Dexter Daze Favorite Big Pinky Performs for Final Year at Festival

Longtime festival favorites Big Pinky and The Joint Effort Band will perform for the 16th and final time in Dexter during the annual Dexter Daze celebration Aug. 12-13.

The seven-piece band will perform classic rock hits from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Aug. 12 at the gazebo in .

“This is our last year; we’ve been together since 1984,” saxophonist Mark Amsdill said. “Most of us are from the Dexter area, and we’re all veterans except one.”

Glen “Big Pinky” Pingston, the originator of the group who plays guitar and does lead vocals, is retiring the band from public performances after decades of entertainment.

But the band is not completely hanging up its instruments. Band members will continue to play at private functions for a special fee and will also head to the studio to record classic rock and original music.

The individual band members have been making music since their teen years in the mid-1960s before forming the Joint Effort Band in the 1980s.

“The band was formed to play classic rock 'n' roll,” Pingston said.

Pingston, who was in the public school music program through Milford Junior High and Milford High School, started writing music at age 14 and teaching drums and guitar at 16.

In high school, he formed the El Cobras, performing at the same gigs as such musical icons as The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, The Four Seasons and Mitch Rider, and also backing up stage performances by Paul Anka, Del Shannon, Barbara Lewis, Tony Clark and Gino Washington.

After a three-year hitch serving in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, Pingston formed a group that later evolved into The Joint Effort Band.

Dennis Woodruff, who attended Milford High School with Pingston and played saxophone in the El Cobras, later formed the band Beg, Borrow and Steal. He reteamed with Pingston last year and is the group’s computer-recording engineer.

Pat Peck, Mark Amsdill, Nick Bauder and Ric Mayer started performing with Pingston in the mid-1980s and have performed at Dexter Daze every year since 1996. Peck and Amsdill, who attended Dexter schools together, play drums and saxophone, respectively. Amsdill previously was a saxophonist with The Sindells, and Peck previously played with The Derelex, The Sindells, The Pranksters and Mister Wiggly.

Bauder, who plays bass, performed with Susie and the Nobles in New York prior to joining The Joint Effort Band. Mayer, another Milford High School alumnus, plays lead guitar and sings backup vocals.

Kevin Rhodes, a music major from West Virginia who plays keyboard and sings backup vocals, was in Pingston’s band in the late 1970s. After retiring for a while, he came back in the late 1990s.

Percussionist Chaz Cogo and sound engineer Cliff Grupke, both former college buddies of Amsdill, played in various groups and joined The Joint Effort Band in 2009.

For more information, visit the band's website. For information on Dexter Daze, visit dexterdaze.org.