The Stockwell Brothers: Standing in the Shadow of the Motor City
For every Bob Seger and Alice Cooper . . . there’s a Joe and Rick Stockwell strumming a lost chord in the Gar Wood Mansion
All in the family with Coloradus, 1972, Left to Right: Rick Stockwell, Michael Marsac (both guitars), Joe Stockwell (keyboards), Jeep Capone (drums), and Elde Stewart (bass).
Detroit has bred some of rock ’n’ roll’s best known “hometown boy does good” archetypes in Glenn Frey, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, James Osterberg, and Dick Wagner. Then there are those likeminded teen musicians — such as Bill Goddard, Gene Gustafson, Jerry Schemel, Bob Stayton, and Rick Stockwell lost in the Motown shadows — whose rise from the Motor City’s local scene to on-the-cusp national fame as the Coronados collided with the escalation of the Vietnam War.
By 1968, the first batches of Vietnam draftees from the “Class of ’65” — those who survived the Vietnamese jungles — began their stateside returns. The Motor City’s musically-inclined draftees — such as Larry Merryman and Gary Markley — found solace along the muddy banks of the Detroit River, planting the seeds for a soon-to-be-nationally-known rock scene: a San Franciscan-psychedelic analogous cultural flashpoint for the disenfranchised children of the late 1960s known as Gar Wood Mansion.
It was Larry Merryman and Gary Markley’s kismet meeting in the midst of the South Asian chaos that birthed the “Summer of Love” creation of that infamous artistic hub at 450 Keelson Drive, Detroit, on Greyhaven Island located on the Lower Eastside of the Detroit River. While the iconic estate dates to the early 1900s, Motor City musicians know the Gatsby-era manor during the years of 1969 to 1972 — when Gar Wood Mansion served as the epicenter for Detroit’s developing progressive rock scene. The commune quickly became local, then national, news.
On the Muddy Banks of the Detroit River
In 1915, Garfield Arthur Wood, the son of an Iowa ferryboat operator, moved to Detroit, Michigan. By that point, that son — who preferred to be called “Gar” — matured into a prolific industrialist inventor, designer and manufacturer said to have registered more patents than any other inventor of his time. While Gar enjoyed designing and racing powerboats — an avid racer who consistently won the Gold Cup Championship from 1917 to 1921, he was the first person to break the 100-mph speed barrier on the waters of the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair — he made his fortune developing the hydraulic lift, which lead to his creation of the modern-day garbage truck.
Adored by boating aficionados, Wood constructed a 28-foot Triple-Cockpit Runabout in 1930 christened “Katie’s Choice” — which sold at auction in 2016 for $275,000. Gar Wood was, in his own way, The Great Gatsby — just not a humdrum, reclusive one. Not since Irish poet Oscar Wilde or German philosopher Wolfgang von Goethe has the world seen a “rock star” like Gar Wood — one that outshined the very musicians that later invaded his mansion.
Garfield Arthur Wood, aka Gar Wood.
Nine years later, in 1924, The Motor City’s original bad ass imported the best stone from Italy for the construction of a 46-roomed manor-residence — complete with an Olympic-sized pool in its basement (we wonder what those crazy hippies did down there) and a 1000-plus capacity ballroom with wall-to-wall hardwood floors that held a custom-inlaid Steinway known as the world’s largest privately-owned pipe organ (we know what the hippies did in there).
Then, to get away from the brutal Detroit winters: Gar Wood retired to Miami in 1955.
For the next fourteen years, the mansion remained vacant; falling into disrepair until an industrious 19-year-old hippie named Mark Hoover acquired it as a “communal home” for young, upstart professionals. To make the rent: Hoover threw monthly rent parties — complete with live music — easily making the $600 tab. Then, when the bands and their hangers-on completely took over and the partying got out of control, Hoover’s young professional friends moved out.
Those hippies remained as a “jam band” that coalesced in 1970 around the core of those two American musicians from Detroit meeting on the Vietnam warfront, known as Stonefront: wordplay on the Gar Wood’s massive, Italian stone-cut walls. Under full Stonefront control, the Gar Wood Estate served as an open-all-hours local hangout; a faux club and rehearsal space for upstart local bands that transformed into a “venue” where national touring bands such as the Allman Brothers, Joe Cocker, Cream, the Rolling Stones, Leon Russell, and the Who — after making their Detroit stops at Cobo Hall, Eastown Theatre, and The Grande Ballroom — would come to party. Some bands, such as Iron Butterfly, would perform an impromptu, second full show, for free.
Then, as the Gar Wood’s rock ’n’ roll shenanigans reached a Laurel Canyon-analogous flashpoint, Detroit politicians grew weary of the Haight-Asbury-styled negative publicity appearing in the national press.
The time came for the party to end.
A January 1972 bust over 25 kilos of marijuana found on the premises (to this day the estate’s denizens insist it was a “set up by the pigs,” as drugs — by an “unwritten rule” — were never trafficked on the Estate) during one of the many raids that plagued the hippie resort finally shut down the party.
