Long time good friend Mark Wooten was in school at Va Tech, working on an engineering degree, and it was not really worth his time to come  in to play with The Virginians.  During that time period, they tried several bass players.  Gary Freeman played a few gigs with the band,  Mark Jackson played a few.  Dave Correll, the band director at Norton, played bass a few times.   C.G. Yeary sat in on drums.  And there were other subs, such as Paul Dotson on trumpet, Jack Edwards on sax, Jim Hurt on trumpet - all very fine musicians.  They even tried a couple of lead singers to replace Ron while he was in the army.  "Little Willie", George Reynolds,  old friend Aaron Ellison and Sam Broach all took a stab at it.
Ron finally gave up on the Virginians.  He had stayed with the band longer than with any other group.  It had been successful but the ideas were no longer fresh.  Anyway, he was a rock 'n' roller at heart and was tired of strumming jazz chords behind a horn section most of the time and rarely getting to turn loose with a ripping lead.  He had learned a lot and was always especially grateful to >Glenn Smith< for his patience and for teaching him about improvisation and jazz chords and patterns, and to Joe Flanary for giving him the opportunity to expand his musical horizons.  It was a great ride.  He used what he had learned as he applied the techniques to improve leads and his rock'n roll music.  But it was time for new beginnings.  In the fall of 1974, while still playing with the Virginians,  they were already jamming up a new sound on the back porch of Ron's and Vickie's house on Guest River with Jack Tolbert, old friend Danny Greene and a novice singer.  That year Ron split from The Virginians and formed a new band called High Country, featuring rock and crossover music i.e. Eagles, etc.  At the same time Mark also decided he didn't care to play anymore with the Virginians either.  The Virginians disbanded completely a few months later... and re-formed later with Jim Hurt and Jazz Virginia, then later as Southwinds.  Ron's wife, Vickie, loved his involvement in music and was (and always has been...) extremely tolerant and supportive.  

High Country was re-formed the following year as Tolbert and Greene left the band to be replaced by Tom Davis on bass and Patrick Winters on drums, Ron on guitar and a few vocals, and later joined by  the wonderful keyboard and backup sounds of Richie Kennedy.  The new group was named Spectrum.  The new band was top 40, and became very popular locally and regionally, traveling for the HIT ATTRACTIONS booking agency in Charlotte, NC.  They played in a range which took them from Cincinnati to the East Coast.  The band kept rocking hard, gaining ground, gaining fans and popularity, traveling wider and making more money as Davis needed to drop out on bass and was replaced by Bobby Blanton in the summer of 1975.  Bobby's short stay with the band was replaced by Mark Wooten and the band got even better.  However, in the spring of 1976, Patrick announced that he was taking a job in Redlands CA and was going west.  Naturally everybody was disappointed.  The band made a few stabs at reforming once more, but had lost a lot of heart with the loss of Patrick.  A few more practice sessions and with Bobby Falin proved fruitless, so the band broke up for good in the winter of 1976-77.
    In the next year, Ron played alone, recording - overdubbing - writing.  The time was actually fairly productive.  (Patrick traveled back to the area in the 90s to start a new CD with the old Spectrum group.  This recording is finished and is available on CD).   

       Finally in the summer of 1978, things began to happen again.  Tommy Miller had been picked up by  Gary Stewart, and had gone on the road with him (much to the dismay of Richie's Blue Sky Band).  Some of Spectrum were starting to jam again at Richie's with a few remnants of the Blue Sky band, but with a totally different sound.  Thomas Countiss (from the popular old Nightbeats group) on vocals, Richie on keyboards, Mark on bass, and Sutton Rigg on drums.  The music was "country flavored" and Ron had enough background to enjoy it somewhat, but Mark and Sutton didn't care for it.  Jerry Miller, (Nightbeats) who was Tommy's brother and fresh from Viet Nam, showed up to play bass and Danny (Tuck) Robinson (Nightbeats) played drums.  With Thomas' vocals, the group was good and they were playing some of the most mellow and good feeling music any of them had ever played.  Ron sang a few and played a lot of lead and was really enjoying it!  They were almost ready to start booking.  Ron... "Thomas Countiss was absolutely the  best rhythm guitar player and lead singer that I ever worked with.  He was all-pro!"
    Then along came John Ryder.  He was acting manager, roadie, and hired bodyguard for Cova Elkins from Dickenson County. Cova was a coal baron (at the time) who wanted to be an Elvis Presley type star in the biggest way.  John met Ron at the school where he was teaching chemistry (J. J. Kelly in Wise, VA) one day and told him what he had heard about his musical ability.  He asked him if he would like to become a stage musician for Cova and his brother-in-law, Virgil Fleming.  Ron went to Clintwood a few days later and was offered the job as lead guitarist in a band which mostly backed Virgil but sometimes tried to back Cova (totally unrehearsed).  The music was all pure C/W, and the money was more than Ron had ever made consistently per night so naturally he stuck with it, but for fun, he continued to jam with Thomas, Tuck and Jerry and they soon became a group!  Other than the good money, the best part of being in Young Country with Virgil was being around John who was a loyal friend, and getting to play with the drummer - Raymond, the bass player - Richard (Dickie) Sumter, and the steel guitar/fiddle player, Garman Mullins. They also met Chuck Johnson, a notable musician today.

Ron got his buddies involved with the financial opportunity in Dickenson County, and before too long, Thomas, Jerry, Tuck and he were the house and road band for Virgil and Cova.  

      They thoroughly enjoyed playing music together and wielded a unique sound, until...
Tommy came back off the road with Gary Stewart and Ron asked him to join the band.  When Tommy was with them for a few weeks, Richie showed up at practice one day with his piano and naturally, they welcomed him with open arms, but things were beginning to get complicated.  The music was still good,  but the change was not completely healthy.  The face and sound of the band was changing.  The original simplicity and philosophy of music was lost.  Nevertheless, they decided to book time at Bradley's Barn and make that return visit that had been planned.  

(click thumbnails for big pictures)

"The six of us traveled to Nashville, along with a couple of our wives, and recorded enough tunes to start an album."  Harold Bradley was our producer for these sessions.

(Photo by Tim Cox)

Thomas returned to RCA studio A in Nashville to do some backup work for Gary Stewart on a new album that he made that year with Roy Dea as producer. Gary Stewart was a popular C/W singer in the 70's and 80's.  He traveled and performed all over the U.S. but was probably better known in Texas.  He is originally from Dunham, KY.  He lived with his wife, Lou, in Fort Pierce, FLA until she died.  Gary also passed away in December, 2003...... Richie returned to the barn where he did some more recording there in the eighties with Blue Sky, and again to Nashville's Hilltop Studios with Mark Wooten and Richie's brother Brent (The Kennedy Brothers) in 2006, where they recorded an album called "Never Too Late".  This is available on CD.

    The Fallen Stars finally fell for good that autumn and most of the musicians, other than Ron, have not played in public since then, but they all still say it was the best band and the best music they ever played. 

The story continues... What happened in the 80's that gave birth to HOMESTEAD RECORDING STUDIO?
Click >HERE< to find out.

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