Hi5 Hand Band
Hi5 Hand Band
Coming soon to a dusty road near you!
Sharkey
Sharkey
ONE FREAKY LOOKING DUDE I TELL YA!
Zelda
Zelda
Zelda was born Griselda Hastings Pink, in Greenwich, Connecticut, to publishing magnate Baron Pink and his wife Patricia of Pink Slipper Publishing.
Born to perform, with hot pink skin, brassy blonde hair, a husky voice and theatrical style, Griselda always felt more “cabaret” than “country club,” much to the mortification of her buttoned- up parents who made no secret of favoring her less conspicuous dainty sister Mauve. Griselda had a tough time fitting in in Greenwich but made it through with the help of the acceptance of her colorful group of drama club friends at school.
At 18, Griselda scored a job singing and performing what she explained to her parents was “tasteful burlesque” at the Flash and Brass Lounge in Stamford, which was met with an ultimatum from the Pinks to show some class or lose the cash.
Griselda said she couldn’t care less about being an heiress, changed her name to Zelda, the pet name given to her by her beloved Aunt Rose (who told her it meant “woman warrior”) and followed her heart to the stage. Zelda made a name for herself impersonating Lady Gaga and Cher and got herself a full-time gig vamping it up in Vegas. The show, Divas, Tramps and Thieves, was a huge hit. After a few years, the show’s producer decided to take the show on the road. By the time the show hit Nashville, Zelda was tired of the traveling and feeling the need for some roots. She loved Nashville – the sparkle of Broadway, the friendliness of the people, the honesty in the music—and for the first time in a long time she thought about settling down.
Just around that time, she heard a song that she couldn’t get out of her head. It was a song written by a frog called…wait for it…. The Frog Song…..yup!…. and Zelda could really relate to the lyrics. You see, just like the frog in the song, who used to be a prince, Zelda felt as if she used to be a princess. And just like the frog, she was happier in her life without the title and fanfare. She asked about the song’s author and found herself meeting Frank TL Frogg out at his bar The Waterhole in Ashland City. She and Frank and the rest of the quirky, eclectic Waterhole Bunch hit it off right away
Zelda bought herself a little cabin in Ashland City, a pickup truck, and some blingy cowgirl boots, and became a regular member of the Waterhole Bunch.
Wikipedia note:
Although she is known for her impersonations of Lady Gaga and Cher, Zelda’s idol is and always had been Pink…of course!
Zelda means “blessed” or “happy”, as Zelda has become ever since she changed her name. According to “The Name Meaning”, Zelda also means “Woman Warrior”
Guillermo (Gill) Luis Rodriguez
Guillermo (Gill) Luis Rodriguez
One BAD DUDE!
Meet Guillermo (Gill), the outlaw catfish. Gill swam up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico, took a right and ended up at the Waterhole. He’s not sure if he’s legal or not…so he swims low….
Billy Joe Bob Gnarly
Billy Joe Bob Gnarly (formerly known as Bubba Gnarly)
Born in Jamaica, Georgia, Bubba always felt connected to the island by the same name. Obsessed with tracing his roots, he was stoked to find that his DNA test came up 1% Jamaican. In honor of his ancestors, he bought snap-on dreadlocks and a tie dye tee shirt, traded in his banjo for some steel drums and started the first redneck reggae band. He even went so far as to officially change his name Bubba to Billy Joe Bob Gnarly.
Billy Joe Bob made his way to Nashville and played his first and last showcase at the Exit/In where he was politely shown the exit out. Turned away by the powers that be on Music Row, Billy Joe Bob felt misunderstood and discouraged and began spending his days taking online philosophy courses and his nights playing on street corners down on 2nd Avenue and Broadway. The tourists were amused by his mixed up reggae redneck style, and from time to time would toss a coin in his hat.
He had come to the end of his rope and it was either hang around or head back home. But dragging his defeated dreadlocks back to Jamaica, Georgia and becoming Bubba again was not an option. Just about that time, he met a singing waitress named Lily, and she told him about a cool place where she worked called the Waterhole Bar, where they welcomed all kinds of characters and original music. He packed up his steel drums and headed north on Highway 12. Now he’s a fixture there, playing his music and philosophizing from his stool at the bar.