Then, in August: the Outlaws motorcycle gang roared into town and raided the abandoned grounds for a week-long celebration — and trashed the Gar Wood a bit more, as the bikers callously busted the manor’s majestic, outdoor staircases and statuaries. At some point during 1972, the estate was rented out for an obscure, low-budget surrealistic film production, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (not commercially released until 1977). What was left of the Gar Wood by the biker and cinematic afterwards burnt to the ground after a freak lighting storm strike.
God had spoken.
Stonefront Rocks the Gar Wood
The 1970, Mk. 1 performing-version of Stonefront solidified as a quartet fronted by founding-guitarist Larry Merryman, along with vocalist Chuck Mahonian and — from the early ’60s Detroit-teenaged, British-Invasion-styled garage rock bands the Nomads and the Coronados: the Stockwell brothers-based rhythm section of Joe and Rick. Rick soon put down his Coronados-era bass for lead guitar duties when another ex-Coronado, guitarist Bob Stayton — a longtime “jam buddy” of Larry’s, as both served in the same Vietnam unit — added an eventual third guitar to the roster.
The Stockwell-Stayton era of Stonefront opened several Midwestern U.S dates for Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson’s pre-Cheap Trick concern, Fuse; the Rockford, Illinois, band was newly signed to Epic Records.
To place in perspective: Nielsen and Petersson are currently on a fall U.S tour with Cheap Trick from October 12 to December 7, 2025.
In the wings, absorbing all things rock ’n’ roll by way of his brothers’ afternoon rehearsals in the Gar Wood’s 1000-person capacity ballroom, was the Stockwells’ 15-year-old half-brother, Michael Marsac. In time, another Waterford Township High School kid hanging out at the Gar Wood named Jeep Capone — he, the great-nephew of infamous organized crime boss Al Capone, who learned his trade behind the kit for another aspiring teen band on the scene, Seeds of Doubt — took over the drum stool.
Despondent over his “creative differences” dismissal from Stonefront, Joe Stockwell — courtesy of a lengthy poolside counseling session down at the Gar Wood’s basement swimming pool by one of the mansion’s frequent jam-visitors, Leon Russell — began to formulate his next career move inspired by the California-bred sounds of “country rock.” That band, Coloradus, came to feature the Stockwells, Marsac, and Jeep Capone.
Newsprint photo of Stonefront at home in the Gar Wood: Left to right: Larry Merryman, Joe Ford, Jeep Capone, Bob Stayton, and Rick Stockwell.
By 1971, under the tutelage of Larry Merryman, Stonefront transformed into a looser “jam band” collective with a roster-rotation that lasted until early 1974; Sly Stone, who always made a point to swing by the Gar Wood after his Detroit tour stops, became another honorary jam-member.
Those jam-versions of Stonefront featured the core of returning co-founder Gary Markley, as well as Harry Bourlier on guitars, Mark Swanberg on bass, and drummer Eddie Saenz. In addition to vocals, Robin Welch also handled saxophone duties, with Darryl Bradley and Bill Landless in support on congas and percussions-keyboards, respectively, and Natalie Morgan on backing vocals. As the year progressed, Stonefront returned to its more structured, quartet roots featuring Larry Merryman, his brother Gary, fellow founding member Gary Markley on guitars, and Robin Welch.
Stonefront inside Detroit’s Tera Sherma Studios: Left to Right: Jeep Capone, ex-Coronadoes Bob Stayton and Rick Stockwell, Rod Shives, and Larry Merryman.
As with Detroit’s other Elvis-to-British Invasion-inspired musicians adopting a psychedelic, “Summer of Love” sound for their next endeavors — such as the career-paralleled James Osterberg with the Iguanas and the Prime Movers transforming into the Elektra-signed Iggy and the Stooges; Robert Seger with the Decibels, the Town Criers, and Doug Brown & the Omens, becoming internationally known as Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band; Glenn Frey with the Subterraneans, the Four of Us, and the Mushrooms leaving his mark as a member of the Eagles; John Neff of the Ascots transforming as the Electric Blues Band and Toad and the Mushroom, and Ted Pearson’s the Revolvers giving way to the proto-metal of Phantom (of Phantom’s Divine Comedy infamy)— Joe and Rick Stockwell, along with their little brother Michael Marsac, and their sometimes performing, old brother Steven who took on roadie and tour manager duties, have their own, clean-cut Beatlesesque matching-suits-and-tab-collar beginnings.
The Coronadoes: Michigan’s Answer to the Beach Boys
Those teen-aspiring rock ’n’ roll dreams began in the Stockwell family basement; learning by analog osmosis in the underground, ad-hoc rehearsal space was Michael Marsac who, at the age of 10, became a long-time fan of Dick Wagner. One of Detroit’s most-respected guitarists, Wagner became internationally known for his influential ’70s tenures with Lou Reed and Alice Cooper. Years later, Marsac would come to share impromptu jam sessions on Detroit’s club stages with his idol. (To place in perspective: The original Alice Cooper band reunited and released their first album in 52 years, The Revenge of Alice Cooper, in July 2025. The album features original members Alice Cooper, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith, along with producer Bob Ezrin. The band is currently on a co-headlining North American tour with Judas Priest from September to October 2025.)
“Rick, before he put the Coronados together, began his professional career in 1959 with the Eldorados, which played the same circuit as Wagner’s the Bossmen based out of Waterford, who got their start in 1961. I learned just as much about the guitar from watching and listening to Dick in the Bossmen and his later band, the Frost, as I did from my brothers Joe and Rick.”
