The Memories set for 50th anniversary concert in Boyceville October 2

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By LeAnn R. Ralph 

BOYCEVILLE  — It’s been a while since all three of The Memories have played together.

Twelve years since their last reunion.

This time around, John Lynch, Warren Petryk and Tim Stevens will be celebrating their 50th anniversary as The Memories with a concert in downtown Boyceville Sunday, October 2.

The Memories will, in fact, be playing only a few feet from where they got their start as The Pickle  Dillies during a talent contest for the Boyceville Cucumber Festival in 1971.

They played on the steps of the former village hall building, known then as the Teen Stop.

The Pickle Dillies took second place in the talent show and earned $10 for their efforts, said Tim Stevens.

Their very first performance at the talent show was a 10-minute skit, in which they were dressed in bib overalls and played their horns, he said.

John Lynch played the saxophone, while Tim Stevens played the tuba and Warren Petryk played the trombone.

The next year, The Pickle Dillies were asked to play at the Cucumber Festival and then had a wedding dance scheduled two weeks later, Stevens said.

At their first dance engagement at the Cucumber Festival, Tim was on vocals, drums and tuba; John was on vocals, guitar, saxophone and drums; and Warren was on vocals, trombone and piano. Kathy Moe was on vocals and trumpet. 

They were all still students at Boyceville High School at the time.

They played as The Pickle Dillies for a year and a half.

“We started playing more. We got more jobs. Then we decided we needed a different name,” Stevens said.

And that’s when they became The Memories in 1974.

In 1971, David Brezina played trumpet with The Pickle Dillies for the talent contest, Stevens recalled.

For the dances in 1972, Kathy Moe played trumpet and was with the group for two years, he said.

“We were still in high school, but we were somewhat professional because we were getting paid,” Stevens said.

David Brezina graduated from Boyceville High School in 1971, and Kathy Moe graduated from Boyceville in 1972. Stevens and Petryk graduated in 1973, and John Lynch is a 1974 graduate of Boyceville High School. 

As the band got busier and played more, Kathy did not want to pursue the work and went off to follow other interests, Stevens said.

So then it was the three of them — John, Warren and Tim.

Junior band

The talent show in downtown Boyceville for the Cucumber Festival was not the first time the three friends had made music together.

They started out in junior band and choir, Stevens said.

Stevens went to grade school in Wheeler, and John and Warren attended school in Boyceville.

The elementary school in Wheeler was part of the Boyceville school district, and after Stevens started band lessons, the students would ride a bus to Boyceville to play music together with the other band students in the school district.

John, Warren and Tim were in band and choir together all four years at Boyceville High School. John played in the high school band as an eighth grader, Stevens noted.

Band and choir were in the class period just before lunch, and when class was done, the other students would take off to go have their lunch, but the three of them, and several other students as well, would stick around and play and sing together for fun, Stevens said.

Ken Cline was the band director at Boyceville High School, and he was a “strong influence” on John, Warren and Tim.

“In our senior year, he put us together as a trio for the spring concert. That was our first time as a featured trio,” Stevens said.

During their grade school years, Dick Ford was the band director who came to Wheeler and started the students on their instruments, he said.

Dick Ford “showed us how fun music could be,” Stevens said.

More and more

While they were still in high school, the band started to get more and more jobs.             

“We played once a month or once every six weeks for wedding parties or dances,” Stevens said.

Then Warren and Tim graduated from high school and went off to college, and John was still in high school.

By the time John graduated in 1974, Tim and Warren were in school and had part-time jobs, but the opportunities just kept coming, and The Memories were hired even more often, Stevens said.

By late 1974, they played their first performance at a nightclub or a bar, he said.

“The word kept spreading, and we kept getting more gigs,” Stevens said.

In 1975, The Memories won a talent contest at the Black Steer Supper Club in Eau Claire and then released their first 45 RPM recording.

In 1975, they became the “house band” at Pine Point Lodge on Tainter Lake, performing Thursday through Saturday nights and on Sunday afternoons.

In 1979, the three friends decided they would play music together full time and played as much as they could.

In 1979, The Memories also opened the show for Barbara Mandrell at the Barron Farm & Feather Fest and appeared at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair in Chippewa Falls as “Goodwill Ambassadors.”

The band had their first appearance at the Minnesota State Fair in 1980.

The Memories branched out and played all around Wisconsin, then the Midwest, and then around the country, with a performance at Disneyland in 1982.

In 1982, The Memories began co-hosting the annual Telethon for United Cerebral Palsy of West Central Wisconsin on WEAU-TV.

In 1983, they won first place in the Wrangler Jeans/Dodge Trucks Country Showdown at the Wisconsin State Fair and also first place at the Hodag Country Music Pickoff in Rhinelander.

In 1984, a recording and broadcast of “The Memories in Concert,” a 60-minute television special, was featured on Wisconsin Public Television. The show was recorded at the Mabel Tainter Theater in Menomonie.

In 1985, The Memories received special recognition from the Menomonie Chamber of Commerce for their dedication to entertainment and for representing the area to a national audience.