Wikipedia note:
While Billy Joe Bob Gnarly’s music genre was never recognized by the music world, his philosophical quotes have been adopted by songwriters everywhere, most of whom have visited the Waterhole on occasion. Examples are regular philosophical lines spouted at the Waterhole Bar like “You Can’t Always Get Want You Want Mon,” “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere” “Money Can’t Buy Happiness Mon, But I Can Pull My Yacht Right Up Next to It: and his favorite line “Blame it all on My Roots.” (it’s rumored that Billy Joe Bob Gnarly got a piece of the profits on that last one–ain’t that right Earl Bud?)
Meet Billy Joe Bob Gnarly, the reggae redneck from Jamaica, Georgia.
Billy Joe is a philosopher and bar stool guru (with his amigo Gill)….he will teach you some valuable life lessons. He’s also pretty mean on the steel drums.
The Captain
The Captain
The Captain, real name Buster E. Lee, was born on a ranch in eastern Wyoming and became a bull ridin’ star by the time he was sixteen. A direct descendent of Robert E Lee, the military was in his DNA, so he joined the Marines right out of high school. He earned the nickname Captain Crunch while commanding a gun boat during the Vietnam War and surviving over forty firefights. He’d always yell “boys It’s crunch time” before they went into battle. He received a purple heart and the medal of honor for bravery for his service.
When he got back to the states, he found that his wife had left him and he couldn’t find anybody interested in hiring a Vietnam vet. So he decided he’d follow a dream he’d had since he was a kid of writing songs. Few people knew about it ‘cause he was a man of few words except when it came to writing down his thoughts. So with an old guitar and a pocket full of livin’ he moved to Nashville. Nashville was a tough town but he figured somehow he could make it ‘cause nothin’ could be harder than ridin’ bulls, losin’ the woman you love, and gettin’ shot at.
When he got there, it was hard making a living as a songwriter, so he got a job as a bartender at the Waterhole Bar. Needless to say, he was pretty down. But then his whole world changed when he befriended a young songwriting frog who frequented the Waterhole Bar. Frank T. L. Frogg sat at his bar night after night crying in his beer after the love of his life left him for a hornswogglin’ manager named Horny Toad. The Captain listened and commisserated and one night joked “Frank, you used to be a prince…..now you’re just a frog. Ha ha..” Frank felt a punch but had to laugh….and he couldn’t get those words out of his head…
And the rest is history…
Wikipedia Notes:
Soldiers under his command still insist today that the Captain was the inspiration for the popular Quaker Oats cereal mascot that was introduced in 1963, coincidentally (or not) not long after the Captain had acquired his nickname. Numerous letters of inquiry written to the company by the family remain unreturned.
The Captain, a Viet Nam Veteran who earned the nickname Captain Crunch by his troops is the bartender at the Waterhole. The Captain is the only voice of reason in the place!
Lily Paderini
Lily Paderini
Lily Paderini grew up on the banks of the Jersey Shore, the third of five Paderini girls, in a noisy Italian family. For some reason Lily always felt blue. So she wrote and she cried and she wrote her feelings down in her journal, and that always made her feel better. One day, out of the blue, she heard a sad country song on a boom box on a beach in Atlantic City, and “boom!” it hit her….the words she had written in in her journals were SONGS…all they needed was a melody and a beat. So she bought herself a ukulele and next thing you know, she was the next big thing on the shore music scene playing at the Stoned Pony and The Wonder Where You Are Bar and all the local haunts; but it turned out, as good as she was, she was just a big fish in a little pond. So she headed out to Music City to try her luck at the big time.
Unfortunately, Lily’s “guns ablazing “style and “tell it like it is” lyrics were not taken kindly to by the good ol’ boys in Music City. They were impressed by her talent but asked her to “soften up” a bit. They told her her songs were too “over the top” for prime-time radio. Lily said “no can do”, cussed them a blue streak, and waved goodbye with one finger.
