanside resident and the group's leader and percussionist. Other members are bassist Karen Donley, 88, of Oceanside and pianist Joan Plessner, the baby of the group at 67 and a resident of Rancho Carlsbad.

"They asked us, 'Are you like the Bangles?' " Dryer said of the people at the show. "Joan said, 'Who the hell are the Bangles?' "

Dryer heard about the reality show and mailed in a videotape. Donley and Plessner knew nothing about it until Dryer told them they were among 60 bands selected from 14,000 audition tapes to perform in Las Vegas.

"In retrospect, it was really a great experience, but as I was going through it I was wondering, 'What am I doing here?'" Plessner said.

The trio was taken to the Lake Las Vegas Resort, where bands performed before judges in 110-degree heat.

Dusti and Her Groovin' Grannies opened with a bluegrass medley of "Alabama Jubilee" and "Down Yonder."

"And then, to show we could rock, we did 'Shake, Rattle and Roll,' " Plessner said.

They never made it past the Las Vegas stage, which Plessner said was just as well.

"What were we going to do when it was 'Heavy Metal Week'?" she said about the show, which had different themes during elimination rounds.

Proving themselves
Donley said there was a chauvinistic attitude toward female musicians when she began.

"I tried to get a job in 1943 when I got to Los Angeles, and they would laugh," she said. "They would say, 'Oh, did your husband teach you some chords?' There used to be a saying: 'Oh, she plays pretty good, for a girl.'"

Donley was turned down for a Hollywood job after being told that the club didn't want a trio. Suspicious, she returned the next night and saw the same two musicians she had auditioned with playing as a trio ---- with a male bassist.

"I just kept trying, you know," said Donley, who was married for many years to the bassist for Spike Jones' band.

Donley eventually found jobs in Los Angeles, including many gigs at the Walt Disney Studios, where she said composers recognized her talent.

But the sight of her and her large stand-up bass often met with disbelief. At one gig, the organizer declared that the idea of a female bassist was ludicrous.

"That was the word he used," Donley said, still vividly recalling his reaction. "Ludicrous."

Dryer said being a female drummer had its advantages because she was a novelty. But more often, it was an uphill battle.

"There were not very many girl drummers in my day, and of course, we did have to prove ourselves," she said. "We actually had to play better than the boys. But once we did, they accepted us. We weren't just another pretty face."

Long musical lives
Plessner's musical career began as a pianist in a high school dance band while growing up in Clayton, Mo. She continued performing professionally in Missouri and later in California, where she played and sang in Riverside County clubs from 1967 to 1979.

Besides playing with Dryer and Donley, she also plays twice a month at Brighton Gardens, an assisted-living home in Carlsbad. About five years ago, she read a newspaper article about Dryer, who was quoted saying that she and Donley were playing with a Palm Springs pianist who didn't like the drive to North County. Plessner called and offered to sit in, and she has been part of the trio since.

Like Plessner, Donley began playing before audiences at 15, starting with the Lansing, Mich., symphony in 1934. She began playing Saturday night dances in 1936.

After playing in her college orchestra, Donley said she turned down a scholarship at Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan because she had to find a paying job to help her family during the Depression.

During the 1940s, Donley played for the Detroit Edison Symphony, and later for the Hollywood Canteen Symphony in California. In Los Angeles, she played the Shrine Auditorium on Fridays and Saturdays with performers such as Buddy Greco, Nelson Eddy and Vickie Carr.

Her films include "Skirts Ahoy" with Esther Williams, "Lady Without Passport" with Hedy Lamarr, "The Competition" with Richard Dreyfuss and Lee Remick, and the two-hour "Columbo" series pilot starring Peter Falk.

Donley also played with Carmen Miranda and the Ina Rae Hutton All Girl Orchestra, a TV show that aired four years from Los Angeles. In 1963, she was part of a USO tour that traveled to Alaska, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Guam, Midway Island and Hawaii. She also traveled throughout the Western U.S. and Hawaii for nine years while doing industry shows for Union Oil. Donley and Dryer first played together as part of the touring band in 1961.

Little drummer girl
Dryer's entrance to show business began at age 1, as Miss New Year 1927.

"I had a little harmonica," she said. "I don't know what I could have played on it, but I think I did pretty good because they called me back for the next year."

Dryer wanted to play the accordion, but her parents wanted her to take piano first.

"Then I got the accordion," she said. "I used to practice eight hours a day, and then I wanted to join a symphony orchestra."

But an accordion part comes up "once in every 90 symphonies," Dryer said. At the suggestion of the conductor, who offered a position as percussionist if she was good enough, she began taking drum lessons, which led to her joining the symphony as a teen.

During World War II, Dryer formed a band, V Stands for Victory, and in 1947 and 1949 she was the drummer for a circus in Hawaii. In the late 1940s she joined Peter Meremblum and His Symphony Orchestra, and performed with them in shows at the Hollywood Bowl.

When her agent said she could make good money playing taverns in Alaska, Dryer formed the Frontier Girls with four other female musicians and headed north in 1951.

"One night, we heard this banging noise and looked around, and here was this guy riding a horse right into the middle of the bar," Dryer said. "We dove under the pinball machine. He was shooting a gun. Fortunately, he didn't kill anybody. He was just having a good time. And that's the way it was in Alaska in those days."

Back in California, Dryer found much work in Hollywood, and a wall in her Oceanside home is covered with framed black-and-white photos of people she played with: Jimmy Durante, Johnny Mathis, Donald O'Connor, the Andrews Sisters, Ricky Nelson.

"I probably made a dozen and a half movies," she said, reeling off titles such as "Song of India" and "Music for Millions." She usually appeared as part of a band, she said.

In 1955, Dryer played drums with Frankie Carle and his Girlfriends, and in the 1960s, Dryer appeared in the TV sitcom "The Mothers in Law" as the drummer in a band called the Ladies in the Garden, which featured actress Eve Arden on tuba.

Still grooving
The three women perform as Dusti and her Groovin' Grannies about four times a month. Since having both hips replaced, Donley has switched from stand-up bass to an electric Fender bass, which she plays seated.

"We don't rehearse anymore," Dryer said. "We couldn't remember what we rehearsed, anyway."

After auditioning in Las Vegas for "The Next Great American Band" last summer, the show's producers filmed interviews of the women back home in North County, but none of the segments aired. The band itself was shown only briefly on the show, and without sound, during a collage of performances.

But for several weeks, the show's Web site featured Plessner singing "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown."

A typical set by the band today is about an hour long and might include "A Woman Without a Man," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "Proud Mary" and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," their theme song.

"Are we going to do this next number?" Dryer is likely to ask her bandmates during a set. "Or did we just do it?"

Making fun of their age is part of the show for Dryer, who dots the band's repertoire with anecdotes and jokes. Some of those anecdotes lately include their experience with reality TV. While competing might have been a lark, their appearance may have left a lasting impression on some of the other musicians.

"One of the most beautiful things was how nice these young kids were," Plessner said. "They were polite. They were respectful. The ones we had a chance to talk to were thrilled by the fact that they could do this forever. I think they were shocked that women as old as we are could still play music.

"I don't know why it's such a novelty, when you think of it," she said. "If you can do something, you can do it for the rest of your life."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

Fast Facts

Dusti and her Groovin' Grannies are scheduled to perform a Mother's Day show at 10:45 a.m. May 9 at the San Marcos Senior Center, 111 Richmar Ave. in San Marcos.

For information, call the center at (760) 744-5535.

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