In 1986, The Memories performed their first annual Christmas Concert at the Mabel Tainter Theater.

In May of 1988, John Lynch left The Memories.

John wanted to pursue other interests. He had three young children at the time and did not want to continue traveling with the band, Stevens said.

Guitar players

From May of 1988 until the year 2000, The Memories had three different guitar players.

One of the guitar players was with Warren and Tim for two years, and the other two played for five years each, Stevens said.

By the year 2000, The Memories’ guitar player did not want to play as many jobs, and so Warren and Tim decided to try performing as a duo. 

The Memories became Warren and Tim in September of 2000, and this year, they have been playing as a duo for 22 years, Stevens said.

For the last 20 years, they have been doing about 20 performances per year, he said.

They play many fairs and festivals and have been performers at the Dunn County Fair for a number years. This year marked the 35th year in a row that The Memories have played at the St. Croix County Fair, Stevens said.

Every year, The Memories also continue to do a Christmas concert at the Mable Tainter Theater, “and we do other shows, too, when it’s a good fit,” Stevens said.

As The Memories have aged, and as their audiences have aged, they have all decided “we can’t do four-hour street dances anymore,” he said.

Other jobs

Summer is the busiest time for The Memories, and Warren and Tim are both still working other jobs, too.

Warren Petryk has been the representative for Wisconsin Assembly District 93 since 2010.

Tim has worked for G.L. Berg, an entertainment booking agency, for the past 30 years.

The G.L. Berg agency is located in the Twin Cities, but Berg is originally from Menomonie and listened to The Memories during the 1980s, Stevens said.

Berg also managed The Memories for a while before starting his own agency.

Stevens has a home office where he works booking entertainment for fairs and other venues.

He says his friends tell him he has never had a real job and that he is “having too much fun” for any of it to be considered work.

Being an active performer with The Memories for the past 50 years has given Stevens a decided edge in the entertainment booking field.

When he is working with fair clients, he can give them advice on which performers would be a good fit for their fair, and when he is working with the entertainers, he can give them advice on the fair venue.

“I can offer tips because I’ve done so many of them myself,” Stevens said.

Tips such as, “go in this driveway for the best access to the stage,” and “park here,” and “be sure to check out that food stand over there because it has excellent food.”

Stevens attends the Wisconsin Association of Fairs convention each year and other conventions as well.

He talks to the organizers of fairs where he played 40 years ago as The Memories and asks them if the stage is still in the same location and other questions about their fairgrounds.

“I say, I played there in 1982, and they are surprised, because they are young enough not to remember The Memories,” Stevens said.

Reunions

John Lynch played with The Memories from 1972 to 1988, and in the years since then, there have been a few other reunion shows with the three of them, including several in Boyceville.

The Memories played for the Boyceville Sesquicentennial in 2010, but it’s been 12 years since they have done a reunion show.

“It’s been a lot of fun practicing … it’s been really special,” Stevens said.

In their early years, The Memories would play four or five or six nights a week, and sometimes people would make a point of coming to listen to them three or four nights each week, Stevens said.

“If we play certain songs, people will have a specific memory, and they will tell us they heard us play that song at such-and-such a place,” Stevens said.

At a reunion show in Amery, two different couples came up to talk to John, Warren and Tim.

Both of the couples had met at a Memories show.

And both of the couples were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.

One couple lives in Mankato, Minnesota, and met when The Memories played at a club in Milwaukee.

“They came from Mankato just to see us,” Stevens said.

The Memories also used play up around Iron River.

The other couple came from Superior and had met at a supper club in northern Wisconsin where The Memories had played.

“Forty years later, both couples were still together, and they made a special attempt to see us. That’s the kind of thing we love to hear about,” Stevens said.

John, Warren and Tim still see each other often and get together as friends.

“We share a lot of stories as we are rehearsing… we feel fortunate to have heard the stories on how our music has affected people,” Stevens said.

Maybe someone has been touched by a love song, or maybe someone has a special connection with a gospel song. Perhaps a loved one passed away, and the person would like to hear a certain song.

“We play it, and then we see the reaction from the person. I have always said, we are very, very blessed,” Stevens said.

John, Warren and Tim met somewhat by accident when they were all just kids who happened to be in school together since grade school — and then their voices were all in a range that happened to work work well together.

“We were all best friends before we started … we were friends before the music came,” Stevens said.

“We were always the best of friends, and we still are,” he said.

Concert

For The Memories’ concert next Sunday, there will be an entertainment tent set up on Main Street right across from Jamie’s Buck-Shot Bar. 

“We have many sponsors, so this will be a totally free show,” Stevens said.

August of 1972 was their first performance at the Boyceville Cucumber Festival, and while The Memories had hoped to be able to celebrate their 50th anniversary during this year’s Cucumber Festival, the date did not work for all of them.

Other dates in August and September also did not work out.

The first Sunday in October was a match.

“Hopefully the weather will cooperate,” Stevens said.

The long-range forecast for Sunday, October 2, is sunny and 70 degrees, he noted.

The Memories 50th Anniversary Concert will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday, October 2, in downtown Boyceville.