53 years later, still rockin’ A Whitewater garage band formed in the ’60s is still going – and now has a book.
They played instrumentals and covers of such songs as “In the Midnight Hour,” “Love Potion No. 9,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Money.” Members also tried their hand at writing original tunes. Fans were transfixed by their elaborate light shows on stage.
The boys in garage band Mourning Dayze were easy to spot in conservative Whitewater with their shaggy hair, mod clothes and a 1957 Cadillac hearse that took them to gigs across Wisconsin and beyond.
It was the psychedelic 1960s, and they were having the time of their lives on the road and up there on stage.
Like the Rolling Stones and precious few other bands of survivors, Mourning Dayze is still performing today, 53 years later, though Rick Pfeifer is the only remaining original member.
With lots of help from bandmates, he has written a book, “Mourning Dayze: A Wisconsin Garage Band Rockin’ Since 1965,” available on Amazon and elsewhere.
The idea for the book was born with a Google search in 2005. Pfeifer typed in “Mourning Dayze” and got a surprising number of hits, including one saying the band’s only single record, “Fly My Paper Airplane,” was included in a compilation by Gear Fab Records called, “The Psychedelic States: Illinois in the 60s.” The song was recorded in Chicago.
Pfeifer shared the find with two guys from the dawn of Mourning Dayze, guitarist Doug Henry and drummer-singer Steve Ellmann.
A lightbulb went on:
“Just like our music, our story could be shared.” And it would resonate with anyone who was ever in a band or followed one.
Pfeifer was just 15 and in an earlier combo that Henry, then 18 and a student at the University of WisconsinWhitewater, happened to hear one day.
After the Lennon and McCartney type meeting, they quickly formed The Coachmen and, after discovering another band had that name, changed it to Mourning Dayze with that funky spelling. Ellmann, Ron Wolfe and Ralph Wells rounded out the lineup.
They played instrumentals and covers of such songs as “In the Midnight Hour,” “Love Potion No. 9,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and “Money.”
Members also tried their hand at writing original tunes. Fans were transfixed by their elaborate light shows on stage.
At a blistering pace, the band played teen bars, parties, universities, fairs, proms, really for anyone who asked them, even wrestler Dick the Bruiser’s daughter’s wedding. They hooked a trailer to the hearse that Henry, who grew up in South Milwaukee, had spotted at a used vehicle lot in Hales Corners.
“When we picked it up, they hadn’t done much with it. There was still a bloody sheet in the back, and there was an order to pick up a body at Mitchell in the glove compartment,” Henry said in an interview last week at the Journal Sentinel.
He shared stories along with Pfeifer and Rise Hebebrand, Rick’s sister who joined the band as a singer and keyboardist in 1971 and remains a member today. She recalled how tongues wagged when the hearse would pick her up as a child from choir practice.
During the first five years, Mourning Dayze opened for The Music Explosion, Ohio Express, The Lemon Pipers, The Trashmen, New Colony Six and Chicago Transit Authority.
Sure, being in a band was partly about meeting and impressing women. But the other stereotype of drugs and hard partying didn’t apply here, though plenty of times it was offered to them.
“Our prime focus was playing on that stage at night and doing the best job we could. We didn’t want to let anything interfere with that,” Pfeifer said.
For a rock ‘n’ roll book, the dedication to his parents, Ray and Betty Pfeifer, might seem surprising.
But they opened their barn for band rehearsals — the band still practices there — and their Whitewater home as a place for everyone to eat and crash. Ray kept the band vehicles running.
By 1970, the band was down to three dedicated members, and two of those left after a memorable show at a club in Middleton, where they shared the spotlight and a dressing room with topless dancers.
Ellmann was drafted into the Army, and Henry, by then married with kids, became a teacher and later got into hotel and restaurant management.
It was a tough breakup, but Pfeifer pulled together new players and kept going for decades, finding time for a career as a social worker as well. Over the years, 26 musicians have been in the band.
From 1972 to 2000, Mourning Dayze was the house band at Alpine Valley, entertaining guests at the ski lodge and meeting many of the big stars who played the amphitheater there.
You can still catch the band — with the longtime current lineup of Pfeifer, Hebebrand, Bob Jenson and Wayne Skau — most weekends in resorts and clubs mainly in Jefferson, Dane and Rock counties.
“We were never stars,” Pfeifer said. Just everyday people who love to play.