The
MM Interview with Carroll Duplessis
February, 2008
History
You’ve been performing with the same group for
a number of years. What’s the name of the group?
The name of the band is “The Untouchables”
and we’ve been together since 1960. We got together
kind of on a whim. I worked actually with another
group. I‘m from Alameda CA and moved to Richmond
CA. My first group was called “The Covettes”.
We had two saxophones, a piano player, a drummer and
I sang. The Untouchables started up and they saw me
playing at these little daces the schools used to
have. They invited me to join their group and it just
went from there. I’m actually the only original
member of the group. Some of the members have died
and others went their own way. It’s been a lot
of fun, a lot of good musicians, a lot of good times.
We backed up a lot of famous people. Bobby Freeman
was a local San Francisco boy and he always looked
us up whenever he was in town. We played a lot with
the Coasters, The Olympics, Paul and Paula, Little
Anthony and the Imperials, played the Cow Palace with
Chubby Checker; just a lot of good gigs and had a
lot of fun.
Now we all get together a couple of time a year cause
we’re all spread out. Our lead guitarist lives
in Nashville but he does come out when we have gigs.
We play a few local gigs and still manage to pull
it off. We played for the Good Guys (car show) in
Pleasanton CA because our type of music goes with
hot rods. We can still rock with the best of them.
ADVICE for Mature Musicians:
If it’s in your heart and you still feel it
like a lot of us do, just keep doing it. Don’t
lay back and wish you were out there, really get out
there and just do it, really have fun.
