Just Us —A Bunch of Local Guys Making Music
By John Addyman
John Arnold was 4 when he started.
Jose Santell was 13.
Al Webber…16.
And Terry Tiller…17.
Which means that the members of the Just Us band, who have been playing more or less together for more than a decade, have a combined 236 years of musical experience among them.
On a very hot July afternoon at the Ashley Lynn Winery in Waterloo, the boys in the Just Us band — Arnold, 69, Santell, 79, Tiller 69 and Webber, 69 — cranked up middle-of-the-road country tunes, back-beat through some ‘50s and ‘60s rock ‘n roll and rockabilly and even softened for a Spanish love song.
They hit each song tightly, played smoothly and to the delight of a small crowd, had a ball. Audience members left their refreshing slushies dripping on the open-air pavilion tables and got up to boogie. It was hot enough to cook eggs on the parking lot pavement, but folks were dancing.
Band members were pleased, but not surprised.
“We’re not in this for the money, although that would be nice,” said Webber, who is from Lyons. “It’s such a pleasure watching people out there having fun: we’re making people feel good and happy.”
As the drummer and one of its four vocalists, Webber started a music hobby with drums, then taught himself to play guitar. When he was 19, Webber, Cliff Mayo and Danny Salter had sort of a band and they were approached to play at a wedding. They hadn’t done that before, so, why not?
Webber explained: “The woman needed the band for her daughter’s wedding reception. She told us, ‘You’re the Last Straw.’”
Guess what the name of that band quickly became?
The Last Straw played together for a few years and even cut what is now a very rare 45, “Chattanooga Shoe-Shine Boy.” They played four or five nights a week in clubs, private parties and Sodus-area inns. Webber’s day jobs varied from farm work to machine maintenance to shift supervision, then contract work and assembling mobile homes and he spent years as an over-the-road truck driver. He has settled into a post-retirement career as a skilled handyman.
Along the way, Webber played for another band, 31 South. He joined Tiller to form Just Us in 2010.
When the band needed a bass player, Webber and Tiller thought of Santell. “I’ve probably known Jose for 45 years,” Webber said.
“I started playing guitar with a friend of mine when I was 13 years old in Puerto Rico,” Santell said. “My father was a pretty good musician. He taught me how to play the guitar.”
Santell came to America and Newark when he was 17. “We were poor, so poor,” he said. His dad didn’t want young Jose to stay in a camp in Marion, so he moved in with an uncle, where he was gifted with a nickname.
“Every time my other uncle came over to visit, I’d ask him for a nickel. “You always ask me for that nickel, Neco” and it stuck.
“We came here to get a better life,” he said. “I started working at a canning factory in Newark. I was cooking beets. My first check in America was $4; in Puerto Rico, it was a third of that.” He soon landed at Mobil Oil in Macedon, where he became a shipping clerk and did that for 25 years until bypass surgery in 1993, when he retired.
In Newark he had been through a number of bands and was a fixture in accompanying choirs at St. Michael’s Churches in Newark and Lyons.
He also developed a reputation as someone who could fill in at a moment’s notice. “When someone from Rochester called and they needed someone to cover for their bass player, I did.”
After medical retirement, he was restless with little to do. He settled into a small landscaping business and with a list of clients, staying as busy as he wanted to be.
Santell’s musical career went through a series of salsa/meringue bands — Liberta, Conjunto Tropical, Do20, Diamontes, Jose Ruiz Authentico Band…and then, Just Us, rejoining Webber.
“I love to play music,” Santell said. “It’s my life. I love salsa and meringue, I love country and rock ‘n roll. To me, if I had to play Chinese music, I’d learn it and play it.”
Tiller was raised in Phelps and was a varsity athlete in high school, graduating to begin a career in the machine shop trade for his entire working life.
“My best friend in high school, Jerry Irwin, was a musician,” Tiller reminisced. “He picked up the guitar and was a singer. I kinda followed suit. I got a guitar and he showed me some chords and I took it from there.
“Jerry would call, ‘Come on over my house Saturday morning, we’re playing Saturday night.’ I got over there and we started playing a song and I was playing rhythm and he said, ‘OK, I’ll be playing rhythm and you’ll be playing base.’ That’s when I started playing bass guitar. He showed me where to put my fingers on the guitar and we played music that night.”
