GENEVA — For years, members of Wilmer & the Dukes, and later The Legendary Dukes, would hold annual reunions in Rochester until a cousin of the original drummer wondered out loud why it wasn’t happening in Geneva.
“Eddie George, he said to me, ‘Why don’t you play Club 86?’” Ron Alberts, now 83, recalled. “I thought that wasn’t a bad idea.”
The Legendary Dukes, with Alberts on the drums, will take the stage at Club 86 Aug. 16. Their three-hour performance begins at 7 p.m.
The rest of the band that night will be Mitty Moore on vocals, Ted Lincoln on keyboard (an original member of The Legendary Dukes); Steve Lyons on guitar, and Jim Leonard on bass; Leonard played with Wilmer & the Dukes toward the end of that band’s tenure
Alberts said there will be a horn section too: Ken Foster will play sax, Dave Dewitt the trombone, and Nick Moses, the Geneva High School Band director, the trumpet.
Wilmer Alexander Jr. and the Dukes originated in 1957 in Geneva. The original members were Alexander, Alberts and Ralph Gillotte; the latter passed away in 1999. Alexander now lives in Las Vegas, but no longer performs, said Alberts, whose father, Ebo Alberts, managed the band.
Alexander is Black, and Alberts and Gillotte and others who joined the band later on were white. Alberts said that combination, in the late 1950s and into the ’60s, made the band a phenomenon. He credits that unexpected mix (Alberts said most of the audiences expected the band all to be Black because of the music it played) with advancing Wilmer & the Dukes into the stratosphere of popular sound.
Their shows sold out. The local ones brought young people from all over the Finger Lakes who begged their parents to let them attend. One of them was Jimmy Richmond, who already had his own band and worshiped Wilmer & the Dukes. When he grew up, Richmond would perform with the band.
“I told (Jimmy) he had to stay right by the door,” Alberts said about those early days, because Richmond was underage.
They were primarily a cover band, playing everything from James Brown to Marvin Gage, the Four Tops, Roy Orbison, the Rev. Al Green, Chuck Berry — even Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn. Soul, blues, swing, rock, disco — Wilmer & the Dukes, and then The Legendary Dukes, they played it all just about any place that would have them. The Inferno outside of Buffalo helped them reach legendary status, according to a bio that Albert provided.
One of their most popular covers was Lee Dorsey’s “Get Out of My Life, Woman.” They opened shows for Wilson Pickett, Sly and the Family Stone, Tommy James and the Shondells, and the Association.
The band’s first single was an original dance track called “Give me One More Chance.” It was released in the spring of 1968 and got heavy play in upstate New York and. It was a Top 40 hit in several East Coast markets and reached No. 80 spot on the Billboard chart. The following year, Wilmer & the Dukes released its only album on the independent Aphrodisiac label. Estimates were it sold 600,000 copies.
They continued to play shows and draw crowds until they disbanded in 1974. Various members meshed up with various bands until 1988, when they and additional musicians, including Lincoln, re-formed for a series of sold-out shows to help cover Alexander’s medical expenses. That band morphed into The Legendary Dukes.
Alberts retired in 2004. He initially moved to North Carolina because of his wife Barb’s employment, but now resides in Florida. He has worked a number of different jobs but keeps his hand in music. He recently published a drum instruction manual that he said took two years to put together; he called it “a nice book.”
The annual reunions, though, were always a reason to bring the band back together in Rochester after other members had gone their separate ways. Until George’s comment, though, it did not occur to him to bring one to Geneva — and to Club 86, one of the band’s original stomping grounds.
Alberts said he misses Alexander, who was last in Rochester in 2015 when the band was inducted into that city’s Music Hall of Fame.
“He was a great singer,” Alberts said. “He played the sax and piano.”
