The Dirty Tee Shirts

At age 12 I received my first guitar. It was a 1940’s Harmony Patrician archtop. I can recall my Dad driving me to Will’s Pawn Shop in Cincinnati, where he plunked down $20 for this old guitar. The salesman convinced him I needed an extra set of strings and a pitch pipe, which ran another couple of dollars. I was in business. Dad gave me bus fare to get home and he went onto work.

Photo taken at a Fourth of July parade in Ft. Thomas. We were on the back of a trailer

A year later, I convinced my folks that I needed an electric guitar. So Dad took me to Dodd’s Music Store in Covington Kentucky. There were 3 old Fender Stratocasters that looked like they had been played in a few bars. One was off white, one was black and the other was red. The black one looked to be in the best shape. It turned out to be a 1957 model with the original 9” radius neck made of solid maple. It came in its original tweed case. The cost was $150. I could not believe it. I figured I would get a cheap guitar from a catalog, but this was a real Fender Stratocaster.

Stew Williams was a classmate and at age 13 he was an excellent drummer. He had been taking lessons from a local jazz player for a few years and was good enough to be invited to demonstrate at the National Association for Music Merchants trade show on behalf of the Ludwig Drum company. So I brought my guitar to his house and we tried to play music together.

The trouble was that I had this 4 watt Kay amplifier that was not loud enough to be heard over the drums. Later that year I saved up $200 from working at Dad’s store and he took me to Midwest Music. I bought a Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier. I was set.

By this time I had met a kid that lived down the block named Doug Abbott. He was already playing cello and tuba and soon saved up his money to purchase a Sears Silvertone (Danelectro) bass guitar and Silvertone Bass amplifier.

Along with Stew we put together a band.

Stew invited his friend Dave Kohl to play. Dave’s Dad made a living tuning pianos and bought Dave an Epiphone guitar and a Fender Super Reverb amplifier.

Stew’s best friend was Bill Hesch. They had practically been crib mates, since the were born around the same time in the same hospital and had grown up in the Newport Kentucky and both of their families moved to Ft. Thomas. Bill was a football player for our high school and his voice had changed at a very young age. He seemed to be favored by our high school music teacher, so Bill became our singer.

We needed a name for the band. Stew’s Mom had taken the family on vacation to Gatlinburg Tennessee and came back with a bunch of gray T-shirts that had Dirty T Shirt printed on the front. So we became The Dirty T Shirts band. I was only aware of one picture that existed that Stew had emailed me years ago.

But recently Bill Hesch posted this picture, which was taken by Stew’s drum teacher, who sidelined as a photographer. It shows my original Fender Stratocaster, Doug’s Silvertone bass, and Dave Kohl’s Epiphone Coronet. On the left is Stew Williams and on the right is Bill Hesch. I cannot believe we were ever that young.

Bill Hesch - Dave Kohl - Doug Abbot - Marc O'Hara - Stew Williams

Bill aka William Hesch is a financial planner in Cincinnati, Dave Kohl's hobby was photography and as the result of pictures he took of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire he got a job working as a photographer for United Press and does sports photography. Doug Abbott became a well known bass player in Cincinnati and Chicago. He moved back to town and became ill and passed away in 1999. Stew Williams graduated with a degree in Broadcasting and went on to be on air talent. He became ill for many years, but recently decided to get back into broadcasting and now lives in Florida.