The Coronados as a quintet: Left to Right: Bill Goddard (drums), Bob Stayton (lead guitar), Jerry Schemel (saxphone), Rick Stockwell (bass), Gene Gustafson (keyboards).
By 1962, the Eldorados gave way to the Coronados; by 1965, as they cut their final recordings (for an intended fourth single; lost) in Macon, Georgia (where they cut their first recordings), the Coronados, as did most bands across the America, dissolved in the wake of the Vietnam draft. As Rick Stockwell and the rest of the Coronados served their country, the younger Joe Stockwell formed his first band: the “blue-eyed soul” inflected the Nomads (there were over 30-plus U.S bands with the moniker during the 1960s; one of those bands featured Michael Bolotin, aka Bolton, which signed with Epic Records when he was 15).
Unlike the Coronados, the Nomads, fronted by Joe’s behind-the-drum kit-lead vocals, never made it to the recording studio — even after their locally-coveted and well-received appearance on WKHM disc jockey Robin Seymour’s CKLW-TV Channel 9’s television show, Swingin’ Time. The Nomads opened that installment as the undercard to a then-hot, fellow-teen band: the Amboy Dukes, featuring a young Ted Nugent, performing their nationally-charting, 1968 single, “Journey to the Center of the Mind.”
The Coronados as a quartet, sans keyboardist Gene Gustason, for various promotional photos.
Managed by Cecil, the father of the band’s saxophonist Jerry Schemel (who doubled on guitar and keyboards), with Les, the Stockwell brothers’ father as co-manager, the Coronados recorded a trio of singles: one local-promotional and two nationally-released, featuring Rick Stockwell on bass and lead vocals, Bob Stayton on lead guitar, Bill Goddard on drums, and Jerry Schemel. The quartet soon expanded their sound with Gene Gustafson on keyboards.
Best known for his fruitful career supplying country-inflected songs for the likes of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Strait and, Hank Williams, Jr., songsmith Mack Vickery produced the Coronados under an agreement with Paramount Pictures Productions’ musical division, Dot Records.
In 1965, the Coronodos released the Vickery-penned “The Nomad” b/w “Center of Attraction.” Under their “e”-added tweaked moniker (to avoid confusion with several other “Coronados” in the U.S), the newly-minted Coronadoes recorded Vickery’s “Zig Zag” backed with the band’s original, “What Would I Do,” for the Nashville-based Lamar Records, again produced by Vickery. That first Vickery A-Side, “The Nomad,” lives on in the digital world as part of overseas garage rock compilations, most notably on Gamma Knee Kappa Vol. 1: Best in Frat Rock (1990). As is the case with overseas compilation tributes to ’60s American rock ’n’ roll comprised with obscure 45-rpm singles: the Coronados were unaware of its release and received no royalties.
The Vickery deal was the culmination of the band winning the Michigan State Fair’s annual “Battle of the Bands” talent show — over 50 other bands — along with winning the Starlit Stairway’s Talent Show in 1963, hosted by Rita Bell (the first female weather forecaster in Detroit) on WXYZ-TV Channel 7. The station also hosted the Coronados on their Saturday afternoon music program, Club 1270, where the house-band was Motown Records’ standing-in-the-shadows studio concern: the Funk Brothers. In addition to playing venues multiple times in Pontiac and Clarkston, the Coronados opened local shows for national touring bands, such as a memorable Walled Lake, Michigan, appearance by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
At that point: the Coronados’ appearance on WKHM disc jockey Robin Seymour’s higher-rated CKLW-TV Channel 9’s television show, Swingin’ Time, was inevitable. Bill Goddard, considered the “most well-spoken and best looking” of the bunch by the band, served as spokesman for those television appearances.
“Prior to our deal with Mack Vickery, cutting those singles for Dot and Lamar, we cut a promotional single ourselves with Bobby Smith in Macon, Georgia, to send to radio, press, and record companies in 1962. We also sold a few at shows. It was a very limited run, like 50, which is why you can’t find any copies today. I don’t even have one,” recalls Coronados drummer Bill Goddard.
“The single’s A-Side, ‘Please Don’t Go,’ is what earned us our spot on the Starlit Stairway’s Talent Show, which we performed live on the program — and won. It’s been 60 years, so I don’t recall the technical details, such as what ‘B.E.B Records’ was all about. My memory is that Rick Stockwell’s dad Les, who co-managed the band with Jerry’s dad Cecil, put that record together. Maybe one of their wives had ‘blue eyes’ and it meant ‘blue eyed baby,’ who knows. What I do recall is that we were upset the pressing plant in Ohio mislabeled the B-Side instrumental as ‘Backfire,’ when it should have read ‘Beachfire.’”
The Macon, Georgia, studio operated by Bobby Smith that Bill Goddard speaks of — that ties into the “Ohio pressing plant” that mislabeled the 1962 single, an incident that the then very-young Mike Marsac also recalls his family discussing — was S-K Studios South. The Macon-based recording and production facility was founded when Syd Nathan, the president of the King Record Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, commissioned engineer and producer Bobby Smith, aka James “Bobby” R. Smith, to build a studio in Macon, Georgia — then the new adopted hometown of James Brown, the “star” of the King label.
