The beginnings of this band go back to 1968, when Cornell Hurd (vocals, guitar) and Frank Roeber (vocals, bass), refugees from high school rock and surf bands put together The Milpitas Submarine Band, a “hillbilly” band formed to entertain students at Homestead High School in the town of Cupertino, California. Cornell and Frank were joined by Russell E. Bowen and John Shudlick, vocalists who played guitar and percussion, respectively, though (like the whole band) not respectfully. The Ragg Brothers As the young men went off to college, TMSB dissolved, reappearing a year and a half later as The Ragg Brothers. This acoustic swing band was formed to entertain students, this time college students, at the various institutions (UC Santa Barbara, De Anza College, San Francisco State) that the young men attended. Cornell and Frank were now joined by Cornell’s brother, Drew Hurd (harmonica), Joel Crawford (lead vocals) and Kim Muscatel (lead guitar). They played primarily coffee house gigs and made a couple of “live” recordings. To date, only one of these has been located. By this time, the band had begun writing original material, and several of the songs from this period survived long enough to be recorded by the Cornell Hurd Band. They played covers of Spade Cooley’s Crazy ‘Cause I Love You, Hank Thompson’s A Six Pak To Go, Lalo Guererro’s (Do You Believe In) Reincarnation? and Billy Ward’s Sixty Minute Man, among others. The El Rancho Cowboys In 1971 Cornell and Frank relocated to Berkeley, California and formed The El Rancho Cowboys, a fully electric Country and Western band. They were named after El Rancho beer, which sold for $0.79 a six pack. At this time Berkeley was home to Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, an absolutely fearless collection of musicians who labored under the Country Music banner, but basically played American roots music of the highest caliber. The LPA were at the time, and remain to this day, the most easily identifiable influence on The Cornell Hurd Band. During the El Ranchos’ stay in Berkeley, they also encountered Asleep At The Wheel, recently relocated from Paw Paw, West Virginia to neighboring Oakland, California. Although they didn’t know it at the time, the path the CHB would take from the mid-eighties until now was laid out in the wildly creative scene that took place in Berkeley in the early seventies. The El Rancho Cowboys lasted approximately a year and a half and included Cornell, Frank, Kim Winn (drums and vocals), Lyle Pratt (lead guitar) and Gary Dulleck (piano) as its core members. Along the way, they were joined at times by Greg Canote (fiddle), Gus Garelick (fiddle), Barry Goold (steel guitar), Lynn Smith (vocals, guitar) and the legendary West Virginia Creeper (steel). Joel Crawford would also join the band on occasion, in a cutting-edge performance as lounge singer Jerry Campbell. The El Rancho Cowboys performed in honky-tonks, back yards, military bases, beer joints, political rallies, talent shows, hootenannies and nightclubs.