[continued second half] The Knights’ popularity is because the band could cover the hit songs of the Ventures better than the other Duke City bands that were being formed in great numbers locally, so the Knights filled in as many dates with these local venues as the proprietors would allow. The teen clubs were non-alcoholic and the teenagers that visited the clubs were junior high and high-school students.

    The Dancette was Albuquerque’s first teen club, and it was packed every Friday and Saturday night mostly because of its talented house band, Sidro and the Sneakers. The Knights became the Sneakers’ backup band when the Sneakers began to perform at the adult nightclubs for much better pay.

    Rock-and-roll guitar instrumentals were also the rage in the Duke City from 1959 through 1964 and the Knights were outfitted in black tailored suits with skinny ties similar to that of the Ventures.

    Because of the Dancette’s prosperity, teen clubs began to spread throughout Albuquerque and its suburbs in large numbers with the leasing of abandoned warehouses, swimming pools, and even old ranch buildings. In fact, any city approved structure large enough to accommodate two hundred or more emotionally charged teens rockin’ to the latest dance crazes such as the watusi, twist, mashed potatoes. Jerk, swim and slop.

    The teen clubs that experienced a reasonable amount of success during the early stages of teen-club popularity aside from the Dancette were the Web, the Wayside Inn, Little Beaver Town, and the Swim and Swing, but accordingly, the one that held the record for the biggest crowds was Sage City, which was founded by popular television personality, Johnny Salisbury, better known as Johnny Appleseed.

Shortly after opening, however, Salisbury sensed the beginning of the end of teen-club mania (teens are very fickle about novice ideas and lose interest very quickly) and leased Sage City to the number one rock-and-roll AM radio station in Albuquerque, KQEO. As a result, the teenagers came in droves, mainly because the radio station ruled the local airwaves with its top-40 format. No other Albuquerque radio station, whether country, rock, classical or talk, had ever come close to KQEO’s incredible market-share rating of 51.

Although Albuquerque teen club fanaticism began to wane in 1967, local rock and roll bands increased in large numbers. The bands that gobbled up the majority of the gigs were Lindy and the Lavells, the Plague, the Monkeymen, the Knights, the Pallbearers, the Vicount V, the Striders, the Side winders, the Chessmen, the Saliens, the Zsars, the Sneakers, the Freddy Williams Band, the Berrys, the Cellar Dwellers, the Morticians, and Tommy G. and the Charms, principally because these groups had strengthened their fan support by means of 45 rpm vinyl record releases that began to flood the local market shortly after the Knights instrumental hit release, “Precision.” The 1963 guitar-instrumental had a unique hook with a classical-piano opening.

As had stated earlier, 1964 rock and roll took a different direction with a new sound and expression, and it opened the door to the famous British Invasion.

“Guitar-rock instrumentals is our passion!”