In October, at a benefit concert for an OB keyboardist (and now cancer patient) named Joe Longa, a gathering of the usual suspects were on hand. The bill that night included Private Domain, the Farmers, Mojo Nixon, Chet Cannon, the Mentals, and Scottie Blinn’s new Black Market Baby.

There was also Blue Dawg, an otherwise unknown blues band that played covers and originals about such topics as whiskey, disappointment, and reptiles. In the coming months they would again surface at the Blarney Stone and Winston’s, and, to good-sized crowds.

Who is this Blue Dawg blues band, and, where did they suddenly come from?

It turns out Blue Dog is a fairly popular band name. A Google search turns up several: Blue Dog in Austin, BLUEDOG (sic) in Minneapolis, Bluedog in Minnesota, and the Blue Dogs in Charleston. Then, there is the Blue Dawg String Band in Greenville, the Blue Dog jazz ensemble in Detroit, Dog Named Blue in Chico, the Blue Dawg power wash in New Hampshire, and Blue Dog Red Dog, a pair of actual dogs that howl pitifully while their master plays blues harp on YouTube.

But, no Blue Dawg blues band.

They are an East County band and as such have been flying under the radar while getting their collective act together. One of the founders is Victor Gross, a guitarist from the Midwest who has lived in Lakeside for years. Some may remember Gross from his six-year residency in the saloon of the Lakeside Hotel, long before it became a rehab center.

“When I moved here, everybody told me to stay away from that place,” says Gross. “But I said it looks like Montana to me – cowboys, Indians, and bikers.”

Gross is one of the band’s songwriters. He says a blues-rock favorite called “Whiskey In My Coffee” is really about addiction. He leaves it at that. “You play in bars all your life," he says, "you get to see that happening.”

Gross says Blue Dawg has been around in various incarnations for the past eight years. The present lineup includes John Thompson, Rudy Tyler, Mark Winberry, and singer/harpist Gary Sipperley, a mountain man from Campo who is the source of those songs about reptiles.

San Diego’s East County has long been known as a breeding ground for all manner of musical talent. And, music journalism: Rolling Stone/Creem critic Lester Bangs grew up in the El Cajon valley with Jerry Raney and Joel Kmak. Dan McClain (Country Dick Montana) went to high school in El Cajon as well, and between the three of them, Raney, McClain, and Kmak, they represent founding membership in a rock and roll dynasty of bands including Glory, the Shames, the Hitmakers, the Penetrators, the Snuggle Bunnies, and the Beat Farmers.

In high school, Victor Gross recalls seeing an El Cajon band called the Dark Ages with Jerry Raney. He recalls playing similar teen gigs himself at the all-ages Parkway Bowl in El Cajon as well as at area high schools. “Back then,” Gross says, “there were lots of places that would hire young bands.” He thinks that may have been a factor in the development of East County musicianship. But if the truth be told Gross says, El Cajon's music roots run even deeper.

“Back in the early 1950’s you had a couple of guys from L.A., Cactus Soldi and Smokey Rodgers, who came down to El Cajon and started up the Bostonia Ballroom (2nd and Broadway) and, the Valley Music store on Main.”

Under their management the Bostonia Ballroom became a major stop on the West Coast Country circuit and hosted everyone from a young Willie Nelson to Lefty Frizzel, Bob Wills, Jerry Lee Lewis, and dozens more of country music’s glitterati.

Later, in the ‘60s, a teenager from Rancho Santa Fe named Chris Hillman had aspirations to master bluegrass. He brought his mandolin to El Cajon and there, he learned to pick. He joined the Blue Guitar's Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and with them played his first public gig on the stage of the Bostonia Ballroom.

“El Cajon,” says Hillman, “was as important as Bakersfield. They just never got the credit.”

Chris Hillman, now a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer would go on to co-found the Byrds, Manassas, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Desert Rose Band. In 1964 he was joined in the Squirrel Barkers by another local San Diego teen singer/guitarist named Bernie Leadon; Leadon would eventually found the Eagles. Yes – those Eagles.

In its day, Valley Music was known as the place to trade if you were a big name musician. Johnny Cash bought a guitar there and Frank Zappa (although a no-name at the time) was said to have bought records from Valley Music when he was a teen. Owner Cactus Soldi’s son, Jim Soldi mastered guitar and went pro, touring with both Johnny Cash and Ricky Scaggs and locally, Eve Selis.

Blue Dawg co-founder Gary Sipperley grew up in El Cajon not far from Valley Music and played in more teen bands with the Kmak brothers than he can remember. He also spent a lot of time in the surrounding fields looking under rocks and such. In his adult life Sipperley became a professional herpetoculturist - a person who studies reptiles, an unlikely subject that he occasionally incorporates into his John Mayall-flavored blues.

There’s a picture on the cover of Blue Dawg’s debut CD What I Hold So Dear of a road that cuts through the Borrego Valley called S-2 and known to snake collectors as prime territory. It's a road that Sipperley knows well.

The song “S-2”, says Sipperley, who wrote it, is about “a piece of heaven on earth that is disappearing.” The earth, ecology, and the natural world are themes not common to the blues in general but surface frequently in Sipperley’s writing:

Down on the highway / Down on the desert floor / There's a silence / Like I've never heard before / The stars used to fill the sky / Shining down on the magic of life / Now the glow of the city / Stole the black from the night.

“All the precious stuff,” he says, “earth stuff, people stuff, treating people right? It’s all slipping away.”

Blue Dawg's schedule for 2012 is www.bluedawgbluesband.com