A state-registered landmark today, the King Record Company was located in a former ice storage building at 1540 Brewster Avenue in Cincinnati. A unique imprint among independent labels, King’s entire production process was done in-house at the Brewster location: recording, mastering, printing, pressing, warehousing and shipping. Since King used no outside subcontractors, which maintained overhead costs, King could press in very small numbers — as few as 50 units. Syd Nathan himself loaded copies in the back of his car to hawk to radio stations. If the singles received no airplay or chart positions: no more records were pressed. This is why King singles are rare finds in today’s internet-based collector’s aftermarket.
While the “technical details” on the 62-year-old recording are forgotten by ex-Coronado Bill Goddard and the “too young to remember” Stockwell brother Michael Marsac: King’s low production runs — and as is the case with any independent labels with small runs — indicates King (possibly) utilized the nickel master as a cost-cutting “stamper” created from the lacquers cut (in Cincinnati, Ohio) off the master tape cut at S-K Studios South (in Macon, Ga.). In production runs with larger labels, multiple stampers are created from a nickel master to press records.
The Year Rock ’n’ Roll Met Vietnam
In 1963, U.S involvement in The Vietnam Conflict increased via “military advisors” under President Kennedy. In August 1964, following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, U.S Congress granted broad authority to President Lyndon Johnson to deploy combat troops. By March 1965, the first U.S troops — 3,500 marines — landed in Da Nang; widespread aerial bombing, known as “Operation Rolling Thunder,” began.
Come July, young men across America received their draft notices — including the members of “Michigan’s Answer to the Beach Boys,” the Coronados. As with so many pre-Vietnam bands on the verge: instead of consolidating their local-to-regional success into a nationally recognized career, the Coronados splintered.
“The band was writing a lot. They had the deal with Dot and it was very optimistic that the ‘next one’ would be the one,” recalls Marsac. “When they went in the service, the momentum was lost. Vietnam ruined it.”
Four years later, Vietnam continued to ruin the potential of up-and-coming Detroit teen bands.
Bob Stayton, left, with Larry Merryman, right, serving in Vietnam, 1966.
Rick Stockwell, left, in Vietnam, 1965.
“I remember, when recording our first single, the three of us, me, Roy and Perry [Rouse], standing in the booth, under the microphone, singing vocals over the backing track. I thought, ‘I’m recording for Capitol Records like Bob Seger. This could be big.’ [Seger released his Capitol debut single, “2 + 2=?” from Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man, in 1968] Then I was drafted into the Army in 1969. I served from September 1969 to September 1971. That’s why there was never another single [after their June 1969 single, “Mean Woman Blues” b/w “She Makes Me Happy”] for the Shaggs with Capitol,” recalls drummer Stan Burger.
“I was the first Coronado called to duty, receiving my draft notice in July 1965,” recalls Bill Goddard — the band’s last surviving member. “Rick Stockwell and Jerry Schemel soon received theirs, then Bob Stayton. Jerry — who, on top of being a great sax player, was a star wrestler at Waterford Kettering High School — sadly, didn’t return home. He died in July 1966. While they served in the army for their two years, I chose to serve out my draft in the U.S Navy for four years. In those days the G.I Bill would pay for up to four years of college for four years of military service. While a stroke of bad luck for my music career, which was going pretty well at that point, it turned into a great opportunity for my future.”
“Jerry Schemel was a great guy and guitarist as well as saxophonist,” recalled John Neff. “I remember his work in the Coronados quite well, as us kids in the Ascots, with our little local, indie-single looked up to them. Jerry having a shiny, red Pontiac G.T.O didn’t hurt, either. They had that Paramount single [on Dot] and we aspired for a similar success [for the Ascots]. Sadly, Jerry’s noted as the first man from Oakland County, Michigan, killed in Vietnam. I found his name on The Vietnam Memorial Wall, years later. It was very sad.”
PFC Jerry L. Schemel, Vietnam, 1965.
The official government report on the death of PFC Jerry L. Schemel, an Airborne Qualified Infantryman, who died on July 27, 1966: A U.S Army helicopter, a Bell UH-1D Iroquois, from A Company, 82nd Aviation Battalion, was participating in a troop lift of members of C Company, 4/503rd, when the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure and crashed.
Back Home to Rock ’n’ Roll
Rick Stockwell’s future began with his return to the Motor City in 1968; he brought along another band to the states: another, like Stonefront, which began on the Vietnam frontlines with Larry Merryman and Gary Markley, and other military-drafted musicians. Known as Leadville Feed, Seed & Bag Company, the new, U.S-version of the band fronted by ex-Coronados Rick Stockwell on lead guitar, Hammond B3 and lead vocals, and Bob Stayton on rhythm guitar, also featured a rhythm section of Detroit-bred war vets in bassist Mark Lundgren and drummer Richard “Dick” Ayers.
“When Rick came back from the war: he was transformed, possessed, playing the hell out of his guitar and he became this incredible lead guitarist,” remembers Marsac. “We multitasked in those days. Bands co-existed. It was ‘music,’ all day every day, so, at some points; you were in two or three bands at once, juggling situations. So, in addition to Leadville: Bob Stayton, Rick and Joe first got together after the war in 1968, with guys I can’t recall, as Straw Dog, based out of Lake Orion.”
