Despite at times lacking a national music scene, Durango is home to some musical institutions.
The Bar D Wranglers, the Blue Moon Ramblers, the Lawn Chair Kings and Ralph Dinosaur all have entertained Durango for decades. Dinosaur, who’s familiar to some for dressing in women’s garments on stage, has been playing music in Durango since 1981. The garment addition was simple – wear what’s thrown on stage.
People like familiarity, finding comfort in something they’ve heard, danced, drank and partied to. The soundtrack to those actions is a familiar mix from the classic rock canon. While some may ache for new or under-the-radar music, far be it for anyone to mess with a formula that’s worked for decades on various dance-floors. It’s certainly held true for Dinosaur.
Saturday, the “Ralph Dinosaur and Lisa Blue Invitational” Mother’s Day Dance will take place at The Elks Lodge. Dinosaur, who plays bass and sings, will be joined by Mario Dobbs on guitar, Glenn Keefe on bass and Doug Hodges on drums. Lisa Blue will add vocals.
Ralph “Dinosaur” Donnen grew up in Akron, Colorado, and, like most adults in America, was influenced by early rock music, grabbing what he could from the limited assortment of records for sale in the small town’s grocery store.
“In ’67 or ’68, they started getting some records that weren’t the real blue-hair music that was there,” Dinosaur said in an interview at KDUR. “I got a Vanilla Fudge record, and Muddy Waters, and then ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ came out and ‘Born to be Wild.’ Then, in July of ’68, it was Jimi Hendrix. That was the end for me.”
Dinosaur left Northeast Colorado and ended up in Grand Junction for college, where, after a few years of sitting on the sidelines of the then-fertile music and party scene of the Western slope, he joined a rock band as the frontman.
“I had a gregarious nature, and they liked that. I got in the band in 1973, and by the time I got here in 1981, I had a good band, and we were playing rock music and put on a show that the people of Durango came and saw time and time again,” Dinosaur said. “Jimi Hendrix, the Vanilla Fudge – it was dance music, and it was dance shows.”
Let’s not limit his repertoire to classic rock. Dinosaur is as likely to dip into Beat Farmers or Jim Carroll cuts as he is the classic canon. It’s all a romp to fill the dance floor.
“I don’t play as often as I used to, but the quality of the shows, you have to reinvent yourself each and every year” Dinosaur said. “Those great songs we spoke of, they’re still a great motor for a good dance party.”
Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.
Bryant’s best
Saturday: Rock music with Little Wilderness, 6 p.m. No cover. Durango Brewing Co., 3000 Main Ave., 247-3396.
Saturday: The Ralph Dinosaur/Lisa Blue Mother’s Day Invitational Dance with Ralph Dinosaur and the Fabulous Volcanoes, 7 p.m. $10. Durango Elks Lodge, 901 East Second Ave., 749-6475.
