Date formed: 1972 Date disbanded: 1975

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Merv Carnahan: Keyboards (1974 - 75) Steve Greenfield: Guitar, vocals (1973) Denny Kettles: Drums (1974 - 75) Jon Purdy: Guitar (1973 - 75) Kent Newman: Drums (1974) John Reynolds: Guitar (1972 - 73) Rich Selhaver: Drums (1972 - 74) Rick Weiss: Guitar, vocals Rob Wolf: Bass

Jebidiah Stone had it’s roots in several communities. Rob Wolf, who was from Gowrie, which is southwest of Fort Dodge, put an ad in the Des Moines Register to find members for a band he wanted to start. Rich, who was from Fort Dodge; John Reynolds from Boxholm and Rick, who lived in Humbolt, were the ones to reply to the ad. John left the group in late Spring of 1973 due to a conflict with his school work and Steve was added as his replacement. John and Steve knew each other and John had suggested Steve as his replacement. What was possibly a temporary arrangement became permanent.    It was a situation that came up at times in bands. One member would not be as committed to the group or would be more committed to things like school work or a day job. This “conflict of interests” would cause a split between the members. When looking back there are always regrets when this happened. This was especially true when the member in question was nice guy with an agreeable personality like John.    The name was chosen in the traditional way–the members sat around suggesting various ideas until one stuck. Rob had come up with Jebidiah Stone which he thought was the name of a character in a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It turned out that his memory had not served him well as the characters first name was something other than Jebidiah. But everyone liked the name, especially in light of other bands that existed with names like Jethro Tull and Ezra Pound.

As far as gear goes things are a bit sketchy. Rob was playing a Fender Precision bass. He started out with a Montgomery Wards amp loosely based on a Fender Bassman amp moving to a Kustom amp and ending up with a Peavey 400 amp head along with a Cerwin Vega speaker bottom. Steve was playing either a Gibson Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster along with an Aims amp that was modeled after the Fender Twin Reverb amp. Rick was playing a Fender Strat through a Dual Showman. Rick also used a Electro Harmonix LPB-1 to give an extra kick to his guitar sound. Merv played a Wurlitzer electric piano (think “Louie, Louie” for piano sound) and an M series Hammond organ. The other members gear info is not available.    The original PA was a conglomeration of various pieces. After Steve joined the band the group built some speaker cabinets from plans that he had obtained. The plans were based on the Electro-Voice Voice of the Theatre cabinets which were used primarily in movie theatres. Along with those speakers they had an old Peavey 6 channel mixer that had the big round ‘bakelight’ looking knobs instead of sliding “faders”.

Jebidiah Stone’s original lineup practiced at Rich Selhaver’s house in Fort Dodge. His parents were very supportive and let the band practice in the living room. After a bit the whole band moved to Ames and rented an apartment there. This lasted for very short time as money concerns were brought to bear along with Summer gigs being in short supply.    The next move was to Boone, specifically Steve Greenfield’s house. Steve’s mom was supportive also with the band squeezing into Steve’s bedroom for practice. They soon found a property just a bit south of Steve’s in West Boone which they purchased. Everyone except Steve lived there along with the house being the groups practice place. They were able to leave the equipment set up in the living room which made things easy for rehearsals at anytime.    While in the previous places practice was held roughly once a week. With the acquisition of the house in southwest Boone, the group could practice whenever they wanted. Many times the individual members would work on tunes in the afternoon and have a full band practice in the evening. This was due to the fact that Steve had a day job at the time. Partial band rehearsals were held nearly every day, as often as the members wanted. There are tapes of some of these practices in exsistence and may be added here in the future.    Jebidiah Stone performed heavy rock and progressive rock tunes in the covers they chose. “Stairway to Heaven” and “Good Times Bad Times”/Led Zeppelin, “War Pigs” and “Paranoid”/Black Sabbath and “Hot & Nasty”/Black Oak Arkansas along with songs by James Gang, Yes and Grand Funk on the song list. Along with cover tunes Jebidiah Stone also did some original songs.

Jebidiah Stone played in the Fort Dodge area quite a bit at first. As time went on the band played all over Iowa and into Nebraska occasionally. They got their bookings through agents like Mory Drey, who was out of Omaha, along with doing some booking on their own. Rob was responsible for most of those.    In the early days they got to the gigs in Rob’s Ford Econoline van along with Rick’s Chevy station wagon. Toward the very end of the bands existence they purchased a straight truck to haul the bands gear. The whole band pitched in to pay for gas and upkeep.    There are no real standout gigs that the members recalled, but they were making 300 to 400 dollars a job which was very good money at that time.    Jebidiah Stone’s demise just sort of happened. There was no one thing specifically that caused the band to fall apart. After Steve left the band, Jon Purdy joined. Jon stayed for a few months, but the drive from his home, which was north quite a distance, to Boone for practice got to be too much. Rich wanted to be back in the Fort Dodge area and was replaced by Kent Newman who stayed for a short time. Denny Kettles was his replacement who stayed for a short time also. His drive from Iowa Falls made him decide to leave the band. The band just lost momentum at this juncture and ceased to be.

Most of the members went on to play in other bands. Rob currently lives in Madrid and had played in a band called Mobius Trip. Steve lives in Arkansas after living in Cailfornia for several years. He has also written two books on the ins and outs of playing in cover bands. Rick lives in rural Boone and still involved in music at some level. John lives in the Cedar Rapids area. Rich is living in Illinois. Jon Purdy lived in Australia for a time and now lives in Cedar Falls. He was in a band named Lockren. His current involvement is not known. There is no info on the other members at this time.

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