To Manchester, the name Cub Koda may be a voice from the past. In the early 60's, he and two other local teens created a group known as the Del-Tinos who reached a degree of popularity in southeastern Michigan, and Cub continued on to nationwide fame in Brownsville Station. Far from being in the "past," he is still rockin' and rollin', currently in a tribute album to blues great Hound Dog Taylor which has reached the top of the blues charts in 1998, enjoying the continued popularity and critical acclaim of a 1994 solo album called, "Abbe Dabba Dabba - A Bananza of Hits," and making plans to release an acoustic album later this year. In addition he writes for a number of music publications and believes, "The best is yet to come."
Moving to Manchester in the early 60's was a bit of culture shock for this kid who had been everywhere. Cub reminisces, "I walked into my first day of seventh grade dressed to kill; pants pegged to 14 inches at the knee, thin necktie, dress shirt and vest, rat tail comb sticking out of my back pocket and a half jar of grease sculpted into my head. Staring across the room from me was a sea of pink scalps, FFA jackets, and those dungarees that have a side pocket for holding your screwdriver."
In 1963 or 64, Cub, Rusty Creech and Doug Hankes created their band and called it the Del Tinos, "for no other reason than it sounded cool and greasy to us." After a successful gig at the junior high Band Boosters concert, they began playing teen clubs, drive ins, high schools and dance hall armories that extended "all the way down to Toledo."
You can still hear some of the music they played way back when, by stopping in at the Manchester Township Library - a copy of a CD combining the Del-Tino's with Adrian's Hesitations has been donated by Cub's dad, George Koda, who still lives in Manchester. In fact, a couple of the tracks on that album were even recorded in the Manchester Enterprise office, as George and Lois Koda owned the newspaper at that time.
Cub indicates that listening to some of his old records can be "unsettling - a lot like those old high school yearbook photos that come back to haunt you." But, he admits, "whatever we lacked in mature outlook and skilled musicianship we made up for in volume, energy, and total commitment to rock 'n' roll."
His most current album, "Hound Dog Taylor - A Tribute" was released on Alligator Records earlier this year and has been sitting in the number one slot on the living blues radio charts for the past two months. Recorded with Hound Dog Taylor's original band, the Houserockers, (both over 70 years of age), the project goes to aid the Blues Community Foundation in Chicago. "I'm pretty proud to be a part of this project," says Cub, who played on three tracks of this album and describes it as a labor of love. Also contributing performances to this CD are Taj Mahal, George Thorogood, Vernon Reid, and the Blues Imperials, among many more. Cub relates it was great fun working with so many great artists to complete this tribute.
Also on the table is a new all acoustic solo CD, entitled "Box Lunch" on TNA Records.
The evolution of Koda's music over the years, from rock to blues, is not altogether surprising. As Cub says, "Actually, my rock 'n' roll has always been blues and my blues has always been rock 'n' roll. I've never really played 'rock music,' my music is just bare bones basic American music, that sort of combines blues, rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, country & western and jazz into one big thing. There's certainly no doubt that we're in the midst of a blues renaissance right now; it's bigger than it's ever been."
At 50, Cub still lives and breathes music - even when he's out on the road playing, he writes a monthly column, "The Vinyl Junkie" for the record collectors' magazine Discoveries, and regularly contributes to the All Music Guide's web site as a reviewer. He also works for various record companies doing reissue work, either compiling collections, doing liner notes, or both. His second book, "Blues for Dummies" will be published next month by IDG books out of Chicago, the folks who publish the highly popular "Dummies" series. In addition to writing the book, he also put together the CD of blues classics that comes with the book itself.
The liner notes for the Del Tinos CD that is available for loan at the Library (or you can purchase direct from Norton Records, Box 646 Cooper Station, NY, NY 10276), were also written by Cub as a story of "part of Michigan rock and roll that doesn't always get told. The Del Tinos were a part of Manchester history," part of the motivation for the donation of the re-issued CD, vinyl album and 45 to the Library.
And Cub has no intentions of slowing down. "As long as I still enjoy playing out, I'll keep playing. I'm still writing new songs and I think that's what keeps an artist interested in continuing on. Most people think about taking it easier when they hit 50, but as you can see we're just getting warmed up."
-Marsha Johnson Chartrand