Wasn't Your Mom A Rocker?
Bodi-wan
October 6, 2021
It’s true, my mom played in a rock band in her youth. It was well before my day! So I’ve never seen her perform.
It was in the late 1960’s and she played in a band called Traggix. It was a rock/fun rock band. Apparently, they would play cover songs and a few originals—songs like “Wipeout”. They never made any recordings—at least not that I know of.
Traggix played a number of shows in Western Illinois. Their heyday probably peaked around 1967-1968.
My mom, Cheryl Duvendack or (“Duvas”) as she was affectionately known to friends, played the rhythm guitar.
Lead vocals were performed by Steve Ingram and Patty Sides. Drums were Willie Shephard and lead guitars were done by Roger DeWitt.
My mom learned guitar from her dad, my grandpa, Richard Duvendack; also pictured here with her younger brother Rick (my mom had a hand in naming her little brother and she named him after Ricky Nelson). My grandpa died of a heart problem about three years before I was born.
Although Traggix never influenced me directly, my mom’s old guitar amplifier supplied two speakers that I wired up to an old RadioShack amplifier to be my first PA system to sing through. I wired in almost 9 speakers to that simple amp setup before things finally blew just before an informal gig in Versailles, IL in 1991.
Those were the days—rigging things up to make it through
a show.