Leadville Feed, Seed & Bag Company, 1968. Left to Right: Rick Stockwell, guitar, organ and lead vocals; Mark Lundgren, bass; Bob Stayton, guitar; Dick Ayers, drums.
1972 Performance Flyer for the Grand Opening of new club, Heaven.
Then, by 1970, the unholy hard-rock trinity of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath arrived. So Leadville Feed, Seed & Bag Company — with Rick, and his brother Joe Stockwell now in the fold, became part of the Gar Wood commune lead by Larry Merryman and Gary Markley. Soon, the bands Merryman started on the Vietnam front unified as one: Stonefront.
“So Joe leaves Stonefront as a drummer, gets his Hammond B-3, and starts Coloradus. Then, by 1972, he’s back in Stonefront as the keyboardist,” says Marsac. It was that new quintet-version of Stonefront that laid the groundwork for the Stockwells’ permanent, next phase of Coloradus.
During the years of 1969 to 1972, with its ever-changing “jam band” roster, a recording-version of Stonefront — featuring Jeep Capone on drums, along with his fellow, ex-Seeds of Doubt bassist Rod Shives now in the fold (a non-recording bassist during this period, Joe Ford, also drifted through), along with ex-Coronados Rick Stockwell and Bob Stayton on organ and guitars, solidified around Larry Merryman. Those tracks, not advancing beyond the acetate stage, were cut at Ralph Terrana and Al Sherman’s Tera Shrima Studios in Detroit.
Seeds of Doubt, June 1968: Left to Right: Randy Shives, Kurt Paulson, Rod Shives, and Jeep Capone.
Bob Stayton, 1982.
“I have wonderful memories of my mom taking me to my dad and Larry’s practices at the Gar Wood with Stonefront,” reflects Bob Stayton’s daughter, Judyth. “While my mom recalls Leon Russell and Bob Seger hanging out during the rehearsals, and Sly Stone sitting in with them, I was busy running around on the big ballroom’s hardwood floors, pretending I was Shirley Temple.
“After the Gar Wood days and having the band Straw Dog [that became Coloradus] with the Stockwell brothers, my dad formed Sidewinder, a three-piece, professional covers band, with Mark Lundgren from Leadville Feed, Seed & Bag Company, and Mark’s brother Charlie. My dad was on guitar, Charlie was on bass, and Mark sang lead and played drums. When my dad was in the Coronados, Mark and Charlie, who also went to Waterford Kettering High School with the rest of the Coronados, had a band called the Mark V. Later, in the ’70s, Mark and Charlie had a brotherly acoustic duo similar to the Stockwell brothers’ duo. Dad continued to play professionally all the way up until his death in 1990. The Coronados falling apart was hard on him.”
“Sadly, Carl Donato, Jr., who was the drummer in the Mark V, passed away in September 2022,” interjects Michael Marsac. “Carl was a close family friend to the Stockwells and Marsacs, as the Mark V did many shows with the Coronados.”
The Mark V, featuring Mark and Charlie Lundgren, 1963.
Coloradus Arrives in the Motor City
While his half-brothers developed their careers with the Nomads and the Coronados, Michael Marsac joined his first band in middle school: Old Friends. An already active, all-acoustic concern, the collective featured Dave Anderson on the 12-string, Ken Crawford on bass, and Johnny Heaton, along with Marsac, on 6-strings.
“Dave, Ken, Johnny and I met up at my house to discuss forming a new band,” drummer Frank Mielke recalls. “Johnny Heaton and I — only 16 and 17 years old — previously worked together in the West End, which won the 1969 Farmington Hills Founders Festival. Those three together was the first and last time I was ever with a group of individuals that could have successfully pulled off the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young classics that we played around with at the time. However, within days of that meet up: I was asked to play drums with the more-established, seven-member Flash Cadillac [and the Cosmic Kids] out of Waterford — which lasted a few more years, known as Dave and the Diamonds.”
“Old Friends played a few gigs, one of which was opening for Punch’s [Ed Andrews] band Tea at Elisabeth Lake Estate; that’s where I first met Jerry Zubal and formed bands with him over the years,” [by the late ’70s, Zubal recorded for RSO Records with the L.A-based Rockicks featuring ex-members of MGM’s Rock Candy] recalls Johnny Heaton, whose band Tantrum toured as Bob Seger’s opening act for his 1974 tour to promote his album, Seven.
“I remember that gig,” continues Marsac. “Tea was a really good, very popular band at the time. The Estate was this little club house on the beach and their road manager came in discouraged, ‘Tea is playing, here?’ That was the first time I heard ‘Jesus Is Just Alright’ by Tea, that night [pre-Doobie Brothers; based on the first “rock” version by the Byrds]. In fact, I recall hanging out with the band after that show and they were already discussing changing their name to 1776 because ‘Tea’ had a ‘drug inference’ their management didn’t like as they were readying to record [issued on Punch Andrews’s Palladium Records in 1971]. That band had real momentum. It’s a shame it wasn’t realized. That gig was the beginning of a long friendship: my brother Rick and Jerry Zubal, many years later, put together the bands Talley Creek and the Wingtips.”
