The Fabulous DOO VAYS have been playing 60s music since the 60s
Apr. 21—OXFORD — Keith Collins and Richie Burnette have been playing 60s music since the 60s.
They've played together for 43 years, first as part of a larger band named Solid Gold, which existed from 1974 to 2013. For the past nine years, however, the two of them have played together as The Fabulous DOO VAYS.
"We might not be the best band in north Mississippi, but we're for sure the oldest," Burnette said.
Collins, 71, and Burnette, 75, specialize in performing the music of Motown and Stax Records, throwing in songs by the Beatles, The Beach Boys and plenty of soul groups. The band plays between 25 to 30 gigs per year, everywhere from Jackson, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee.
They do mostly private parties, but get together once a month to perform at Tallahatchie Gourmet in Oxford.
These days, the DOO VAYS typically perform for around three hours, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
"We generally get through about the time we used to start," Burnette said.
"We used to do 9 to 1's and somebody would wave a $100 bill and we'd go to 2," Burnette said, adding with a laugh, "Nowadays I'd pay $100 to get out of a place."
The perfect name for a cover band
The DOO VAYS is a cover band. Which is kind of perfect.
The name "DOO VAYS" is pronounced like "duvet," which is, coincidentally, a quilt used as a cover on a bed.
Back when the men were still playing in Solid Gold, an old friend was in town and their wives were in a bedroom talking about redecorating, Burnette recalled.
"One of them said something about a duvet, and both of us in another room said, 'Boy, that would be a cool name for a band, wouldn't it?'" Burnette said.
When they needed a name for a band 10 years later, that was it.
Someone along the way added the "fabulous" superlative, dubbing them The Fabulous DOO VAYS.
"I guess it's in the eye of the listener as to whether we're fabulous or not," Burnette said. "But we are The Fabulous DOO VAYS."
Musical origins and influences
Collins and Burnette are from Memphis and Clarksdale, respectively — each a "music mecca" in its own right.
Collins and Burnette each started out learning piano as kids before finding their groove with other instruments.
Burnette suffered through three months of piano lessons before his father, a multi-instrumentalist and singer, gave up on it.
At the age of 12 or 13, Collins bought a cheap drum kit and played along with records to refine his style, patterning his drumming after James Brown's drummers.
Likewise, at 14 or 15, Burnette bought a four-string tenor guitar.
Like many teens in the early 1960s, they were inspired by the Beatles to pursue music.
Now, as the DOO VAYS, Collins plays drums and does vocals. Burnette plays keyboard and guitar, along with providing vocals.
What sets them apart is that few bands play strictly 1960s music these days.
"What works for us is that so much of what we do, you may turn on a TV and there's an ad with a Motown track," Burnette said.
The band's staples include songs like "Stay" by Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs, "Hey! Baby" by Bruce Channel, "Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy" by The Tams, "It's The Same Old Song" by Four Tops and "Shout" by The Isley Brothers.
"You take a song like 'My Girl' by The Temptations, that song is timeless," Burnette said. "My wife and I, that was our song when we were dating in high school. But my daughter and my granddaughter know and love that song."
They estimate the average age of their Tallahatchie Gourmet crowd to be in the 60s, but even younger patrons know and can sing along with most of the songs the DOO VAYS play.
As Solid Gold, the men played more wedding receptions than they can count, and in those situations "you had to have music that the guy who was writing the check liked, but his daughter and her friends had to like it too."
Motown fits the bill, and the DOO VAYS' unique style is still getting them booked for gigs.
"It has to be danceable," Collins said. "And we try to play exactly like the record."
While some cover bands take popular songs and make them their own, the DOO VAYS try to play songs the way people remember hearing them the first time.
"We don't think they came to hear our version," Burnette said.
Some things change, some stay the same
Burnette is retired, having spent 20 years in banking and working commercial and industrial real estate in DeSoto County.
Collins still works as a certified public accountant and owns and operates a property management company that manages homeowner and condominium associations.
Just as the band has changed since the days when they played together as part of Solid Gold, so has their gear.
The pair now uses technology that wasn't available for most of their career, like harmonizers that add artificial harmonies to their voices by raising or lowering the pitch of their singing.
"If I'm doing a Beatles song, and I need two more voices to go with me, as long as I know which button to press and what chords to play on my guitar or keyboard, I've got the voices," Burnette said.
Likewise, keyboards are much lighter than in the past and can do things it used to take three keyboards to do, Burnette said.
The duo also uses iPads that scroll the words and chords to the songs they play, allowing them to mix it up and play songs they aren't intimately familiar with.
Whereas Solid Gold stuck to a set list of 45 or 50 songs they'd rotate through, the DOO VAYS play from a song list that isn't set and includes twice as many tunes.
"Solid Gold played so long, so many times, for the same people that there were guys that knew what the next song was going to be," Burnette said. "We didn't like that."
It ain't over yet
The band's slogan is, "It ain't over yet."
It's a quote from Howard Calhoun, mouthed to Burnette during what was arguably Solid Gold's most memorable performance at the Hard Rock Cafe in Memphis on Oct. 1, 1998.
"It was slam-jam packed," Burnette recalled. "It was some kind of convention and there were as many people in there as it could hold."
The band was hot; the crowd was responding and Calhoun, co-founder of Solid Gold, was on the other side of the stage from Burnette.
"People were up on balconies, hanging over them and I thought 'This is cool,'" Burnette said. "He kind of mouthed at me, he said, 'It ain't over yet.'"
During their time playing music together as Solid Gold, the group performed alongside Chubby Checker, Junior Walker, The Crystals, The Dixie Cups and Archie Bell & The Drells.
As the years passed, Burnette said they wondered, "How long can this possibly go on?"
The DOO VAYS chose the slogan to pay tribute to their former bandmate, who Burnette remembers as one of the best bass players in Memphis in the 60s.
Calhoun stepped away from performing live music but remains close to Burnette and Collins.
It still ain't over yet
The DOO VAYS play what they consider "happy music" — tunes with lots of vocal harmony, songs from the 50s and 60s that listeners can dance to.
"We like to bring joy to people," Collins said. "So we typically play the kind of music that lifts people up.
Bringing joy to people, he added, is what he most loves about performing.
"As I get older, that's important to me," he added.
Burnette said that while the band gets paid for its performances, they spend about as much money as they make for each show.
"If you figure the hours that were put in, it's probably not minimum wage," Burnette said. "We do it because we love it."
Their favorite part of performing is the feedback they get from the audience — seeing people get out of their chairs when they hear a song they have to dance to.
"We love to see people mouthing the words to the songs that we're singing," Collins said.
If it wasn't for having to travel, set up and break down gear after each performance, Burnette said he'd perform three nights per week and never blink an eye.
Burnette said that although traveling takes a bigger toll than it once did, he feels blessed to still be playing live music.
"We always say 'How many 70-plus-year-olds play in a rock 'n' roll band?" Collins said.
That would be the Rolling Stones, but Burnette noted that they have a slightly different vibe than The Fabulous DOO VAYS.
"They've got a different deal than we do," Burnette said with a laugh.
Collins and Burnette have easily played over 1,200 shows together and they don't plan on stopping soon. They've already got gigs booked through December.
"We say 'It ain't over yet,'" Burnette said. "We're in the fourth quarter, but we don't know how many minutes we've got left."
