Dickie Dodd (Oct 27, 1945)
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The Musician
Dick was a first season replacement Mouseketeer, hired for his musical talents. He was one of the few true amateurs that first year, but stayed with the show for only six months. He later became a member of the surf band, the Bel Airs, then joined the Standells, a sixties garage band whose best-known hit was Dirty Water, as a lead singer and drummer.
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Background
Dick was born and raised in Hermosa Beach, California. He took dancing lessons as a kid, but was better at singing and playing musical instruments. His specialty was the accordion, as common in the fifties as electric guitars would become in the eighties. Despite his last name, Dick wasn't related to Jimmie Dodd, and was actually of Hispanic heritage.
Just when Dick became a Mouseketeer isn't clear, but it seems to have been after the July 17th, 1955 debut at Disneyland, for he wasn't in the line-up that day. It's likely that Dick, along with Ronnie Steiner, was hired as a replacement for Paul Petersen or one of the Rooney brothers. The show's producers wanted the kids to have two-syllable names, so "Dick" became "Dickie".
Performance
As a replacement, Dick had a one year contract with four thirteen-week options, as opposed to the seven-year contracts the first kids received. He doesn't seem to have been on the show for more than two option periods, about six months, from late July 1955 thru January 1956. Like the other Mouseketeer musicians on the show (except Cubby O'Brien), Dick had no chance to display his skill with musical instruments, such opportunities being reserved for Talent Roundup winners.
Dick was assigned to either the Blue or White Team, and spent most of his on-camera time watching guest stars or circus acts. When he did get a chance to do something, it was in Disneyland cross-marketing skits, like Flying Toad Cars or pretending to be one of a quartet of dancing waiters at the Golden Horseshoe Revue. In the latter number, he seems to have been directed to dance off the beat as a gag; the companion girl's number also had one of the four dancers hamming it up.
At nine, Dick was one of the youngest Mouseketeers. At that age, earning money and being on television aren't near as important as getting to run around and do stuff. Dick was probably glad when the short interlude was over and he could get back to really being a kid, rather than pretending to be one.
Aftermath
After Dick left the show he seems to have lost interest in dancing, but kept up with music. He switched from accordion to drums, and began playing with local garage bands as a teenager. Dick joined up with Paul Johnson and Eddie Bertrand in a South Bay band called the Bel-Airs, which recorded and released the first surf song, Mr. Moto in 1961. The band played at their own club in Redondo Beach, but broke up around 1963. Dick then hooked up with a house band from PJ's club on Sunset Strip in early 1964. The band, called the Standells, had just lost it's drummer, and needed a new one, fast, to record their first album. Dick joined Larry Tamblyn, Tony Valentino, and Gary Lane in recording the album. Dick also sang lead on the song Help Yourself, as it turned out, the album's only hit. From then on, Dick replaced Larry Tamblyn as lead singer.
The Standells appeared on two television shows in the mid-sixties, The Munsters and The Bing Crosby Show. They also appeared with other bands in the film Get Yourself a College Girl (1964), directed by Sidney Miller. Their biggest hit at Billboard #11 was Dirty Water, written by their manager, Ed Cobb, to which Dick added a spoken introduction and some ad-lib's. The band made five albums all together, and did one more film, Riot on Sunset Strip (1967) with Tim Rooney.
In 1968 Dick left the Standells to record solo. Still using Ed Cobb as his manager, he recorded an album called First Evolution, and released a couple of songs from it as singles, but found his style couldn't compete with the acid rock from San Francisco then becoming popular. Since then he has managed a restaurant, worked for a construction equipment company, and driven limousines in Los Angeles, where he now lives.
Dirty Water became the Boston Red Sox's official theme song in 1997. In 2004, and again in 2005, Dick and the other former Standells got together to play the song live before a Red Sox World Series game.
