Dave Charlesworth and Kenny Pelletier first played music together on the Praise Team at Faith Lutheran Church in Sugar Land. They eventually moved on to praise teams at other churches, but still got together for occasional jam sessions and informal party gigs.
In 2016, they met for lunch at the Panda Garden in Sugar Land and decided to form a band. The concept was to play classic rock tunes and more recent Country & Western covers, with an occasional Contemporary Christian song added in. Kenny plays rhythm guitar and sings lead; Dave plays either bass or keyboard, depending on the gig.
Dave Charlesworth is a semi-retired chemical engineer who started playing in bands as a teenager in Western New York. After college, he went to work for DuPont and played in bands in Delaware, Corpus Christi, Augusta, and Ponca City, OK as DuPont moved him and his family around the country. While in Delaware, he studied under noted jazz B-3 player and singer Jeff Irwin.
Dave plays Hammond B3 (which he used to move every weekend a long time ago) Sunday mornings at Cornerstone Community Bible Church. He also plays piano, keyboard, bass, and acoustic guitar, focusing on either bass or keyboard for the DKF Band.
Dave's wife Debbie is also a chemical engineer who currently works for Fluor in Sugar Land. Debbie has a lot of experience running sound and can be sweet-talked into singing backup, usually from her station at the sound board (she doesn’t like to be on stage!).
Scroll down for a photo of Debbie at the sound mixer!
Kenny Pelletier is originally from Attleboro, MA, and started playing in bands as a teenager. Kenny played drums in his first band, The Velvet Dandelion, while learning rhythm guitar. He and his wife Liz moved to the Houston area in 1976 where he worked at various places, including stints at KTEK-1110 AM, 89.3 KSBJ, and the Morningstar Radio Network heard nationally.
Kenny recently retired as Customer Service Manager at Clean As A Whistle, Inc., a Sugar Land company. Kenny either led or played in the Faith Lutheran Church Praise Band for many years.
Here's an excellent article about Kenny's first band, which was called The Velvet Dendelion
Here's a song that Kenny and Dana Davis wrote together, circa 1968. Kenny, Dana, and Dave Haslehurst, all from The Velvet Dandelion band, recorded it in Providence, R.I. some 56 years ago! Has somewhat of a Simon and Garfunkel feel to it. Check it out!
It is called Through the Stained Glass Windows.
First to join were Larry Kingrey (drums), Matt Palmer (lead guitar), Pat McIntosh (bass), and Dave’s wife Debbie (sound and backup vocals).
Larry couldn’t make one of our Kemah gigs, so Vincent Ng played drums for us (and played perfectly with very little notice). Matt retired and moved to Idaho, so we added Joe Painter on lead guitar. Pat got transferred back to the UK, so Dave started playing bass instead of keyboard. Both Brian Martin and Tommy Mulkey played drums for us when Larry and Vincent couldn’t make it. After COVID, we were able to add Mark Riddell on bass for a couple of gigs. Last but not least, we added Phil Snyder on rhythm guitar and vocals.
Joe Painter, another Cornerstone Praise Team member, joined the band after Matt moved to Idaho. Joe is a native Texan, UT grad, and recently retired from Delta Airlines. Joe picked up the songs very quickly. He’s especially adept with the Country & Western songs – it is in his Texas blood – and notes that the band plays “everything from George Strait to Dire Straits.”
Joe sings lead on some of the songs, especially if Larry is not with us. He plays all the leads if Dave is playing bass. He also sings the “high” harmony parts on many of the songs. After Pat left, Joe took over as the hardest worker in the band – he has memorized most of the songs (Kenny and I use notes as we don’t trust our memories any more!).
Joe says that our band motto should be "Everything from George Strait to Dire Straits!"
And that brings us to Phil Snyder, the man with 1,000 voices. Phil and his wife Kari moved to Texas from California to pursue instructor positions at UH. Phil has had an incredible career doing all kinds of jobs, including stand-up comedy and cartoon voices for Disney.
We met Phil at Cornerstone, where he plays with the Praise Team. Phil plays rhythm guitar and sings lead on several songs and sings back up harmony on almost everything.
Phil also has a powerful testimony that can be seen on YouTube.
