The TorKays

Wayne Hamilton’s first band, the TorKays, consisted of three musicians from Woodson High School (Ernie Bickers, lead guitar, Kirk Bressler, rhythm guitar and Tom Germaine, bass guitar) and three from Wayne’s own Annandale High (Wayne on drums and Bill Lowe and Mike Dattilio on saxophones). The six members of that band became like brothers.

Rehearsals were in the “rec (short for recreation) room” at Wayne’s house every Saturday afternoon. New songs were learned, rehearsed and usually played that same night at a gig somewhere within fifty miles of Wayne’s house. Wayne’s mother, happily helped by his sister, served lunch on the patio out back. Mama H would dance her way through the day upstairs and occasionally yell down the stairs, “That’s a good one!” when the guys got it right.

Sounds from the Past

At some point during their four years together, lead guitarist Ernie Bickers quietly brought a stereo recording device and a single microphone and set it up somewhere near his position on the bandstand, where he could turn that machine on and off and tape any songs the band played that night. The ten-inch reel that held Ernie’s recording followed him around for decades, including the years he spent in the US Navy, getting married and raising a family in Texas and telling at least one of his sons, Scott, stories about the TorKays and the songs that were recorded on that tape.

When Ernie died in 2022, Scott inherited the tape, remembered his dad’s stories, and decided to look for other members of the TorKays. He also had the songs on the tape converted into mp3 files, which enabled him to electronically share his dad’s recording with his siblings and his friends.

Read more about the TorKays here

Two Mystery Songs

We have been unable to identify the titles and composers of two “Mystery Tracks” at the end of the playlist below. If you have good guesses, please send a note to us from our contact page. 

Sound restoration by Richard Schletty of SchlettySound.com. Note: the transfer of tracks from reel-to-reel to digital MP3 resulted in songs that were too fast and pitched too high. This was due to a different playback speed on the tape player. Schletty used Adobe Audition’s “Stretch and Pitch” tool to slow down the tempo by 10% and lower the pitch by 2 semitones. There was a significant loss of sound in the higher frequencies either due to tape degradation or poor mic placement in the auditorium where the originals were recorded. A dynamic compressor plugin helped to bring out the higher frequencies, especially the lead vocals.