If you want to know the true history of Flash Cadillac, there’s only one guy left to ask.
Warren Knight remembers the days in 1969 when he and some buddies at the University of Colorado in Boulder decided to start a band playing music that was cool a decade earlier. He remembers playing fraternity parties and moving to Los Angeles and staying in the band as its lineup changed. Knight doesn’t remember imagining he’d still be in the same band more than 50 years later.
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But here he is at 72, as the only original member still rocking with Flash Cadillac.
“The band has a long history of people coming and going,” Knight said. “I’m the one who stuck around from the beginning.”
He’s the one who knows the whole story, how the group turned into a successful national touring act and an enduringly beloved name in Colorado.
It started with the decision to drop out of school and head to California in search of fame and fortune.
“We thought, ‘If this doesn’t work, we can always go back to college,’” said Knight, a Colorado Springs native who graduated from Widefield High School. “Which we always could’ve.”
He never went back to college.
Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, there was a stroke of luck. An up-and-coming director named George Lucas cast the members of Flash Cadillac to play a band in the 1972 movie “American Graffiti.”
“Nobody knew it was going to be a successful movie,” Knight said. “Nobody knew how successful George Lucas was going to be.”
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That movie’s success helped Flash Cadillac get another role in the movie “Apocalypse Now” and an episode of “Happy Days.” The little-known band had found its slice of the spotlight.
“I think we were doing our own thing,” Knight said. “In 1970, no one was playing ’50s and ’60s music.”
They became known for an oldies sound, playing songs by Chuck Berry and Jerry Lewis and releasing hits such as “Dancin’ (on a Saturday Night),” “Good Times, Rock and Roll” and a popular version of “Suzie Q.”
They also became known for raucous live shows, the kind that always got people up and dancing. As one story goes, their shows were so good that The Beach Boys refused to play on the same lineup to avoid getting showed up by the lesser-known band.
Flash Cadillac kept their Colorado roots. By the mid-1970s, the band bought a little ranch near Woodland Park and built a studio there. After a rebirth in the ’90s, the band played pops concerts with symphony orchestras across the country, including the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. In 2012, Flash Cadillac was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
Knight is not the only keeper of Flash Cadillac’s stories. There’s also Kacey Phillips, the son of Flash Cadillac’s founding guitarist, Linn “Spike” Phillips, who died in 1993 from a heart attack.
The younger Phillips grew up watching the band in action and finding his own love for the stage.
“These guys were my heroes,” Phillips, 42, said. “It was the coolest thing in the world for a kid who liked music.”
As he got older, he would occasionally fill in during Flash Cadillac shows and dreamed of making the permanent lineup.
“I’ve been trying to be in this band since I was 3 years old,” Phillips said.
As of the last few years, that dream has come true.
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Phillips, the youngest member by about 20 years, has joined Flash Cadillac’s current lineup, which includes Knight, Dwight Bement, Dave Henry and Rocky Mitchell.
The band’s sound hasn’t changed much since 1969, making their retro rock ‘n’ roll more and more retro each decade.
“The formula for the band still works,” Phillips said. “People see us live and they still think it’s so much fun.”
Flash Cadillac hasn’t played a live show since 2019, due to the coronavirus pandemic. They’ll return to the stage Saturday at Stargazers Theatre and Event Center.
“It’s the longest period in the history of the band that we haven’t played,” Knight said. “It’s been weird. That’s for sure.”
He can’t wait to play again for fans who have stayed loyal to Flash Cadillac for just about as long as he has.
“I wouldn’t have kept doing it all these years if I didn’t love it,” he said.
Others love it, too.
“People are thankful we’re continuing to do it,” Phillips said. “We’ve been around so long that everyone has their Flash Cadillac memory.”
And Phillips wants to keep making more Flash Cadillac memories.
“I’m honored I get to carry this legacy they started,” he said. “It’s still my favorite band in the world.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
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