Southern Maine has a slew of talented cover bands who delight crowds with note-for-note, rock ‘n’ roll replica hits, keeping hoofers on the dance floor for hours on end.
The Harpswell band Dooryarders is not one of them.
Instead, its members shoot for something much more ambitious and difficult: They try and get people grooving to original music they’ve written themselves. With no radio play to speak of, or high-budget record company advertising campaigns, that’s no easy task — but they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“As long as the music is honest and sincere,” said Dooryarders frontman Bill Stamey, “I don’t think we can go wrong.”
On a recent Saturday night, the four-piece played to a small-but-appreciative crowd at Hi-Fidelity in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood. Without the aid of dazzling stage lights, a fog machine or a fancy public address system, the band swaggered through a 90-minute set of original songs about love, drinking and bank robbery.
Friends and strangers alike bopped their heads and downed beers. A handful of people danced. Halfway through the set, a pair of young women came through the door and sat down at the bar.
Minutes later, they were all smiles, paying attention and clearly loving it.
“You guys are really blowing my mind,” one of them told Stamey after the show.
The Dooryarders’ guitar-and-drums, riff-and-rhythm sound owes a lot to southern-fried soul music and the Rolling Stones, though no more than most post-1965 rock bands.
And that southern tinge comes naturally to guitarist and singer Stamey, 57, who grew up in the musical mecca of Memphis, Tennessee, and played youthful gigs all over the South.
The band’s other guitarist, Howard Coven, also 50-something, originally hails from New York City. Bassist Randy Shaw, 65, is from Rhode Island but has called Maine home since coming here to attend Bowdoin College.
The three make up the band’s core, playing alongside a rotating cast of drummers. They rehearse at Stamey’s house off Mountain Road, the Dooryarders’ unofficial headquarters. All three are lifelong musicians.
“I think there’s only about six years of my life when I wasn’t in a band,” Shaw said. “I’m going to retire from my day job when I’m 67 — then I want to do this full time.”
(A side note: The Dooryarders get their name from the colloquial Maine term for a broken-down car that never leaves the dooryard.)
The band released a full-length album of original music in 2023, plus three new singles since November. Members have already recorded several more songs as well and plan to release them, one at a time, over the next few months.
One of the Dooryarders’ latest songs is called “Cheap-ass Wine.” The bluesy, minor-chord number extols the virtues and pitfalls of the inexpensive, intoxicating beverage. Released last year, it was named to the Mainebrews N Musicreviews Best of 2024 list and was also featured on the Greetings From Area Code 207 Radio Hour.
One remarkable song in the band’s original-music repertoire is called “Just 10 Minutes.” Penned by Stamey, it tells the true, first-person story of a man trying to convince his pregnant wife to help him rob a bank.
“Tell them our business has to be done before the bank opens. We won’t show the gun until we’re inside,” it goes, “then everyone gets on the floor if they don’t want none.”
Then, trying to ease his wife’s well-founded concerns, the man adds an unconvincing, “I’ve been casing the joint.”
The robber in question was Stamey’s great-uncle, Tommy Presley, who held up a North Carolina bank in 1967. Presley almost got away with it until he showed up at his mill job a few days later with a brand-new Ford Mustang he’d purchased with a mysterious wad of cash.
“I didn’t write it to honor him,” Stamey said, clarifying matters. “He was a jerk.”
The song is a good example of the Dooryarders’ arduous, yet ultimately satisfying work of making all-new music, rather than playing less challenging, ready-made cover songs. It’s a tough path to follow but one the band plans to stick with, to the end.
“And that’s what I love about this band,” Coven said. “We’re always moving forward.”
