From: Craig Daily Press
(L John Allen, R Wayne Davis)Local rancher and veterinarian forge musical band with help from family
Meet John Allen.
His deep voice and sun-reddened skin speaks to his lifestyle as a Moffat County rancher. But the feeling that his weather-roughened exterior hides comes out in notes, chords and lyrics — some of which he’s written himself.
“I just like making music,” he said. “I enjoy making people happy with music.
“Music is a very emotional thing for me.”
Emotion doesn’t seem to be something Allen shows openly. However, his interest in music — especially guitar music —is obvious.
He’s set up a recording studio in the basement of the house he built by adding on to his grandparents’ original cabin.
The space, like the house itself built northwest of Craig, is a marriage of old and new.
Black guitar cases stand stacked next to a couch. Aged stringed instruments with exotic-sounding names such as zither and tremoloa hang on the walls. Nearby, a pair of microphones, each the size of a large orange, wait silently.
And, behind a window looking into the recording space, a large mixing console studded with rows of knobs allows Allen and his family to record his music.
Meeting of the minds
Although he’s taken some formal lessons, Allen doesn’t read music. Instead, he plays by ear.
When he first started out, he came close to hanging up his guitar for good.
“The first few teachers, I guess, couldn’t stand me,” he said, laughing. “Then, I wouldn’t practice enough, and I’d give up, too.”
But, his fingers couldn’t stay away from the strings for long.
For a while, Allen drifted between different bands he organized himself.
First there was, “Sage.”
Later, it was simply, “The John Allen Band.”
And then, in about 1990, Allen met local veterinarian Wayne Davis, the person who would become the second half of what would become their namesake group.
Davis was also a musician — a violin player. After high school, Davis traveled across parts of the country with a guitar player he’d met. The pair roamed across the country, stopping in Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and other states, playing their instruments to pay their way from one gig to another.
“We made just enough to buy food and pay for gas,” Davis said. “That’s about it.”
Davis met Allen when the latter had a cow that needed a cesarean section. They started talking about music.
“It’s been music ever since,” Allen said.
Together, they’ve forged a style that Allen calls classic country.
Like their first meeting, the name of their band was a product of chance.
It was 2003, and Allen and Davis were playing for the Meeker Cowboy Renaissance. Organizers putting on the concert asked what the name of their group was.
Allen told them, “I’m John, and this is Wayne.’
“They said, “Oh, the John Wayne Band,’” Allen said. “And it stuck.”
New additions
However, Allen and Davis have had to make room for other musicians.
The group recently released its first album, “High Country.” The collection features Allen’s son, Wayde, on guitar and mandolin; his daughter-in-law, Jodie, on keyboard and his grandson, James, 14, on the fiddle.
Allen’s granddaughter, Jenna, 10, occasionally plays music with her grandfather on piano and harp.
Wayde grew up listening to his father playing on the guitar, and he eventually decided to try the instrument for himself.
“You learn to play just to play along,” he said.
In contrast, Davis seems to have rubbed off on James. The youth immediately took to the violin after being introduced to the instrument in elementary school.
The joy of playing music isn’t the only reason Jodie decided to accompany her father-in-law in his latest recording.
“It’s mainly about having fun, playing with the family,” she said. “It’s a family affair — that’s really the best part of it.”
Davis sees another advantage. He’s watched an elderly woman want to dance when he’s played his music and seen the notes bring tears to eyes of those who listen to it.
“It brings back memories,” he said.
‘Compassion and responsibility’
Local veterinarian committed to animals, clients
Horses, cows, sheep, goats.
Iguanas, snakes, birds.
Elk, buffalo, llamas, alpacas.
Variety is one element that keeps local veterinarian Wayne Davis in his field, he said.
“The unexpected has become expected,” he said. “You just never know what’s going to show up.”
Davis’ voice, issuing from his full-bearded mouth, is soft; so soft it occasionally is drowned out by a pair of dogs barking in the dog run in back of Craig Veterinary Hospital.
Davis, who has worked as a vet for almost 21 years, started the business eight years ago.
For all those years, his calling did not lend itself to a nine-to-five schedule.
His workdays usually last between 10 and 12 hours, he said, adding that lunch is usually taken “on the run.”
Life could have been different for Davis.
He initially studied music before veering into life science studies.
Even then, with a biology degree in hand, Davis was set to become a teacher.
Or, so he thought.
After student teaching, however, he decided to change direction a second time and enter the veterinary profession.
Davis sometimes still thinks about the career he once pursued.
“In retrospect, I think I would have enjoyed teaching,” he said.
Still, Davis isn’t complaining.
“I really enjoy my clients,” he said. “I really enjoy the animals and the interaction between the animals and the people.”
He estimates he treats between 20 and 30 animals daily and performs about 25 cattle Cesarean sections annually.
Walking through the clinic’s empty and darkened rooms, Davis reveals piece by piece the elements that make up his occupation.
Two operating rooms serve as the stage where Davis performs his surgical work.
Surgeries at the clinic range from routine spay and neutering operations to extracting cancerous tissue from an animal’s body, he said.
Those examples are only a sampling, he said.
“When it comes to the types of surgery we do, the list would be too long to put in print,” Davis said.
Davis relies on a combination of high-tech equipment and time-tested tools to complete his work at the clinic.
In the coming months, he hopes to receive a new digital X-ray, he said.
Other tools, though less sophisticated, still get the job done.
Davis walks to the back of the clinic — a concrete-floored open space that seems more like a shop than a place of medicine.
However, it’s here that Davis does some of his larger animal work.
A cattle chute — a green metal medieval-looking device — sits in the corner. Davis demonstrates how, with the pull of a lever, the machine closes around a pregnant cow so he can extract the unborn calf from the womb.
The clatter of metal-on-metal echoes eerily around the open space as the machine does its work.
An adjoining room, however, gives off a more modern feel. Here, animals are bathed and groomed.
The centerpiece of this room for Davis is a miniature cream-colored bathtub.
“I love our tub,” he said. “Isn’t that a beautiful tub?
“I wanted to be the first one to take a bath in it.”
Davis never got the chance, he said. A dog beat him to it.
An all-purpose area serves as a pharmacy, a laboratory and, for Davis, a reminder of animals he’s worked on in the past.
A centrifuge sits on the corner of a counter. On cabinet doors above it, Davis hangs pictures of clients and their pets.
Davis looked at the photos for a long moment, his gaze distant, and contemplated why he committed much of his adult life to caring for animals.
“There’s a sense of compassion and responsibility,” he said. “With my education, there’s a responsibility that comes with that.”
Bridget Manley can be reached at 875-1795 or bmanley@craigdailypress.com.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing this :-)
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