Larry Kingrey met Dave and Kenny playing on the Praise Team at Cornerstone Community Bible Church. Larry is a retired electrical engineer who worked for Worley Parsons. Larry moved to his ranch in Nacogdoches, Texas, however he continued to travel to Sugar Land at least once a month until COVID hit. He still plays and joins the band when his schedule permits.
Larry played drums for various bands and worship teams his entire life. However, none of the bands had him sing. We wanted to add Boot Scootin’ Boogie for folks to line dance to, and it is too high for Kenny or me to sing, so we asked Larry if he wanted to sing it. He said he’d give it a go. Sure enough, he nailed it. We discovered that Larry can sing the higher C&W songs and the bluesy rock and R&B songs really well, so we added several songs for him to sing to our set lists.
Larry’s son Lance did the fabulous graphics for two Grape Stomp events at Clear Creek Winery in Kemah, TX. While Dave and Debbie owned the Six Shooter Cellars winery in Fredericksburg, Lance built a lovely website for us, which I modified to develop this site.
Matt Palmer is also an electrical engineer; he worked for Chevron and was Dave’s boss’s boss. Their first time playing together was a musical roast for Manny Gonzalez, Dave’s boss, when Manny retired. Matt joined the band and played several gigs until he retired and moved to beautiful Coeur d’Alene, Idaho with his lovely wife Niki. The Palmers’ daughter and her family live in Houston, so they come back occasionally.
Matt’s repertoire included two Santana instrumentals (Samba Pa Ti and Europa) and The Eagles’ Hotel California. He and Pat convinced the band to play Pink Floyd’s Money, which is in 7/4 time – Larry and Matt and Pat played it perfectly whilst Kenny and I held on for dear life on that one (Pat's friend Ian sang the lead vocals for us).
We miss you all, Matt!
The photo on the right shows Matt with his equipment waiting for the rest of the band, keeping company with our old cat "Tiger!"
Pat McIntosh and Dave met at Chevron, where both worked as decision analysts. Pat was stationed in Scotland, but then received an assignment in the Houston area. He and his wife Linda moved to Sugar Land. Dave and Debbie went out to dinner with Pat and Linda and found out that Pat played bass, which resulted in Pat joining the band.
He played for several years until Chevron moved him back to Scotland. Pat was the hardest working member in the band, learning the bass parts note for note and playing them perfectly.
We miss Pat and Linda and hope someday to catch up with them in Scotland!
The next person to join the band was Vincent Ng, yet another electrical engineer. Larry had to cancel playing a gig at the Kemah Winery, and Vincent (who played drums with the Cornerstone Praise Band when Larry was not available) stepped in at the last minute and played the gig with us (and played perfectly, even though he was not familiar with many of our songs).
Vincent and his wife Carmen recently moved to Richmond, VA. This left a big hole at Cornerstone Community Bible Church and our band; we miss you all!
We have also added two more drummers who pinch hit for Larry – Brian Martin and Tommy Mulkey. Both are members of the Cornerstone Praise Team and play our song sets flawlessly. Brian’s father Barry Martin joined us on bass one weekend, as he was visiting from his home in El Paso. Barry has worked in the music business all his life and can play virtually any instrument. Both Brian and Tommy are experienced drummers and are a joy to work with.
And, if you stop by Cornerstone on any given Sunday morning, you’re likely to hear either Brian or Tommy playing the drums!
The photo on the left shows Brian playing at one of our gigs. Sorry, we don't have a photo of Tommy ... YET! Stay tuned!
Mark Riddell played with us twice in 2021. We attempted to revive the Saturday night cruise-ins at Otto's BBQ in Stafford and played twice outside. Mark gigs professionally all over the country, but due to the COVID event hiatus, he was available to play with us. I worked with Mark for several years with Southern Reverb, and hopefully someday we'll have a SR reunion gig.
In the mean time, we keep up with Mark's travels and gigs on FaceBook.
While I was looking for a photo of the Band at the Otto's Cruise-in, I found a FaceBook post that had a good picture (see Photos page). One of the comments was from Deb's sister Kathy; she asked, "Where's Debbie?" This photo was my reply to her question! Not only does Debbie run sound, she helps set up and tear down the equipment and she sings backup vocals on several songs. Her microphone is sitting on the table to her left.