A seasoned guitarist by 1971 and out of Old Friends, a 16-year-old Michael Marsac — while still attending Waterford Township High School — joined his brothers’ post-Stonefront phase as their Coronodos-by-Beatlesque roots blossomed as the country-rock driven Coloradus.
Coloradus, 1975, Left to Right: Rick Stockwell, Michael Marsac, Joe Stockwell, Ronald Course, and Elde Stewart.
Its Southern Cal-sound flavored with smidgens of soul and soupcons of R&B/funk tossed in for good measure, Coloradus was another band with an ever-changing roster of restless Detroit musicians that eventually solidified around the core of Joe and Rick Stockwell and Michael Marsac, a steady bassist in Elde Stewart, and a Detroit warhorse drummer — who did time in Johnny Heaton’s pre-Tantrum concern, White Heat — Ronald Course. Another familiar face on Coloradus’ drum stool — the one whose skill set enabled the band to expand beyond its country-rock roots into soul and R&B — was longtime Stockwells’ associate, Jeep Capone, who joined in the fall of 1972.
“My favorite Coloradus recording is our take on Steve Miller’s ‘Love Shock,’ interjects Course. “I listen back, proud of what we did with that song, all of our songs, really. The beauty of the tune is that it sounds ‘rehearsed’ and it’s not: we just knew where the other was going. That’s just how it was with the Stockwells. They were two great musicians who should have hit the big time.”
“At the time of my joining, Coloradus hadn’t yet gotten into the clubs,” adds Marsac. “We did a couple of weddings and VFW hall events. We played gigs around Detroit in Pontiac and Clarkston, high schools, and eventually booked the Firebird Lounge, which was a big gig at the time for bands, playing six nights a week. I was still going to high school at the time, getting up after a long night of playing, going to classes, barely.
Rick Stockwell, 1972.
“Another of our gigs was at the Adam’s Apple in Pine Knob where we performed 96 days in a row, seven nights a week, with a mix of covers and about 30 percent originals. It was a popular spot for celebrities, those on tour. Cheech and Chong, who had their albums out, would hang out with us after shows. Richie Havens would be in the audience. Mac Davis, while he was on tour, when he had his TV show, he asked to come on stage and we did a few tunes; one was Muddy Waters’ ‘Got My Mojo Working.’ Mac was great on it.
“Back in 1961, during an early Coronados show at the Walled Lake Casino, I was with my dad and the band’s manager, Cecil Schemel. While performing his first concert that night, I met a 10-year-old Little Stevie Wonder when I was 6. We shared a conversation over a Pepsi. At another Walled Lake gig with the band that same year, I met Frankie Valli. In fact, through the years of playing with my brothers in Coloradus and later, with the Shotgun Willie Band, I had the privilege of meeting and playing with Mickey Gilley, Brenda Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roddy McDowall, Marie Osmond, Charley Pride, and Tanya Tucker. We may have been local, but we were respected.”
Coloradus consolidated their club successes to the point of opening shows for Detroit-touring national acts, such as the up-and-coming .38 Special. Prior to that band’s management with Peter Rudge, who oversaw affairs for the Who and served as tour manager for the Rolling Stones, the budding Southern Rockers toured non-stop across the South and Midwest, building a sizeable fan base in Detroit before the rest of the country knew who they were.
“The.38 Special gig happened a little later, after our Chess sessions,” recalls Marsac. “We were certainly a popular, respected band, but we never made it out of the clubs completely for more opportunities with major bands than we would have liked. It was down to not having the management to make that happen. Besides, we were more focused on getting into the studio, getting something going that way.”
Coloradus at Chess Records, 1971: Left to Right: Michael Marsac, standing left (blue shirt); Calvin Simon producing at the board (cap) with Mike Merwin of Pontiac Sound and Music (foreground), engineering.
That “way” was Coloradus catching the eye of George Clinton who hung out with the band during their many local gigs, which lead to jamming with the Funkadelic communal in their rehearsal hall. The two, jelling musical collectives placed the Stockwell brothers inside Chess Records’ Chicago, Illinois, studio in 1971 (while the label was sold in 1969, it was still commonly referred to as “Chess Studios”) with Parliament’s Calvin Simon at the helm.
“I remembering thinking,” says Michael Marsac about the sessions, “I’m 16 years old and recording at Chess Records — on the very same recording equipment used by Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, and Muddy Waters, even the Rolling Stones [who hung out with the locals during the Gar Wood years].
“The album not being released came down to ‘creative differences’ during the post-production process. When the master was done, we got a copy and there were these ‘effects’ Calvin used that we didn’t agree with. Chess wasn’t active as a label at that point; it was more about having an opportunity to record at their studio than releasing a record through that business collective. Who knows where that master is, but at least I have a copy.”
As is the case with new bands hoping to generate notice — as well as a hit single — Coloradus recorded three covers during the Chess sessions: two by the familiar Allman Brothers, to complement their five southern rock originals.
“The covers weren’t something forced on us, not a ‘covering this popular band will get you a hit’ situation,” Marsac continues. “I can’t recall the third song, but the two Allman songs; one was ‘Dreams,’ were part of our sets because, back then, club owners wanted cover sets of popular bands, not your originals. Those covers were in our club sets for a while and we enjoyed them so much, we decided to record them.”
