Northwest Rock ‘N’ Roll Jr. Cadillac Proves Its Staying Power - As Music Trends Come And Go, They Enter Their Second Quarter-Century Of Rock ‘N’ Roll

The veteran Northwest rock group Jr. Cadillac makes a rare Eastern Washington appearance tonight in the lobby of the Davenport Hotel.

Reinvigorated by a three-CD career retrospective and the addition of a sixth member, baritone sax player Jeffrey Beals, Cadillac is rolling into its second quartercentury with a burst of fresh energy.

“It’s exciting,” said frontman Ned Neltner, “I think we’re playing as well as ever, if not better.”

Jr. Cadillac occupies a unique space in the history of Northwest rock ‘n’ roll: The band bridges the gulf between the first golden age of Northwest rock and the second - between the Wailers and Pearl Jam, as it were.

When the Jr. Cadillac story began, there were no Seahawks, Mariners or SuperSonics. But there were the Sonics, the Kingsmen and the Wailers, bands that shook the world in the ‘50s and ‘60s, just as Nirvana and Alice In Chains did in the ‘90s.

“I would say that we kind of pride ourselves in being a direct line from then to now,” Neltner said. “When I hear Alice In Chains or Mudhoney, I hear the Sonics. They might think they hear Kiss and Led Zeppelin, but I don’t know if those bands would have existed without the Sonics.”

That’s not as big a stretch as it may sound, considering that many British musicians consider those first Northwest rockers as prime influences. Chief among them is the Kinks’ Ray Davies.

Neltner remembers a Jr. Cadillac gig at the Seattle Center when the band opened for the Kinks and the Beach Boys.

“We were up there playing and all of a sudden I noticed these guys crouching behind the amps, listening to us.”

It was the Kinks, themselves getting a first-hand dose of that good, old Northwest rock ‘n’ roll.

When the city of Seattle was invited to send an emissary group to the Soviet Union, it was Cadillac that went. When the cry went up to make “Louie Louie” the state song, Cadillac was tapped to update the old Wailers/Kingsmen masterpiece.

In fact, Jr. Cadillac is a Northwest institution that might almost be considered a Spokane institution - except that it isn’t from Spokane.

Cadillac is, and has been since the beginning, a Seattle band. During the ‘70s, it may have been Seattle’s most popular band, packing dance floors night after night with its easy Northwest R&B groove.

But two of the group’s mainstay musicians learned their chops playing in Spokane, and for practically a decade the band seemed to play here as much as any local band.

So forgive us if we want to adopt Jr. Cadillac.

“I had moved to Spokane from Yakima during my junior year of high school,” singer/guitarist Neltner recalled last week.

It was the late ‘50s and Neltner and a group of Shadle Park High School classmates put together a band they called the Demons.

At the time, the Northwest was becoming one of the hottest music scenes in the country, with innovative young musicians and great, go-for broke Top 40 radio stations. On the West Side, such bands as the Wailers, Little Bill and the Bluenotes, the Viceroys, the Sonics and Jimmy Hanna and the Dynamics were messing around with a new kind of rock that borrowed heavily from R&B. Teen clubs were sprouting up everywhere.

On this side of the state, Lewis and Clark High School had the Rockers which “may have been the first rock band in Eastern Washington,” said Neltner, and Shadle had the Bluejeans, “arguably the most popular band in town.”

In about 1960, the Demons mutated into the Mark V and college began claiming its members. Neltner, then a student at Eastern Washington State College, went looking for a tenor sax player: “I wanted the tenor that played the solos in the school dance band.”

That turned out to be Les Clinkingbeard, a jazz hound who favored Jimmy Smith and Stanley Turrentine.

“I went over to his house and played him all my favorite tenor players - King Curtis, Little Richard’s tenor player. All those guys.

“We immediately hit it off and have been hitting it off ever since.”

A succession of bands followed, leading to the formation of Jr. Cadillac in 1970. The band quickly became the hottest ticket in Seattle and stayed hot in the face of psychedelia and disco.

Neltner and Clinkingbeard led their bandmates across the mountains in the early ‘70s to play the old Goofies.

Then Joe Felice opened the Smokeshop on Riverside and Jr. Cadillac had a home in Eastern Washington. Then the Smokeshop became Washboard Willies, and a whole new group of partiers discovered the band.

One by one, the old clubs closed, though, victimized by changing lifestyles. Punk and alternative rock took over most of the remaining venues.

It’s a constant cycle of change, as one style replaces another, but somehow, Jr. Cadillac has managed to survive the trends.

These days, Cadillac’s members hold down day jobs. They play a few self-promoted ballroom gigs like tonight’s show, do practically every community festival and half the fairs on the West Side and have begun playing selected club dates again.

Recently, they’ve been packing a downtown Tacoma club called The Swiss. “It’s got the old vibe, like when Washboard’s was happening and the Rainbow in Seattle,” Neltner said.

Jr. Cadillac came along a little too late to cash in on the first great wave of Northwest rock, and is way too old for the second. But if someone ever gets around to reckoning who best represents the spirit of Northwest music, Jr. Cadillac will have to be a contender. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: JR. CADILLAC Location and time: The Davenport, tonight at 9. Tickets: $10 in advance at Street Music and G&B outlets. $12 at the door.