On the subject of all things Dallas, Gene Summers seems to be as important to the city's history of rock & roll as the grassy knoll is to assassination theorists. Speaking of big bands, some sort of implosion of creative forces occurred in the spring of 1961, when Summers left a combo called the Rebels in order to bolster the membership of another that had been known up until then as Tommy & the Tom Toms. Tommy -- as in Tommy Brown -- had decided to leave Texas for Florida, a drift so common that a Texas rock band from a later era would be inspired to write a song about it, "Goin' to Florida." In the meantime, Summers had already made two records of his own for the regional Jan label and was an excellent choice as replacement frontman for what then logically became Gene Summers & the Tom Toms.