As Dandy tells it, Clinton's style on the stump during his attempt to regain the Arkansas governorship he lost early in his career was weak until he took a lesson from Jim. "The elderly just didn't believe him, because he was raised on a silver spoon and had that Elvis smirk on his face even when he was talkin' about their troubles. I told him, 'Bill, with you I think we'd better go with the kind of Method acting that character actors are taught in movies. That is, think about the worst thing that ever happened to you that made you sad--your dog gettin' run over, your mama, anything that brings you to where you can't smile and you wanna cry. It may not be that what you're talkin' about is what you're thinkin' about, but if you put those tears and that frown with what you've got on paper, it'll work.' And it did."
Right now Dandy is on a campaign trail of his own in support of a live CD Black Oak Arkansas recorded in 1976 at England's Reading Festival. The disc contains versions of the group's bigger smashes, along with stompers such as "Hot Rod," the tenderly titled "Fistful of Love" and "Lord Have Mercy," a quasi-sermon in which Dandy deals with Satan and God. The platter also includes a new tune cut with the current lineup, which features original members Rickie Reynolds and Pat Daugherty on guitar and bass, respectively.
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On stage, Dandy isn't the whirling dervish he once was. He still plays a mean washboard, but because of a 1990 car accident in which he broke his back, he can no longer do his trademark splits. Otherwise, he says he's in good health for a man with so many miles on him, in part because he kicked a hashish and cocaine habit that left him sounding more like Wolfman Jack than Howlin' Wolf. "I've got my voice again, and this band's got more heart than the whole world," he boasts. "We're better than ever now."
Tornadoes aside, Dandy's home life is also looking up. He just celebrated another year of marriage to his fourth wife, an exotic dancer at a Memphis gentlemen's club who's half his age, and although he says that corrupt managers duped him out of more than $4 million over the years, he's not complaining. "You gotta laugh when you've generated that kind of money and you still see your children goin' without the things they should have," he notes. "But you can't blame nobody but yourself. It's a lesson and you learn it--and I'm a very happy man. I mean, it's a dandy world and a dandy life, and now I've got me a dandy wife. Oh, yeah!
"The older the bull, the stiffer the horn," he says with a wicked chuckle. "Always remember: The mightiest oak was once just a little nut that held its ground. And I'm that little nut."
Black Oak Arkansas. 8 p.m. Friday, May 29, Buffalo Rose, 1119 Washington Street, Golden, $10, 279-5190 or 830-