She wasn’t about to give up on her dream, so she hustled her lily padass attitude out to Ashland City where she landed herself a job as a singing waitress at the legendary Waterhole Bar, a place known for spawning new talent. Lily was an instant hit with the Waterhole bunch. She brought a touch of sass with her quick wit and sharp tongue comebacks. “She keeps the place running like a well oiled machine” says the Captain, co-owner and bartender.
While she’s not singing and dancing on the tables, she’s serving up signature Waterhole drinks, like the Paderini martini, her signature concoction.
A graduate with honors from the School of Hard Knocks, Lily is a softy inside with a heart as big as her mouth. She clocks in for happy hour at 5 every day. Come meet her down at the Waterhole.
Wikipedia Note:
Lily’s Paderini martini has become one of the most requested drinks in honky tonk history.
Lily Paderini, the sharp-tongued singing waitress comes to the Waterhole all the way from New Jersey. She makes the Waterhole run like a well-oiled machine and has something to say about everything.
Horny Toad
Horny Toad
Horny Toad, born in Slippery Springs, –Texas, that is– was small in stature but grew up a scrapper. Early on he had to learn how to fight but quickly figured out how to negotiate with the bully frogs in grade school who tried to steal his lunch money. This skill served him well when he took his first job as a roughneck in the oil fields. He used to bet the bigger, tougher toads that he could climb the rig faster than they could. He’d always win and take home their take home pay. Horny soon grew tired of the hot west Texas sun and that back-breaking job, so he packed up his carpet bag and joined up with a local traveling circus. He quickly became the top carnival barker on the midway, hornswoggling kids out their money at the duck float. He lived by the phrase “there’s a sucker born every minute.” After pocketing enough cash to buy himself an El Dorado, he rolled that caddie into Tinsel Town, where he raised his deal-making prowess to a new level. He was in his element hobnobbing with power brokers and the rich and famous, where the stakes were high and snakes were for hire.
The City of Lights started to fade for Horny when circumstances beyond his control required a change of scenery. Thankful for the 8 cylinders in his El Dorado, Horny hightailed it down to Nashville, Tennessee in search of a more humble and respectful clientele. When he got to Music City, however, he realized that the talent pool he was looking to wade up to his wallet in was not down on Broadway or Music Row, but a few miles down the road in a little honky tonk called The Waterhole, in a small town called Ashland City, —and the county, believe it or not, was “Cheatham, “ and that made him smile.
Now Horny always loved the ladies and considered himself a first class casanova, and the ladies had a thing for him. Nobody seemed to know why, cause he sure wasn’t the best looking toad. Some say it was those hypnotizing evil eyes or the fact that he could dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He’d twirl ‘em around until they were dizzy and that’s exactly what he did when he met a talented young singer named Sally Mander who was performing at the bar. He hoodwinked her into thinkin’ he had the power and the money to make her the next big thing,” while all along his motives were way beyond professional. She bought in hook, line and sinker, and as always with anything that sounds too good to be true……it was….
Wikipeda note
Horned lizard. … Horned lizards (Phrynosoma), also known as horny toads or horntoads, are a genus of North American lizards and the type genus of the family Phrynosomatidae. The common name is a metaphor prompted by their flattened, rounded body and blunt snout. The genus name Phrynosoma means “toad-bodied”.
A slippery toad from Slippery Springs, Texas, wherever Horny Toad goes, trouble is not far behind….a main character in the Frog Song, he’ll steal your heart….and then your money 😉
Sally Mander
Sally Mander
Sally Mander, was born in Sycamore Creek, Tennessee, the 30th offspring of her parents Gerry and Mandy. One of Sally’s happiest memories was swinging on the tree-swing on the neighborhood pond, where she would sing and swing for hours, belting out melodies to her favorite country songs, with the bass lines played by the bullfrogs.
Sally was a beautiful and talented young singer, long and slender with smooth skin and a long tail…hence her popular nickname LongTail Sally. Sometimes she would stare at her reflection in the pond and using a stick for a microphone, imagine herself on the stage of the Grand Ol’ Osprey performing with Dolly and basking in the applause of country music lovers everywhere. When her beloved grandfather Andy Mander, on his deathbed, told her that she sang Delta Dawn better than Tanya Tucker, he sparked an ambition in her that she couldn’t drown out.
