It is with a great deal of pride that 318Central.com is able to announce that the home-grown Alexandria band, The Romeos, is being inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. The core of the band, Central Louisiana citizens Jerry Honigman, Dony Wynn, Bootsie Normand, and Dan Diefenderfer, enjoyed a highly rewarding and high-achieving career in the national music spotlight. Playing across America in such vaunted venues as the Troubadour and Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Agoura in Dallas, the Kingfish in Baton Rouge, Ole Man River’s in New Orleans, or Town Hall in Manhattan, they shared the stage with such artists as Roy Orbison, Elvin Bishop, Toto, LeRoux, Tommy Tutone, Jim Carroll, and others, while writing, recording, and playing with some of the best musicians in the world. Here’s how they got there.
In 1978, Jerry Honigman was living in Los Angeles and recording demos as a singer/songwriter as part of a “spec” deal with Elektra Records. When the label asked to hear the songs that he was planning to record next, he presented them with a concept for a rock band and a group of songs he called “Rock and Roll and Love and Death by the Romeos.” When they passed on the idea, Honigman gathered up his friend and colleague, Dony Wynn, to fly back home to Alexandria, Louisiana to record the songs. For the sessions, Wynn called his friend Dan Diefenderfer, and Honigman called Bootsie Normand. These two guitarists, with assistance on bass from Danny Milliner, clicked musically, and the actual band, The Romeos, was born.
Returning to L.A. with the new recordings, Honigman soon secured a management/production deal with friend Steve Jones, owner of the well-known and respected Chateau Recorders in North Hollywood. Jones facilitated the relocation of Diefenderfer (“Dief”) and Normand to Los Angeles, along with Mike Lacroix, who had engineered the recordings in Alexandria and would join the band on bass. Within a year of woodshedding, rehearsing, and playing gigs, The Romeos were signed to a lucrative recording contract with CBS for their Columbia Records label, at the time the biggest label in the world.
The 1980 album, “Rock and Roll and Love and Death” was recorded at some of the most prestigious studios in L.A., including Chateau, Davlen Sound, and The Record Plant. It was produced by Toto’s David Paich, and featured, in addition to Paich, such noted musicians as Steve Porcaro, Bobby Kimball, James Newton Howard, and Valerie Carter. Lacroix had returned to Louisiana, and the bass chores were handled on the record by session player, Scott Chambers. The album was mixed at Cherokee Studios by Geoff Workman (Cars, Foreigner, Journey, Toto). For the ensuing national tour, the bass player for Little Feat, Kenny Gradney, joined the band.
Over the next few years, the band morphed into other iterations, with Jerry, Dony, Dief, and Bootsie joined on bass by Frank Blair (Marvin Gaye, Robert Palmer) and on blues harp by Joseph “Hurricane Jake” Fitzgerald. This version of the group recorded strong material with Emmy and Grammy-winning producer/engineer Ed Cherney. When Bootsie left the band, he was replaced on guitar by John Staehely, formerly of the bands Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne. These Romeos were tapped to go into the studio in 1986 by acclaimed producer Bernard Edwards, originally of the band Chic (“Le Freak”), and producer of many huge acts including Power Station (“Bang a Gong”), and Robert Palmer (“Addicted to Love”, “Simply Irresistible”). They were in the middle of recording what was shaping up to be a remarkable project, when, after a third of the album was in the can, personalities and conflicts caused a pause in the action.
In addition to their work with the Romeos, the four principal players had varied and fulfilling musical careers. Bootsie Normand was in several acclaimed and influential bands such as The Brick Walls and Smoke with fellow Alexandrian Leon Medica, and Flaming Cat, and Goatleg with Medica and Bobby Thomas, also from Alexandria. Goatleg was lauded for its time in New York City as the on-stage band for the critically acclaimed play “The Earl of Ruston”, as well as playing featured characters in that production. Bootsie stayed in New York after the band returned to Baton Rouge and was tapped by revered stage director Joseph Papp to be the music director for a few of the plays in his famous “Shakespeare in the Park” series. After leaving the Romeos, Normand continued playing music, most notably in the Alexandria-based band, Chicken Leg, while pursuing a second career in nursing, before his physical deterioration prevented him from doing either prior to his premature death in 2005 from Huntington’s Disease.
Dony Wynn is a highly acclaimed drummer and percussionist who played for Dr. John as a teenager. He also spent several years, both during and after his time with the Romeos, as drummer for Robert Palmer. He toured for a few years with Brooks and Dunn, and has been on stage and in the studio with a veritable who’s who in the music world. For the past decade and a half, he has turned his artistic talents toward other pursuits, most notably photography and writing.
Dan Diefenderfer has played on solo records by Maria Conchita Alonzo and Billy Bob Thornton. Along with Honigman, he contributed background vocals on Cher’s album, “Black Rose.” His song “Jingle Bells Jam” was featured on the soundtrack and in the movie of Nora Efron’s “Mixed Nuts.” He formed the loose configuration of musicians known as Bayou Degradable in Nashville with Leon Medica, as well as providing guitar for Tommy Tutone. He has co-written songs with David Paich, Roger Cook, Mark Collie, Earl Bud Lee, Kenny Gradney, and Anders Osborne. He also co-wrote, with Leon Medica, the title track for Tab Benoit’s Grammy nominated album, “The Power of the Pontchartrain.”
From 1982-2002, Jerry Honigman wrote and produced several solo projects with Geoff Workman, Ed Cherney, and David Praet as engineers and a cream of the crop assortment of musicians, including David Paich, James Newton Howard, Kenny Gradney, Frank Blair, Micheal Smotherman, Tommy “Tutone” Heath, Jim Keller (867-5309 Jenny), Roland Bautista, Bob Glaub, and especially David Williams, the guitar player for Michael Jackson, The Jacksons, Madonna, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, and many others. Honigman has written and produced two other Romeos CDs, 1999’s “When in Rome” and “Open Wide” in 2002. For the past decade plus, Honigman has had his songs placed in over two dozen movies and TV shows, including “Young Sheldon,” “Chicago P.D.,” “Mr. Robot,” “The Carrie Diaries,” and “The Office.” He also has some compilations of his and The Romeos’ material available on Fervor Records.
So, congratulations to all involved in the arrival at this moment of honor and recognition, the induction of The Romeos into the prestigious Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
