66 Kaleidoscope
Lyle Grobe rekindles 40-year love affair with music
By Kelly McGee-Allen
Special to KaleidoScope
POLO � Lyle Grobe's love of music
began when he was 5 or 6 years old.
Grobe, 72, has vivid memories of
his maternal grandfather teaching
him how to play the mandolin while
his mother played piano.
"My mother was quite a musi-
cian, and things just kept going from
there," he said.
Those"things" to which he refers in-
cludes the formation of his band, Lyle
Grobe and The Rhythm Ramblers, in
the early 1960s.
The quintet performed at various
venues around the Sauk Valley and
ran the old Skyline Lounge in Dixon
until the early 1980s, when traveling
and raising families became their fo-
cus.
"We brought in big acts: Chubby
Checker, Ricky Nelson," Grobe said.
"We would back up a lot of the acts
that would come around the country.
A lot of country acts of that time, such
as Little Jimmy Dickens, and Thom
Paul and The Glaser Brothers, would
ask us to be the back up band or the
front band (opening act ) for them."
Named acts were willing to play
Dixon in the lag time in between their
professional bookings, he said.
"If they were playing a show in Chi-
cago one day and then Des Moines,
Iowa a few days later, we'd ask them if
they wanted to make some gas mon-
ey by stopping by Skyline Lounge and
playing a set," Grobe said.
Grobealsoemceedforcountrysing-
ers Conway Twitty, David Houston
and Barbara Mandrell, and he was a
deejay and announcer for WIXN Ra-
dio in Dixon back in the '70s.
That musical exposure led song-
writer Orville Westcore to look up
Grobe in 1969 to see whether he and
his band would be interested in re-
cording a song Westcore wrote the
year before for the Petunia Festival,
"It's Petunia Time In Dixon."
"I remember the appointment was
at 7 o'clock in the morning in Chica-
go, and we were playing at a club and
we packed up everything at about 1
o'clock in the morning and drove in
there and then recorded this thing,"
Grobe said.
Never thinking they would hear this
song again, the Ramblers were pleas-
antly surprised to hear it on the radio,
then and 40 years later: WRCV 101.7
FM and WLLT 107.7 FM still play it
during the Petunia Festival, Grobe
said.
In fact, Grobe was asked to be this
year's Petunia fest parade grand mar-
shal because of that little ditty.
"I was pleased that they asked me,
and it was to recognize that song they
have been playing for 40 years .... It
was quite an honor."
Two years ago, his nephew, Justin
Grobe, and Justin's friend, Ray Ford,
asked Lyle to teach them some guitar
chords. It was the beginning of a re-
union for The Rhythm Ramblers.
Playing with his nephew gave Lyle a
musical itch, and he decided to give
"the old guys" a call, he said, to see
whether they wanted to get together.
To his surprise, they all showed up,
and jamming together has turned
into a weekly event.
These days, the Ramblers � Lyle,
Frank Evans of Rock Falls, Marv
Kunde of Oregon, Dennis Milby of
Sterling and Charlie Smith of Frank-
lin Grove � lean toward country mu-
sic, but they also throw in some of the
pop and rock `n' roll of their youth.
"After playing for some 50 or 60
years, I guess we could play just about
anything," Grobe said.
Although they're not taking many
"official" bookings � they're not inter-
ested in playing full time again � Lyle
Grobe and The Rhythm Ramblers
do make local appearances now and
again.
If you're interested in coaxing the
Ramblers to play an event, call Evans
at 815-626-7839.
Submitted photo

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