Sally realized that to follow her dream was to follow the stream to the Cumberland River and make her way down to Music City, where at least she’d have a sliver of a chance at the big time. But Music City was a long way from Sycamore Creek, and one evening, she was so tired of swimming, she stopped for the night on a riverbank in Ashland City, Tennessee. Something in her head just said to her, “lay down Sally,” so she settled in for the night….but wait…. what was that she was hearing?…music coming from inside of what looked like a dive bar. ….Live country music…. She swam up to those swinging doors and never made it all the way to Music City. She had no idea how much that odyssey would change her life…her introduction to the worldly Horny Toad and her chance meeting of her true love, Frank T Frogg.
Wikipedia note:
Some species of salamanders (particularly the “siren” as Sally was) have both gills and lungs….it is suspected that Sally Mander indeed had both, because she could sing at the top of them.
Sally Mander is the star of the Frog Song, having started all the trouble by running off to New Orleans with Horny Toad, leaving Frank TL Frogg heartbroken. Luckily (and Frank is lucky!) Frank, being an excellent songwriting frog turned the whole twisted tale into a hit song!
Frank TL (The Lucky) Frogg
Frank TL Frogg
Born in Leipers Fork, Tennessee, Frank TL Frogg (the “T” of course stands for “The” and the “L” stands for “ Lucky”) was born an only tadpole into a musical family. His father, Jeremiah, who fronted a Three Dog Night cover band called “The Bullfrogs,” sadly lost his legs in a freak accident while swimming home from what turned out to be his final gig. Frank vowed that he would carry on his father’s musical “legacy,” and became a Summa Croak Loudly graduate of the School of Rockfish and a Toad Scholar.
Even as a young frog Frank always had a way with words and loved writing songs. He dreamed of becoming a hit songwriter in Nashville and danged if it didn’t happen in a big way– a way he least expected. Trying to find his way to Music Row, Frank was crossing Highway 96 when he was almost run over by a tour bus, but he managed to hop onto the rear axle. Crazy as it was, that bus just happened to belong to Reba McEntire, one of Frank’s idols. It turns out that Reba, instead of heading to Nashville, had a gig that night at the famous Waterhole Bar in Ashland City. Frank found himself watching the show perched on a bar stool where he met the bartender, the Captain, his soon-to-be lifelong friend.
The Waterhole became his regular haunt and he spent many a night there drinking and singing his songs and one night met the love of his life, Sally Mander. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned with Sally, and Frank was lucky to have the Captain to lean on. The Captain cheered him up with jokes, but one particular joke hit a little too close to home,because the punchline punched him in the heart, and Frank couldn’t get those words out of this mind.
The very next morning, Frank was sunning himself on a log on the banks of the Cumberland, with those words still rolling around in his head, when he noticed a guy sittin’ on the other end playin’ a guitar. Bein’ the friendly frog he was he said, “Hi my name’s Frank. I like the music you’re playin’. Are you a songwriter?” The fellow seemed a little startled at first and said “I’ve never had a conversation with a frog before, but yes I am.” Frank said “Well you and me got a lot in common ‘cause I’m a songwriter too and I’ve got a really good idea if you’d like to write it with me.” Well, the rest is history ‘cause they did write that song and that fellow recorded it and put it out on the radio. “The Frog Song,” as it was aptly called, became a #1 hit on the country charts and stayed there for weeks. Frank made a boatload money, bought the Waterhole Bar, and because his friend the Captain had given him the idea for the song, he gave him half of it.
Wikipedia note:
It’s rumored that some of Frank’s lesser-known songs, written well before his Frog Song hit, inspired other famous writers…for instance, some say Frank’s “Upstream Girl” inspired Billy Joel, and his “Hey Newt Get off of My Pad” inspired the Rolling Stones. But who knows for sure..
Son of Jeremiah (a musician in a Three Frog Night cover band), Frank TL Frogg is a talented singer-songwriter from Liepers Fork, Tennessee, who wrote the hit “The Frog Song” with his pal Dave Gibson. He’s the Waterhole “spokesfrog.”
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