Rubber Rodeo

Rubber Rodeo was a six-piece unit out of Rhode Island that fused new-wave drum machines and other electronic rhythms with a sincere country-western heart and a “yee-haw!” Indeed, the group that usually had audiences up and dancing in leather and studs had its first local hit with a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” The 1981 single featured Trish Milliken on lead vocals and she and husband/guitarist Bob Holmes set the course for the band, finding success across New England with a unique, hybrid sound.

An eponymous six-song EP on Eat Records in 1982 brought the major record labels a-comin’ and Rodeo signed with Mercury, which released the group’s Scenic Views album in 1984. Although Holmes spoke publicly about how difficult it was working with the production team and the label, the LP included the single “Anywhere With You,” which reached #86 in the Billboard Hot 100. A long-form video showing the band goofing around on tour – which featured  memorable scenes from the dinosaur park pictured on the Scenic Views cover – was nominated for a Grammy and it seemed that Rubber Rodeo had the musical keys to America’s future. It was not to be, however, as their second album on Mercury, Heartbreak Highway, sold disappointingly and by the late ‘80s the members had gone their separate ways.

(by Carter Alan)

Carter Alan is a former WBCN deejay now heard on WZLX-FM in Boston. He’s the author of Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN (University Press of New England, 2013).