Tiller played with the Country Legends Band with Jimmy Fowler and Walt Bennett, entertaining in bars in Waterloo. Next came a gig with Jerry and the Inmates, with Jerry Mincer and Johnny Thompson.
And Tiller was busy, but not with the same band. “Bands come apart for different reasons,” he said. “Someone moved or relocated. Sometimes there were no jobs available. Somebody will ask you if you want to play with them or you want to start something up. And you usually do. There are so many musicians out there now that are playing in more than one band just to keep going.”
Next for Tiller was the Al White band known as Country Smoke, which Tiller said “was a legend in the area.”
“Jose played bass with us and Al White joined. Jimmy Fowler played lead for a while. Gary King and brother, Bruce, were in the lineup. There were so many people over the years I can’t remember them all,” Tiller said.
Arnold came to the Just Us band a couple of years ago.
“His dad, Ralph, was very supportive of John’s playing,” Tiller said. “We used to go down and jam at John’s father’s house. His father was one of those guys who said, ‘Come on down and jam with me.’ He was always getting the younger generation going. Way back when I first started playing bass guitar, Ralph would have us play at Newark State School and the Willard Psychiatric Center, playing for people who couldn’t get out, giving something back to them. We did a lot of benefits, too.”
“Playing music gives me a chance to give something back to people,” Arnold said. Music has been good in my life, it’s an opportunity. The benefits we do, for people whose houses burned down, for people with illnesses. We’ll do a show to raise money for people. It’s not always about getting paid. It’s about giving something back to people and our band is noted for that. We like getting paid, don’t get me wrong. Equipment isn’t cheap.”
As lead guitar, Tiller has some perspective on the state of local music, which seems very healthy.
COVID-19 closed music venues and kept people in their homes. Some of those venues never recovered.
“It’s picking back up now,” Tiller said, “but there were times when we played two-three times a week. Recently, the economy hasn’t been good. People only have so much money and they can attend only so many functions. It used to be, back in the day, there’d be a crowd and they’d have friends and small places like The West End in Manchester, they had a dance hall in there. We’d set up and every table would be packed.
“We play a lot of clubs now, not so much the bars. We play in American Legions, VFWs, Moose, Elks, private parties, pig roasts and the musical festival in Farmington.”
The tide may have turned a little. For a while deejays dominated the local club music scene and live bands were pushed aside. The Just Us guys think they’re seeing a reversal.
Arnold, from Seneca Falls, picked up on Tiller’s comments about his dad, Ralph.
“My dad taught me to play the guitar…with great patience,” Arnold said. “I started learning when I was 4 years old in Seneca Falls. I was driving my mother nuts, playing, strumming on an old flat-top. She said, ‘Wait till your father gets home. He’ll teach you.’ Well, he did. I took the guitar to school and played it for Show-and-Tell in kindergarten. I was playing lead guitar at age 7, in Newark.”
Arnold landed in his first band, the Department of Public Energy, in ninth grade, with other kids from Seneca Falls. They played on a float in the Aqua Parade and won the Governor’s Trophy. He then joined Triphammer for a couple of years, graduated high school and went to work at the Newark State Developmental Center and in community homes, working in direct care and staying there until 2010, when he retired.
He played guitar with his dad for three years in the Rhythm Rockers, then was with the Christopher band, Top Shelf, Reaction and back with his dad in nursing homes.
“They loved us,” he said. “You know it was definitely not about the money.”
The advice he got from his dad was, “Play your best. Know your song and what you’ve got to do.” Arnold plays in Just Us and also with Raw Deal (Tiller is in that band, too) and Jim & Friends. He’s a happy member of Just Us.
“All four of us are singing in Just Us,” he said. “We take turns. That breaks it up a bit.” After a successful gig where he’s done well, he’s very happy…and a little annoyed.
“Definitely happy,” he said. “We congratulate one another. Then you go home and usually the last song you played is staying in your head. I’ve stayed awake for hours trying to get that song out of my head.
“I’ll keep playing until I die or until I become disabled and can’t do it anymore,” Arnold said. His band mates also agreed: “As long as I can play, I’m going to do it.”