By the fall of 1974, Michael Marsac tells of another recording opportunity for Coloradus presenting itself.
“We got out to California in the fall of 1974, late September to record for ABC Records, one of their subsidiaries. Yeah, it was late September because Rick was released from the hospital on Halloween.”
Released from the hospital?
“We’re in Los Angeles, Rick went for hike and he fell off a cliff and got busted up pretty bad. He ended up in the Veteran’s Hospital for six weeks. When he got out, we backed the Drifters and the Platters, just trying to get back out there — with Rick in a cast and in a wheelchair, playing piano and guitar. We played Gatsby’s Rendezvous in Santa Ana. The Doobie Brothers hung out with us when we appeared at the Santa Ana Clubhouse [a popular strip mall-based venue, south of Anaheim, off Highway 5]. We were on the verge out in California, but as soon as that accident happened: ABC-Dunhill dropped us. It’s just so fast paced in L.A and, well, it just wasn’t meant to be. ABC didn’t want to wait around for Joe to heal.”
Five years later, in 1979, local club owner William Van Horn gave Coloradus their next recording opportunity: a final shot.
“Bill owned The Way Station, a long time Detroit area club that went though a few name changes, where he often booked us,” tells Marsac. “We’d already recorded the single, featuring Joe’s A-Side, ‘What Was I to Do,’ back with my original, ‘Good Lovin’,’ at Bob Dennis and Greg Reilly’s Super Disc in Detroit, where George Clinton and P-Funk oft recorded. Bill believed in us, so he put together Saloon Records to get us out there, but I don’t believe the ‘label’ ever put out another record.
“We gave it our best. Joe and I eventually regrouped as the more country-driven Shotgun Willie Band because, well, music is an addiction. Again, Rick had the bands Talley Creek and the Wingtips with Jerry Zubal from Tea.”
This, however, isn’t where this tale from the Gar Wood, ends. Between their career developments as the Coronados and Coloradus, the Stockwell brothers — and a few of those bands’ associated musicians — strolled through the turnstiles of Detroit’s “Elvis”: the iconic Danny Zella.
Danny Zella’s Rock ’n’ Roll Boot Camp for Wayward Rockers
Danny Zella rocked Motor City stages since issuing his 1958 debut single, “Black Sax” b/w “Wicked Ruby,” on the Michigan-based Fox label (pressed by Columbia Records) — with the ampersand-dubbed the Zell Rocks. As “Wicked Ruby” made a quick-and-gone national entry on the Billboard “Hot 100” in February 1959, another of Zella’s singles, “Steel Guitar Rag,” backed with a cover of Leiber and Stoller’s “Kansas City” on the Big Top imprint, bubbled-under that coveted chart-position, then quickly vanished.
Danny Zella in his prime in 1959.
Opting for the Zeltones suffix in the early ’70s, Zella became a permanent fixture on Michigan and Great Lakes-area stages providing a “rock ’n’ roll boot camp” for those musically-inclined denizens from the Gar Wood’s progressive rock years. One of those musicians was Coloradus’ drummer.
While serving out his draft notice in the Navy in Bermuda, Ronald Course was part of the XLs, also known as the Excels, which began as an outgrowth of his membership in the Navy Big Band. Returning stateside to his hometown of Detroit, Course wandered through the Zeltones turnstiles. So did the Stockwell brothers, as well as the rest of Coloradus. Eventually, Danny Zella truncated the band to the singular Kottage (none of the members recall the reasons or where it came from) then, when Zella retired from the stage, Coloradus rose from the ashes. Then, out of the revolving rosters of Coloradus, came White Heat.
“That era with the Stockwells as Kottage was an amazing band, amazing,” says Course. “Danny was not only a great singer, but an incredible saxophone player, especially on our cover of ‘Dem Changes,’ an old Buddy Miles tune that I was really proud of. Then Danny retired and, with the Stockwells, we became the first version of Coloradus. I’d have to add that Carl Denato from the Mark V, who was good friends with the Coronados, took my spot in the XLs when I left for Danny Zella.”
White Heat, fronted by its namesake, Johnny Heaton, in addition to featuring Ronald Course, its ever-morphing roster featured ex-Coronado Rick Stockwell on bass, fellow ex-Zeltones’ guitarist Mike Sneed, and guitarist Dale Kath, formerly of the teen band, the Ascots (after his own hard-rock stint in the Electric Blues Band). Then, after a stint with the cover-originals concern, Bliss, Course sat on the drum stool for the Shotgun Willie Band — which featured Joe Stockwell for much of its existence during the ’80s, as well as his half-brother and ten-year long member, Michael Marsac. Another Joe Stockwell and Ron Course concern in the ’80s was the pop concern, Nightflier.
As with Coloradus, the Great Lakes-touring Shotgun Willie earned their reputation quickly as they became the go-to booking for opening local gigs at Downtown Detroit’s Hart Plaza for country bands, such as the Bellamy Brothers, the Charlie Daniels Band, and Johnny Paycheck. Fans of Detroit-bred, multi-platinum rap-rocker Kid Rock knows “Detroit’s Country Boys” by way of his lyrics for “You Ain’t Never Met a Mother Like Me” with the verse: “I’ve drank with Hank and sang with Shotgun Willie” — which Kid Rock did on several occasions.
