Of course this new band was doing a lot of different styles of music than my little power trio was. It was indeed a strange transition going from a three piece power rock trio to a more diverse five pc pop-rock oriented band that had keyboards. From that single show I was suddenly introduced to a whole new five piece band and I decided to join them. But the real fun began after I played only one gig at the end of 7th grade, a show with my first power trio. So I had to ask a couple older guitar friends to show me some scales and cool rock lines. Finally, not knowing any other bass players in the area, as bass players were rather rare on planet earth. So it was still pretty new as well as a fascinating time for me. I had only been playing bass for about six months and was trying to understand the fundamentals of the instrument as I had not taken lessons for bass at all. It just seemed like a natural transition for me. When did you decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music? What brought that about for you? And dare I say it? Yes, even a little bit of contemporary country as well. Rock of course, definitely funk, a touch of fusion jazz, even pop if that word has any true musical meaning at all. As a session bassist in today’s music environment, one has to be relatively well versed in several music styles. I have been lucky and developed a very diverse style of playing over the years including a more healthy diet of modern alternative music these days. The blues was also really big in the music scene back then. Of course most everyone back in the mid 60s was heavily influenced by bands like the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, even The Beach Boys. Of course overtime I was greatly influenced by the Motown sound coming out of Detroit which would eventually add playing funk music to my gigs. Which is no surprise here that I actually started my music career with a typical power rock trio, guitar, drums and bass. Like most young boys in the 60s, I loved rock in my early years and it still remains as my core music direction. Seems that being a bass player is somewhat of an acquired taste. So eventually one of the guitarists had to switch over to bass playing duties. A lot of my bass player friends are actually guitarists that were often in bands with three or even four guitar players and naturally had no bass players at all. Meaning that I never really played much guitar before bass. I started playing bass in 7th grade around 1964-65. I began my musical adventure in 5th grade playing the trumpet in the early 60s and I picked up acoustic guitar in 6th grade for a few months but quickly grew bored with it. My mother also played a little acoustic guitar in her younger years and one of my aunts was a very accomplished pianist. So there is some music history in my family as well. My grandmother played acoustic guitar and my father played pedal steel guitar. I even played softball with a few members of the Bob Seger band back in the day in Kalamazoo, MI. Michigan bands like Alice Cooper, The Frost, Ted Nugent and The Amboy Dukes, Grand Funk Railroad, MC 5 and many many others. I saw hundreds of top named bands over my early years, and many bands before they were even famous. There were many great bands to see and even be part of. So I had a pretty fantastic music scene to choose from even at a fairly young age. Sturgis is conveniently located between Detroit and Chicago roughly ninety miles or so in either direction. Right here in the Midwest, the heart of rock and roll. Jerry Opdycke: My background is fairly simplistic. Would you like to talk a bit about your background? Where and when did you grow up? Was music a big part of your family life? Source: Keith Robinson “A thousand warriors on velvet horses moving through the underground” Kopperfield was Jimmy Robinson (lead vocals), Keith Robinson (keyboards, vocals), Chuck Eagan (guitar, vocals), Paul Decker (vocals, keyboards, percussion), Jerry Opdycke (bass, vocals), Tom Curtis (drums, percussion), Bill Wallace (guitar & percussion) (mostly appears on bonus recordings). By 1975, however, Kopperfield decided to disband. Kopperfield started working on their second album and at the same time signed with a booking agency out of Chicago, allowing them to open for groups and artists like Foghat, Country Joe McDonald, Kansas, the James Gang, and H.P. The band self-released ‘Tales Untold’ in 1974. Kopperfield | Interview | “A thousand warriors on velvet horses moving through the underground” Kopperfield was a fantastic early 70s progressive hard rock band from Edwardsburg, Michigan.
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