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Image Not Available for Dave Lewis Combo group portrait
Dave Lewis Combo group portrait
Image Not Available for Dave Lewis Combo group portrait

Dave Lewis Combo group portrait

Visual image Dave Lewis
Photographer Odell Lee
Visual image Joe Johansen
Visual image Dave Lewis Combo
Datec. 1964
Mediumpaper (fiber product); ink
DimensionsOverall (HWD): 8 1/8 × 10 in. (20.638 × 25.4 cm)
Credit LineMoPOP permanent collection, Gift of Art Chantry
Object number2000.301.1
Text Entries

This portrait features Dave Lewis Combo members Dave Lewis (1938-1998), Joe Johansen (b. unknown - 1997) and Dicky Enfield (b. unknown). 

Although he was born in Texas, Lewis grew up in Bremerton and then Seattle after his family moved to the area for work in the 1940s. Both of Lewis’s parents were musicians, and his father even gave music lessons to a teenage Quincy Jones (b. 1933), but Lewis took most of his inspiration from his mother’s piano playing and the music of Ray Charles (1930-2004), who he would sneak into nightclubs to see perform. Lewis’s first band was the Five Checks, a Doo-Wop vocal group, which he helped create to perform in the Edmond Meany Junior High talent show. The group was popular enough that they continued to perform at school pep rallies and other assemblies. 

Moving on from the Five Checks, in 1955 Lewis formed and led the Dave Lewis Combo, a Rhythm and Blues band which began playing small venues but eventually became popular enough to help desegregate the Seattle music scene. At the time, Seattle musicians were represented either by AFM Local No. 76 if they were white, or AFM Local No. 493 if they were black. The white union, No. 76, had historically laid claim to venues in downtown Seattle to the exclusion of black musicians in No. 493, but the popularity of the Dave Lewis Combo led to them booking events in ‘white’ venues. When the band eventually booked a show at a premier venue, Parker’s Ballroom, in 1956, No. 76 union leaders threatened to boycott and picket the venue unless the show was canceled. The ballroom’s manager refused to cancel and responded with his own threat to never book No. 76 musicians again if the union representatives did not drop the issue. Ultimately, the Dave Lewis Combo was able to perform at Parker’s Ballroom and within two years the two unions merged into one, integrated union. 

By 1961 Lewis had dissolved the Dave Lewis Combo and started a new band with Jerry Allen (b. unknown), Jim Manolides (b. unknown) and Don “Candido” Mallory (b. unknown), which recorded the hit “J.A.J.” Then in 1962, Lewis formed another new band with Johansen and Enfield and released major hits including “Little Green Thing” and “David’s Mood (Part 2)”.

Black and white photograph of band members Dave Lewis, Joe Johansen and Dicky Enfield. Blue stamp on back reads: “Photo By / Odell Lee / WE. 5-7250 / Seattle, Wn.” Handwriting in blue ink reads: “#2” Handwriting in pencil reads: “Dave Lewis”
CopyrightThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). For more information, see http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
On View
Not on view
Large format image
Dave Lewis Combo
Date: c. 1964
Medium: paper (fiber product); ink
Object number: 1997.342.561
Large format image
Dave Lewis
Date: September 17, 1964
Medium: cardboard; paper (fiber products); ink; plastic
Object number: 2001.342.1
Large format image
Dave Lewis
Date: September 17, 1964
Medium: cardboard; paper (fiber products); ink; plastic
Object number: 2001.342.2
Dave Lewis
Date: 1962
Medium: polyvinyl chloride; paper (fiber product); ink
Object number: 1997.342.210.A,.B
Large format image
Dave Lewis
Date: 1964
Medium: polyvinyl chloride; paper (fiber product); ink
Object number: 1997.342.631.A,.B
Large format image
Dave Lewis
Date: 1959
Medium: polyvinyl chloride
Object number: 1997.342.211
Large format image
Tilghman Press
Date: October 13 1957
Medium: cardboard; ink
Object number: 1997.342.168
Large format image
Evergreen Ballroom
Date: June 28, 1956
Medium: cardboard; ink
Object number: 1997.342.167
Large format image
Ray Charles
Date: October 3-15, c. 1966
Medium: cardboard; ink; stickers
Object number: 1994.233.2
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