Meanwhile, U.S-country music fans have their own Shotgun Willie namedrop as part of the history of country-rockers Confederate Railroad. Courtesy of the encouragement of the members of Shotgun Willie: Jimmy Dormire, the band’s then 18-year-old “Jaco Pastorius” on the six-string, accepted an audition for their lead guitarist spot — and found himself with a four-album, fourteen-year career with the Atlantic Records-signed artist.
“Joe and I were out of Shotgun Willie by the time of their association with Kid Rock,” recalls Michael Marsac. “There’s no doubt Jimmy Dormire is a phenomenal player, even back then, and overall great guy who, after Confederate Railroad [by 2021], he’s touring with [Henry Paul’s] Blackhawk and the Outlaws, as an added testament to his talents as another one of those under-the-radar Detroit musicians.”
“While the Stockwell brothers didn’t make it ‘big,’ Jimmy did,” adds Ronald Course. “So, through him, Joe and Rick did, after all. Because when one of us ‘makes it,’ we all do.”
“Starting out professionally in my teens and spending twenty years between Coloradus and Shotgun Willie: your priorities change,” interjects Marsac. “There’s marriage and family to attend to. The music is always there, but it’s not the ‘priority’ of your life anymore.”
“Anyone who goes into music to ‘make it’ shouldn’t be in the business because, in most cases, as with me and the Stockwells: you don’t,” adds Course. “But I am very proud of what I accomplished with White Heat, Danny Zella, and the respect Shotgun Willie achieved, so I did ‘make it,’ just not in terms of money or magazine covers. But the music is always there. You’re always writing and recording; it’s in your blood, for life. That why Dale Kath and I most recently recorded as the Blue Room Band.”
“[Which is why] Joe and Rick had a duo, Brothers, for several years, which I eventually joined. I had the Detroit Blues Band and Michigan Soul Tribe, while Jeep Capone had his bands Morning After and Capone, which played shows all over Nevada and California for many years. And Bob Stayton kept playing in bands, as well. If you’re not making music, you’re not living,” finishes Michael Marsac.
Michael Marsac jams with the guitar hero of his youth, Dick Wagner, left.
The Legacy of Grayhaven Island
Today, Grayhaven Island — originally developed as a canal-enclaved, residential commune for Detroit’s Gatsby-era elite — is the same exclusive waterfront gated community along the Detroit River: now reminding of the Speilbergian-haunted planned community of Cuesta Verde. Will one of those residences require a Tangina Barrons-styled exorcism to cast out the island’s rock ’n’ roll ghosts suddenly rising from their backyards?
While he left the Terra Firma never knowing his later “rock star” fate — from his trend-setting powerboat designs to hydraulic lifts that continue to impact our lives — Garfield Arthur Wood is one of those ghosts of rock ’n’ roll that we, as hometown-boy-made-good Bob Seger sings, will never forget.
Stonefront and the Gar Wood Gang.
This writer likes to believe Gar Wood conspired with God to set up the ultimate rock ’n’ roll club starring around-the-clock super-sessions with “27 Club” members, such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain.
And Joe and Rick Stockwell are in that backing band — Hey, there’s Bob Stayton and Jerry Schemel! — laying down the rhythm, lightning up the heavens just a little bit brighter, as they did on Detroit’s club stages all those years ago.
Maybe, on another astral plane: there was no Vietnam War, the Gar Wood never closed down, and Grayhaven Island continues to rock in another dimension of sight and sound along the muddy banks of the Detroit River.
Photos and Images courtesy of Micheal Marsac unless otherwise noted.
END
Listen to the Music
In tribute to the passing of Michael Marsac on January 5, 2025, the Marsac Family Estate released several digital-only albums through the Bandcamp online record store in April and May 2025 to honor the music of Micheal Marsac, as well as his late brothers Joe and Rick Stockwell.
The releases include Double Nickels: 55 Songs of a Lifetime, a six-album career retrospective by Michael Marsac, Rick Stockwell’s Rockin’ Ricky’s Rock & Roll Review and Rowdy Road Crew, Too, and Joe Stockwell’s Memories in the Slow Lane, as well as, Lifeline, a two-volume set by their respective trio, Brothers.
The best-known and distributed single by the Coronados, the A-Side to their debut single on the Dot/Paramount label, “The Nomad,” was preserved on the limited-edition — and currently out-of-print — vinyl-only retro-reissue compilation, Gamma Knee Kappa: The Best of Frat Rock, Vol. 1, issued in 1990, as well as several, low-run, overseas-impressed garage rock compilations.
Both sides of their singles issued on Dot/Paramount and Lamar Records can be enjoyed in the video embed, below. Their single on the B.E.B imprint, is lost.
© 2025 R.D Francis. All rights reserved. This essay is protected by copyright and none of its content can be copied, distributed, or reproduced in any form without the author’s prior written consent. Citations and footnotes must be used when referencing this published essay on other articles/essays and hyperlink to this copyrighted source.
Inquiries regarding this essay can be addressed to the author at francispublishingmail(at)aol(dot)com.
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