For nearly two decades Gloucester and Mathews were home to a groundbreaking R&B band known as the Dynatones. Though many residents today are unaware, the Dynatones defined local R&B and shared the stage with numerous nationally-recognized acts like Gladys Knight and the Pips, Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield and Chuck Berry.

Thirteen different musicians played with the band throughout its existence but only four members are alive today. Three of these men—Herbert Carter, John Carter and Sam Vogel—live in Mathews. A fourth, Charles McClendon, lives in Hampton.

The band was formed in 1954 by several musicians including Herbert Carter. Carter had just returned from a tour as a communications operator in Korea and served as the band’s manager and drummer until 1964.

The band’s name, though thought by some at the time to be derived from Greek, was the result of sheer coincidence. “I had a ’53 Oldsmobile 98 and I had just put a new Dynatone muffler on it. That thing sounded sweet, so we agreed on the name Dynatones,” Carter remembered. Despite working a 40-hour week at the shipyard and cutting hair at a barber shop, Carter still found the time to play gigs with the Dynatones on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Dynatones played at clubs and dance halls throughout Mathews and Gloucester in their early years, playing venues like the Eastview Inn, Shell Inn and Herman Wake’s Club. They frequented Leon Gregory’s Wagon Wheel at Ordinary, where they drew large and consistent crowds and performed at fraternity houses at William and Mary, the University of Virginia, and Hampden-Sydney College.

One of the band’s most frequent and popular venues was the club White Stone Beach. The band played there every Saturday from Memorial Day to Labor Day, drawing more than 200 people to every show.

Though many of the places the Dynatones played early on were considered “Black Only” venues, the band began drawing mixed crowds in the mid 1950s. One such gig was the opening of Billy Dixon’s Modern Esso Station in 1956. Carter recounted the event: “We performed on the back of a flatbed truck for a sea of people, black and white, shoulder to shoulder.”

Carter went on to describe how not every venue was as willing to look past the rules of segregation that governed the region in the 1950s. While playing a show with famed guitarist Chuck Berry at a Suffolk baseball stadium, Carter noticed that the infield had been arranged for a white audience and all black audience members were in the stands behind a wall that separated them from the field. However, when Berry began playing his hit song “Maybellene,” the black audience climbed the barrier and crowded in front of the stage in the “White Only” section. Carter described how, though he expected fire hoses and other crowd control tactics, the show continued for several minutes uninterrupted.

When white officers began trying to stop the show to segregate the crowd, Chuck Berry refused to stop playing. This led to a white officer grabbing Berry, who stopped performing and walked off stage. He only agreed to resume playing when the officer was made to apologize and under the condition that the show remained desegregated.

In the years following the Suffolk performance, John Carter was added to the band. He played saxophone alongside Robert “Big Daddy” Norris, who Carter said was so talented that he often played while lying on his back and spinning in circles.

Carter told stories about his time in the band, from a show in Philadelphia where the Dynatones played between sets for James Brown to describing meals at Crosby’s near Kilmarnock where the band often ate after shows.

In 1964 Herbert Carter left the band when he and his wife opened a barber shop and restaurant near Routes 198 and 14, where Phillips Oil now stands. Though “Big Daddy” Norris took over as manager, the band still needed a drummer. Sam Vogel would come to fill this opening. One Wednesday while practicing at Thomas Hunter School, the band asked Vogel to fill in on drums. He would subsequently be asked to join the band. “It was humbling to be asked to join the Dynatones. I don’t know why they chose me. I thought there was no way I was good enough to play with those guys,” Vogel said.

Vogel spoke positively of his time with the Dynatones, saying that he appreciates the experiences he had with the friends he made while performing. He described how the band’s performances at White Stone Beach were so popular that they were nearly always sold out.

There were so many people, Vogel said, that a single vendor made $1,000 (or about $7,500 in today’s money) in a single night off mostly hot dogs and beer. The crowds who packed White Stone Beach still remember the Dynatones’ famous shows. “People still come up to me and ask when I’m going to be at White Stone again,” Vogel said.

Unfortunately for their many fans, the Dynatones stopped playing shows in the late 1960s. John Carter (not related to Herbert Carter) remembered how “as the guys got older and their lives got busier, the band just kind of fizzled out.” However, the three men have remained friends even though the band no longer plays.

They all live within several miles of each other in Mathews and get together to reminisce and joke about their experiences. “Sam was out playing with the band and away from home so much that one night he got home and his wife had thrown his drums in the creek,” John Carter joked during an interview.

When asked about what the Dynatones accomplished, all three expressed that they enjoyed helping people have a good time. “We broke down the color barrier in the county,” Herbert Carter said. “We showed the people that we could get along and have fun together, black and white.” All three that their music was a universal language, or as Herbert and John Carter put it, “No matter who you are, you know how to dance or tap your foot.”

The men then spoke to what they do now that they have finished their jobs and musical careers. Herbert Carter stays active in his community of Hudgins, playing guitar at Ebenezer Baptist Church, leading Bible study, and performing live music at nursing homes every month. He has also written a history of the Dynatones. Sam Vogel enjoys living on the water and drives commercial seafood trucks in his free time. He also reports that he has yet to find one piece of the drum set of his that ended up in Queens Creek. John Carter said jokingly of retirement, “I’m doing nothing and plenty of it.”

Unfortunately none of the surviving band members have any recordings of the band. Though Sam Vogel believes his family may have a copy of the band’s record somewhere, the only known recording of the Dynatones was in the possession of the late Tom Hearn. Even without the record, the three men and fans who remember the band keep the music alive in memory, a testament to the group that entertained crowds for years on their way to becoming part of Virginia history.